Missing note about there being no sign of the Zodiac

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n this third and final article in his series looking at the fate of a woman and a teenager caught up in a murder trial, legal columnist HUGH SELBY pleads with the Tasmanian parliament to take on Commissioner Walter Sofronoff and his team to get to the bottom of what he believes is a festering injustice. 

THE “Moller Report” included an executive summary that ACT superintendent Scott Moller prepared during the police investigation of the allegations of Brittany Higgins. The ACT director of public prosecutions didn’t want to share it with the defence. He didn’t want to disclose it despite the police being quite happy to do so.

This article is about another instance of a prosecutor failing to disclose something from police, but this time with awful consequences for Sue, to whom you have been introduced in the previous two articles (links below).

Dinghies figure prominently in Sue’s saga because, apart from swimming, they are a good way to get to and from a moored yacht.

In the previous article you learned how a forensic expert threw aside her science and instead provided the prosecution with opinion evidence that she knew to be wrong about signs of blood in the dinghy that belonged to Sue and Bob.

That dinghy was an 11.5 feet long, white and blue trimmed Zodiac with an outboard motor (and with the prominent words “Quicksilver” along the side).

Responding to a police call on radio for information, Mr Peter Lorraine phoned and told them what he had seen from the riverside mid-afternoon on Australia Day.  The police officer made notes.

That handwritten note states: “Small cockle boat, 5’ tender, yellow/white, Not Zodiac, No motor”.

Mr Lorraine, concerned citizen, had no useful evidence.

Nevertheless, shortly thereafter Mr Lorraine was asked to meet with police and sign a prepared statement.  In that statement he does see Bob on the yacht, and Sue and Bob’s dinghy.

Apart from the falseness of what he was signing, this police conduct is also a worrying sign of an investigation going south only days after it started.

The following year at the trial Mr Lorraine adopted his signed statement as his evidence. I can assure all readers that Mr Lorraine is thoroughly decent. I do not criticise him.

Mr Lorraine was a credible, independent witness. Sue’s defence team had to choose between her denial to having been on the yacht that afternoon, and Mr Lorraine’s claim to have seen the dinghy at the stern of the yacht – an acceptance that meant they disbelieved their client.

While the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) did have the handwritten note taken when Mr Lorraine first contacted police, the director (who ran the trial) was not told about it.

During the trial a police officer emailed one of the ODPP team about the note. That team member failed to give both the handwritten note and the “in trial email” to either the director or to the defence.

Had there been immediate disclosure, as required, then Mr Lorraine would have been asked more questions, by both the director and the defence. Then everyone in that courtroom would have understood that there was no evidence that the yacht’s Zodiac dinghy was at the yacht that Australia Day afternoon.

Some years later, the ODPP team member and the current director were contacted, seeking to have them come clean about this serious error in the conduct of the trial.  That’s what being a “Minister of Justice” requires of prosecutors.

The response was threats of court action for “contempt of court”. The irony of this choice of a litigation pathway should be clear to all readers: was it those who were determined to keep past misconduct in court under wraps, or someone trying to bring it out into the open, who damaged the reputation of a State Supreme Court?

The issue was then raised with others in the ruling elite. That elicited nothing, save for a letter that arrived on beautiful, thick paper, embossed with a special seal.

Dear Mr Selby, …. “I will not take any action as a result of receiving your letter.”

I have kept this letter as a memento of how easy it is to maintain injustice.

Several years later I received another letter, same quality paper and seal, instructing me, “not to write again”.

I have followed that instruction, choosing instead to write to you.

Unlike the jury, you now know that Sue and Bob’s Zodiac dinghy was not at their yacht that Australia Day afternoon, that no signs of blood were found in that dinghy, and that Ms Meaghan Vass went to the yacht that afternoon with two males and that she left her DNA on the deck.

Lot of doubt about Sue’s guilt isn’t there? I have shared with you only some of the police and prosecution problems. Rather more are set out in the papers tabled in the Legislative Council in August 2021 (see previous article for link).

You now know that the determination to do nothing was, and is, embedded at the top.

To get to the bottom of all this there must be a wide-ranging public inquiry conducted by a proven team.

Together, in Canberra, we have seen and heard Walter Sofronoff KC and his team in action. They are winners and they make us winners, too.

Their 2022 Queensland inquiry into DNA forensic testing, and the 2023 ACT inquiry into prosecution and police, have shown their proficiency in investigating police, prosecution and expert evidence. That is what is required in Tasmania.

Tasmanians need their help. To bring that about send your short email now to their lower and upper Houses of Parliament,  [email protected];  [email protected]

All you need to get across is that Tasmania needs  Walter Sofronoff KC and his team.

If enough readers play their part, then the payoff is the guaranteed “you have got to be kidding me, but I am hooked” livestream of another Sofronoff and team inquiry.

I’ll be reporting on all the action to you day by day.

Hugh Selby’s free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.

Blood on their hands, but not on the exhibit  

The empathic judge who does no ‘unnecessary harm’

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