Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Susan Neill-Fraser: Australia: Reporter who has followed the case closely (Charles Wooley) says the 'evidence hype' by TV investigative program 'Sunday Night' "fails to deliver."..." The fact that none of this is new and yet nothing has progressed for Neill-Fraser in the intervening three years is the real “explosive evidence” that the legal process stubbornly refuses to concede fallibility even at the expense of pursuing justice.......... Certainly it was early in reporting this case that I began to suspect that more dangerous than putting Neill-Fraser back on the streets (now in a wheelchair) was the alarming possibility that if it is possible to be convicted on such scant evidence then no one is safe. “Worse than scant evidence, Sue Neill-Fraser was convicted on the total absence of evidence,” Bob Moles told me last week. “If the forensic evidence were to be reviewed by any competent and independent expert it would be deemed unacceptable.”.........Neill-Fraser has enough trouble right now without the public apprehension that her story has been marketed and is now owned by a television network. Understandably she has no friends in the judiciary or the police but also not a lot of public sympathy beyond her dedicated band of supporters. It would be unfortunate if the impression that some kind of financial deal has been done should denigrate the legal campaign to exonerate her."


STORY: "Neill-Fraser evidence hype fails to deliver," by reporter Charles Wooley, published by The Sunday Tasmanian on July 22, 2017.

GIST: "Channel Seven’s Sunday Night investigation of the Susan Neill-Fraser case promised “explosive new evidence” but, as is so often the case with television programs, the content failed to measure up to the hype. This is in part because the people who make the gravel-voiced urgent promo are never the same journalists who make the news story. Hence the kind of embarrassing dissonance between promise and delivery we saw with Seven’s coverage last weekend. There was in fact no explosive new evidence and what ran was virtually a repeat of the 60 Minutes story from 2014. I reported that story and at the time became convinced that Neill-Fraser was either innocent or had managed to commit the perfect crime and might well have expected to get away with it for lack of material evidence. Australia’s leading expert on miscarriages of justice Dr Bob Moles told me three years ago, much as he reiterated in Seven’s story last week, that “Susan Neill-Fraser’s conviction is Australia’s worst miscarriage of justice since Lindy Chamberlain”. In my time I have reported on a number of murders, but never one like this, right here in my home town. A woman had been locked up and the key thrown away but where was the evidence? Where was the weapon, the witness, the motive and the proof of death? Seven’s “explosive new evidence” concerned the DNA of homeless girl Megan Vass found on the deck of the yacht Four Winds from which Neill-Fraser’s partner Bob Chappell so mysteriously vanished on Australia Day 2009.  This was also reported way back in 2014 when Ms Vass had denied ever having been on the yacht. The police had disregarded the significance of the DNA, suggesting it had been transferred on the boots of investigators. Didn’t they watch CSI? Meanwhile, the evidence of copious amounts of blood in the yacht’s dinghy, supposedly proof of foul play, is also most likely a forensic error. The testing agent used, luminol, is known to produce false positives. In Lindy Chamberlain’s case the foetal blood supposedly found in her car was much later determined to be a sound deadener sprayed in the wheel arch by the manufacturer. It took a quarter of a century for the Northern Territory Government to apologise to the Chamberlains. Neill-Fraser is in jail for 23 years. The fact that none of this is new and yet nothing has progressed for Neill-Fraser in the intervening three years is the real “explosive evidence” that the legal process stubbornly refuses to concede fallibility even at the expense of pursuing justice.......... Certainly it was early in reporting this case that I began to suspect that more dangerous than putting Neill-Fraser back on the streets (now in a wheelchair) was the alarming possibility that if it is possible to be convicted on such scant evidence then no one is safe. “Worse than scant evidence, Sue Neill-Fraser was convicted on the total absence of evidence,” Bob Moles told me last week. “If the forensic evidence were to be reviewed by any competent and independent expert it would be deemed unacceptable.”.........Neill-Fraser has enough trouble right now without the public apprehension that her story has been marketed and is now owned by a television network. Understandably she has no friends in the judiciary or the police but also not a lot of public sympathy beyond her dedicated band of supporters. It would be unfortunate if the impression that some kind of financial deal has been done should denigrate the legal campaign to exonerate her. As I’ve said before, I think it is more likely that Bob Chappell is whooping it up in Rio than it is that Susan Neill-Fraser whacked him over the head with a wrench and tossed him overboard. But as we know from her conviction, in the absence of evidence perception is everything. Her family and legal team must move quickly to assure the public that the issues at stake in the Neill-Fraser case are too important to be bought or sold."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/neillfraser-evidence-hype-fails-to-deliver/news-story/bc7f2f6aa6dd8f8e596d69b14f8fa323

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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.