Monday, July 11, 2016

Henry Keogh: Australia: Part One; Sunday Night's riveting account of love, death and a miscarriage of justice and how Henry Keogh was locked up for 20 years for a crime he did not commit..."Keogh was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for the drowning of Anna-Jane Cheney based on the now discredited autopsy findings of Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Colin Manock. The conviction was quashed in December 2014 but to make the injustice even more shocking, Sunday Night can reveal an independent report could have freed him in 2004 but gathered dust on a shelf for nearly 10 years. Keogh’s conviction was not overturned until December 2014. "Henry Keogh was convicted for something that never happened, that is abundantly clear. There is no evidence of a criminal event having occurred at all," long-time advocate for Keogh, Dr Bob Moles, said.........Keogh says the biggest tragedy of the case that saw him wrongly imprisoned is that no one knows exactly what happened to Anna-Jane that night. His memory of finding her still brings him to tears. "Because the autopsy was so deficient and so defective we will never know what it might have been and that has to be one of the biggest tragedies of this whole case, you know, we will ever know exactly why Anna died."


The entire story can be found at:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/a/32015794/love-death-and-a-miscarriage-of-justice-how-henry-keogh-was-locked-up-for-20-years-for-a-crime-he-did-not-commit/#page1

See related  news.com.au story at the link below; (Henry Keogh spent 21 years in prison for a murder he never committed); "Was she murdered? Things took a sudden turn. Questions started being asked and there were facts that raised suspicions. Alleged affairs didn’t look good. Either did the five life insurance policies Keogh had taken out in Anna-Jane’s name — forging her signature [for which he was never charged]. Reports suggest the combined pay off from the policies would have totalled $1.2 million. The court was told the numerous policies he’d taken in his wife’s name is known as “tombstoning” — a common practice in the insurance world that usually involves agents submitting names of dead or fictitious people to earn commissions. Two days after Anna-Jane’s death, South Australia’s chief forensic pathologist Dr Colin Manock performed an autopsy and didn’t raise any concerns. But after hearing about the suspicions over insurance policies, he examined the body again. His re-examination lead him to form a “grip theory” — which he says explained faint bruises on the outside of her left leg. He said there was a key thumb bruise on the outside of the left leg and suggested her legs had been lifted over her head in the bathtub which ended in her being drowned.
Keogh only realised the trouble he was in when he was arrested. Dr Manock insisted all the slides he’d taken showed signs of bruising and told the jury Anna-Jane’s death was an assisted drowning — concluding she’d been conscious when she went under water. Two trials later, a jury agreed. Keogh was found guilty in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. “I felt sick. I was numb. I was bewildered,” he tells Sunday Night. “There’s this disconnect. Intellectually you might hear what they’re saying but in your heart, when you know you haven’t done anything, you can’t switch that off.” The holes:
 “Henry Keogh was convicted for something that never happened,” law professor Dr Bob Moles tells the program, adding “one can be confident no murder no physical assault” took place. Dr Moles began scrutinising the Keogh case in the late 1990s and found substantial flaws in Dr Manock’s evidence. It was discovered Dr Manock did not follow proper procedure and did not have sufficient evidence to back up his conclusions. When he was made South Australia’s chief forensic pathologist in 1968, he had no formal qualifications as a pathologist. His reputation began to unravel and now many cases involving evidence he provided are now in question. Ten years after Keogh’s conviction, Dr Manock admitted there was no thumb bruise to support his “grip theory”. It’s pointed out in the Sunday Night investigation there’s a test that would’ve concluded if the bruises on Anna-Jane’s leg occurred when she drowned. Dr Manock didn’t do the test. In 2014, the conviction was squashed after it was found there had been a miscarriage of justice due to flawed forensic evidence. And in Sunday Night’s investigation tonight, evidence is revealed that could have set him free earlier. Instead, it sat on a government shelf for 10 years."

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/henry-keogh-spent-21-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-never-committed/news-story/e2a55287eefdf598f7a8e198bee2c44b

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to:  


hlevy15@gmail.com;

Harold Levy;

Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;