CRITICAL COMMENT: NEW YORK STATE'S GLARING FAILURE TO SUPERVISE A MAJOR CRIME LAB: THE ATLANTIC'S TA-NEHISI COATES' POINT OF VIEW; A REAL GEM!

"BUT ON THURSDAY, POLICE OFFICIALS SAID THAT NONE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEYS HAD FOUND THAT MR. VEEDER'S WORK HAD CAST DOUBT ON ANY OF THEIR CONVICTIONS.
"WE ARE SATISFIED THAT THERE WERE NO WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS, NOR ANY MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE WHICH RESULTED FROM THESE IMPROPER PROCEDURES," MR. CORBITT SAID....."

TA-NEHISI COATES; THE ATLANTIC;

(WIKIPEDIA TELLS US THAT TA-NEHISI COATES (BORN 1975, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND) IS A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR FOR THE ATLANTIC AND BLOGS ON ITS WEBSITE. (HE PRONOUNCES HIS GIVEN NAME /ˌTA-NɘˈHASI/.) COATES HAS WORKED FOR THE VILLAGE VOICE, WASHINGTON CITY PAPER, AND TIME. HE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY, O, AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS.)

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: In his recent report into a terribly flawed forensic laboratory, the Victoria (Australia) Ombudsman said "Some witnesses expressed a view that improvements were not required as there should be a high level of trust in the activities undertaken by the forensic officers." Fortunately the Ombudsman shot down this vacuous, if not dangerous notion quickly, saying "Trust or professionalism is not the issue in my view. Rather it is a matter of ensuring accountability and appropriate procedures are adhered to. It is also to ensure that the courts and the victorian community can have confidence in the integrity of the processes used for the management of drug exhibits at the Victoria Police Forensic Services centre." I also enjoyed the manner in which Ta-Nehisi Coates, a contributing editor to the Atlantic, disposed of the "trust us" gambit in a post published on December 21, 2009.

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"The New York State Police's supervision of a major crime laboratory was so poor that it overlooked evidence of pervasively shoddy forensics work, allowing an analyst to go undetected for 15 years as he falsified test results and compromised nearly one-third of his cases, an investigation by the state's inspector general has found," the post began.

"The analyst's training was so substandard that at one point last year, investigators discovered he could not properly operate a microscope essential to performing his job, the report released on Thursday said," it continued.

"Prosecutors aren't worried:

But on Thursday, police officials said that none of the district attorneys had found that Mr. Veeder's work had cast doubt on any of their convictions.

"We are satisfied that there were no wrongful convictions, nor any miscarriages of justice which resulted from these improper procedures," Mr. Corbitt said, stating a viewpoint also shared by Mr. Fisch.

Right. Because if there were, you'd come out and tell us. I really wish I could believe you."

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/faking_evidence.php

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

THE DOUGLAS PRADE CASE; CRITICAL COMMENT; AKRON BEACON JOURNAL SUPPORTS BID TO RETEST DNA SAMPLES; A WELCOME EDITORIAL;

"BE THAT AS IT MAY, SOPHISTICATED TESTS HAVE YIELDED EVIDENCE THAT HAVE HELPED EXONERATE PEOPLE WRONGLY CONVICTED OF SERIOUS CRIMES IN OHIO. WITH THE GROWING NUMBER OF SUCH CASES, IT IS BECOMING MORE DIFFICULT TO DISMISS THE POTENTIAL OF DNA TESTS TO PRESENT CREDIBLE NEW EVIDENCE. AT THE HIGH COURT HEARING ON WEDNESDAY, JUSTICE PAUL PFEIFER POSED THE WHAT IFS: WHAT IF NEW TECHNOLOGY CAN DETECT SALIVA RESIDUE THAT MIGHT ALTER THE FACTS OF THE CASE? WHAT HARM DOES IT DO TO FIND THAT OUT? HE ASKED. AS CHIEF JUSTICE THOMAS MOYER OBSERVED IN TURN, IT IS IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER THE RELEVANCE OF SUCH QUESTIONS BECAUSE, AS HE SAID, "THE COURT IS LIKELY TO RECEIVE MANY OTHER WRONGFUL CONVICTION APPEALS BASED ON SIMILAR CLAIMS.""

EDITORIAL: THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL;

(WIKIPEDIA TELLS US THAT THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL IS A FOUR-TIME PULITZER PRIZE WINNING MORNING NEWSPAPER IN AKRON, OHIO, AND PUBLISHED BY BLACK PRESS LTD.. IT IS THE SOLE DAILY NEWSPAPER IN AKRON AND IS DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT NORTHEAST OHIO. THE PAPER PLACES A STRONG EMPHASIS ON LOCAL NEWS AND BUSINESS.)

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BACKGROUND: Douglas Prade, a former Akron police captain, was convicted of killing his ex-wife, Dr. Margo Prade, in 1997. He is seeking tests of a bite mark on her lab coat and scrapings from her fingernails which he insists will exonerate him. Summit County prosecutors said DNA tests conducted before Prade's trial on items including the lab coat did not match Prade. However, they said other evidence of his guilt is overwhelming, including testimony from witnesses and experts who examined bite marks on the victim and said they matched Prade.

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"The cynical quip is that there are very few guilty persons in prison, given the number of inmates who claim innocence," the December 18, 2009 Akron Beacon Journal editorial begins, under the heading "Plea from Prade."

"Eleven years after he was convicted of aggravated murder, Douglas Prade is pleading with the Ohio Supreme Court for new DNA testing that may (or may not) yield evidence pointing to his innocence," the editorial continues.

"Prade, a former police captain in Akron, was convicted in September 1998 for the murder of Dr. Margot Prade, his former wife, a year earlier. Now serving a life term without possibility of parole for 26 years, he has argued that new DNA tests might indicate a different killer. He has cited the availability today of more sensitive tests capable of detecting DNA markers that earlier tests could not, for instance, identifying DNA in the saliva left on the victim's blood-stained clothing.

The appeals court was not persuaded. Prosecutors argued, and the judges agreed, the conviction turned on strong evidence unrelated to the absence of conclusive DNA tests. They pointed, for instance, to a match of Prade's teeth with bite marks on the victim's arm and eyewitnesses who placed him near the crime scene at the time of the murder.

Be that as it may, sophisticated tests have yielded evidence that have helped exonerate people wrongly convicted of serious crimes in Ohio. With the growing number of such cases, it is becoming more difficult to dismiss the potential of DNA tests to present credible new evidence.

At the high court hearing on Wednesday, Justice Paul Pfeifer posed the what ifs: What if new technology can detect saliva residue that might alter the facts of the case? What harm does it do to find that out? he asked. As Chief Justice Thomas Moyer observed in turn, it is important to consider the relevance of such questions because, as he said, "the court is likely to receive many other wrongful conviction appeals based on similar claims."

DNA testing is proving to be invaluable as an investigative tool in the criminal-justice arsenal. In this case, it may well be that new testing would yield evidence that supports Prade's guilt or innocence. What is the harm in finding out, either way?"

This welcome editorial can be found at:

http://dailyme.com/story/2009121800003154/editorial-plea-prade.html

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

MELENDEZ-DIAZ CASE: ANALYSIS; STEVE HANSEN; THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION JOURNAL;

"STANFORD UNIVERSITY LAW PROFESSOR JEFFREY L. FISHER, WHO REPRESENTED MELENDEZ-DIAZ, SAYS THE DECISION WILL HELP ENSURE THAT ANALYSTS WILL BE CAREFUL WHEN THEY DO THEIR TESTING AND WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE WHEN THEY MAKE MISTAKES. HE ALSO SAYS THAT THE BURDEN WON’T BE NEARLY AS ONEROUS ON PROSECUTORS AS THE DISSENTERS HAVE SUGGESTED.

CASE WESTERN’S GIANNELLI AND THE OTHER MELENDEZ-DIAZ AMICI ALSO ARGUE THAT THE POTENTIAL BURDENS OF SUCH TESTIMONY HAVE BEEN OVERSTATED. FEW CRIMINAL CASES ACTUALLY INVOLVE CONTESTED EXPERT TESTIMONY. AND THE USE OF COST-SAVING MECHANISMS, LIKE STIPULATIONS AND SIMPLE NOTICE-AND-DEMAND STATUTES, WILL ALLEVIATE MUCH OF THE ANTICIPATED BURDEN, THEY CONTEND."

MARK HANSEN: AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION JOURNAL;
PHOTO: JUSTICE ANTON SCALIA;

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BACKGROUND: It's not every day that an issue involving the work of forensic scientists in the criminal courts comes under scrutiny in the Supreme Court of the United States; Nor is it every day that the Supreme Court issues a searing indictment of the forensic science system in the country and faces head-on the abuses such as manipulation, prosecutorial pressure, outright fraud, bias, error and incompetence. Canadians are well aware of this through the many miscarriages of justice caused in Ontario by Dr. Charles Smith. Americans, who haven't received this message yet, will learn it from the blunt words of Justice Antonin Scalia for the majority. The Supreme Court ruled that a state forensic analyst’s laboratory report prepared for use in a criminal prosecution is “testimonial” evidence and therefore subject to "confrontation" through cross-examination of the analyst - but not before Justice Scalia told Americans how vulnerable they are to wrongful convictions as a result of American forensic science as it is practiced today. They need all of the protection of the law that they can get.

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"It’s one thing to demand that the prosecutor produce a technician to testify on the lab report at a criminal trial," Mark Hansen's American Bar Association January 1, 2010 article begins, under the heading "Supreme Court Report: Taking Techs to Trial" and the sub-heading "Two terms in a row, justices weigh bringing lab analysts into court."

"It’s quite another to shift the burden to the defendant to find and bring in the lab tech," the article continues.

"Those two issues underlie a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down during the court’s last term, and they provide the basis for a follow-up case this month. The court’s June 25 decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts held that the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause requires the analyst who prepared a crime lab report to appear at the trial and be subject to cross-examination.

But on Jan. 11 the justices will hear arguments in the case of Briscoe v. Virginia, which challenges the constitutionality of a Virginia law that allows such a report to be admitted without the testimony of the analyst who prepared it, but gives the defendant the opportunity—at the state’s expense—to subpoena the analyst to testify.

There’s a big difference between a simple notice-and-demand statute, which the court appeared to endorse in Melendez-Diaz, and the Virginia law, which places the burden of calling witnesses on the defendant.

According to Case Western Reserve University law professor Paul Giannelli—one of seven law professors who signed an amicus brief in support of Luis Melendez-Diaz, who was facing drug-related charges—notice-and-demand statutes require the prosecution to notify the defendant of its intent to use an analyst’s report as evidence. After that the defendant is given a period of time to object.

Under the Virginia statute, the prosecution presents a certificate of the lab results to the defendant, who has the right to call the analyst (or a person involved in the chain of custody) as his own witness at trial. Seven other states have statutes similar to Virginia’s.

At the very least, Briscoe could test the limits of the court’s holding in Melendez-Diaz, given the narrow 5-4 vote. With Justice Sonia Sotomayor succeeding retired Justice David H. Souter, who had voted with the majority, some have even speculated that the court might move to rescind Melendez-Diaz.

Many prosecutors are hoping that is so.

NIGHTMARE IN THE MAKING?

Requiring analysts to leave their labs to testify in every case, they argue, could create huge backlogs, substantial delays and reduced plea bargains—and might allow some guilty defendants to go free.

Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association in Alexandria, Va., says complying with the ruling could become a nightmare for prosecutors, particularly in large rural states like North Dakota, which has only one crime lab and two analysts for the entire state, and in busy offices, which handle upwards of 50 cases a week.

“We’re looking at all kinds of ways of dealing with the potential ramifications of this” decision, he says, “and just waiting to see how it all plays out.”

Melendez-Diaz was convicted on cocaine trafficking and distribution charges in Massachusetts. The evidence against him included several lab reports indicating he had 22 grams of cocaine in his possession at the time of his arrest. Massachusetts and more than a dozen other states allowed prosecutors to use reports as substitutes for live testimony from the analyst at trial.

Melendez-Diaz appealed his conviction in part on the grounds that the confrontation clause required the prosecution, absent a stipulation by the defendant, to present the findings of a forensic analyst through live testimony at trial.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, made the decision sound easy. “This case involves little more than the application of our holding in Crawford v. Washington,” he wrote. The 2004 case held that a witness’ statement against a defendant is inadmissible unless the witness appears at trial or the defendant has had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. “The Sixth Amendment does not permit the prosecution to prove its case via ex parte out-of-court affidavits.”

But Scalia also went to great lengths to rebut the arguments of the dissenters, who contended that crime lab analysts should not be subject to confrontation because they are not “conventional,” “ordinary” or “typical” witnesses. The dissenters also predicted the ruling would have dire consequences for the criminal justice system.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the dissent, argued that Melendez-Diaz would impose a “crushing burden” on the nation’s crime labs and “put prosecutions nationwide at risk of dismissal based on erratic, all-too-frequent instances when a particular laboratory technician, now invested by the court’s new constitutional designation as the analyst, simply does not or cannot appear” at trial.

“Perhaps the best indication that the sky will not fall after today’s decision is that it has not done so already,” Scalia rejoined, citing the number of states that already have such a Melendez-Diaz-like rule in place or that allow a defendant to assert or forfeit the confrontation clause right after receiving notice of the prosecution’s intent to use an analyst’s report at trial.

Stanford University law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher, who represented Melendez-Diaz, says the decision will help ensure that analysts will be careful when they do their testing and will be held accountable when they make mistakes. He also says that the burden won’t be nearly as onerous on prosecutors as the dissenters have suggested.

Case Western’s Giannelli and the other Melendez-Diaz amici also argue that the potential burdens of such testimony have been overstated. Few criminal cases actually involve contested expert testimony. And the use of cost-saving mechanisms, like stipulations and simple notice-and-demand statutes, will alleviate much of the anticipated burden, they contend.

SWING VOTE SPECULATION

Still, Burns says he’s hoping the decision to grant cert in Briscoe means that the court may be willing to revisit Melendez-Diaz. He also hopes that Sotomayor—who spent five years as a prosecutor in Manhattan—will see the issue differently than Souter.

“As a former prosecutor, she understands what it’s like to actually try cases in the real world,” he says.

Lauren Altdoerffer, an associate attorney for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, Calif.-based victims’ rights organization, says she doesn’t think the reconstituted court will overturn Melendez-Diaz. But she says the court could help “control the damage” caused by that decision if it were to uphold the Virginia law at issue in Briscoe.

Altdoerffer says the Supreme Court of Virginia held in 2008 that there is nothing wrong with asking a defendant to secure the right to confrontation through subpoena. And the U.S. Supreme Court majority, without specifically mentioning Briscoe, said in Melendez-Diaz that the defendant always has the burden of raising a confrontation clause objection, and that states are free to adopt procedural rules governing objections.

The high court majority also acknowledged in a footnote that while some states require a defendant to subpoena the analyst, it had “no occasion today” to pass on the constitutionality of every state’s notice-and-demand statute.

“This left open the question of whether a statute like Virginia’s will pass constitutional muster after Melendez-Diaz,” Altdoerffer says.

But experts say they wouldn’t count on it.

POWER VS. RIGHT

If one reads the majority opinion in Melendez-Diaz, the court appears to have considered the issue presented by Briscoe already—and to have dispensed with it in a single paragraph, they point out. The power to subpoena a witness is no substitute for the right of confrontation, the majority said. And that power is of no use to the defendant when the witness is unavailable or simply refuses to appear.

“The confrontation clause imposes a burden on the prosecution to present its witnesses, not on the defendant to bring those witnesses into court,” Scalia wrote. “Its value to the defendant is not replaced by a system in which the prosecution presents its evidence via ex parte affidavits and waits for the defendant to subpoena the affiants if he chooses.”

University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman, who is representing Mark A. Briscoe, says he’s not worried about the outcome: “I expect to win this case.” In fact, he thought he already had.

“I confess I was a little sorry to see this part of the opinion,” Friedman wrote on his blog about the burden-shifting portion of the majority opinion, an issue he said he would have loved to argue, on the day Melendez-Diaz came down. “Instead, we get handed a victory without argument.”

Now, he can."

The story can be found at:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/taking_techs_to_trial/

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

UPDATE: PAUL AND ZABETH BAYNE; "SHAKEN BABY" CASE; BATTLE TO RETRIEVE THEIR CHILDREN FROM B.C. CHILD WELFARE AUTHORITIES GOES TO COURT JAN. 10;

"FROM A CORRESPONDENCE DATING BACK TO JULY 14, 2008, A GOVERNMENT LAWYER, FINN JENSEN, DIDN’T THINK THE CASE FOR KEEPING THE BOYS IN GOVERNMENT CUSTODY WOULD STAND UP IN COURT OF LAW. A MEDICAL REPORT FROM NOVEMBER OF 2007, ALMOST TWO MONTHS AFTER THE BOYS WERE SEIZED, INDICATED ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF INJURY TO THE CHILDREN, NOR HAS ANY NEW EVIDENCE BEEN PRESENTED IN THE TWO YEARS SINCE THE FAMILY WAS TORN APART BY THE GOVERNMENT. THE BOYS HAVE BEEN PLACED IN FOUR DIFFERENT FOSTER HOMES IN THE LOWER MAINLAND SINCE THEY WERE TAKEN BY THE STATE.

THEN IN APRIL OF THIS YEAR A NEW AND SHOCKING REVELATION CAME TO LIGHT THAT COULD EXPLAIN THE INJURIES OF THEIR DAUGHTER. INTERNAL DOCUMENTS FROM THE MINISTRY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT REVEALED THAT THE HEAD INJURIES TO THE LITTLE GIRL WERE LIKELY NOT CAUSED BY ABUSE, ACCIDENT, OR OTHERWISE, BUT FROM A RARE GENETIC DISORDER CALLED GLUTARIC ACIDURIA."

COLUMNIST RAPHAEL ALEXANDER: THE VANCOUVER SUN;
(ADRIAN MACNAIR IS A VANCOUVER WRITER WHO SOMETIMES WRITES UDER HIS MIDDLE NAME, RAPHAEL ALEXANDER);

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BACKGROUND: The two boys, now aged three and four, and a 19-month-old girl, were apprehended by the ministry in September, 2007 because the couple was suspected of shaking the girl and causing a head injury. The Baynes believe the injury was caused when their youngest son tripped and fell on their daughter’s head. Dr. Peter Stephens, one of eight doctors prepared to testify on the Baynes’s behalf, said shaken-baby cases are driven by politicians who don’t want to appear “soft” on crime, and by social workers who rely on the opinion of doctors unaware of chronic subdural hematoma. “People like the Baynes are collateral damage in the war on child abuse,” he told The Chilliwack Progress in a telephone interview from his North Carolina home. He said the baby girl’s head injuries were not caused by being shaken, but by the lack of oxygen to her brain caused by a chronic subdural hematoma. Nobody knows for sure how these chronic conditions start, Stephens said, but they could begin as early as birth and a “minor bump in the bathtub” trigger a re-bleed. Whoever is last seen with the child when the brain damage is finally discovered, is the one who is mistakenly blamed, he said. Reporter Robert Freeman's article on the Bayne's ordeal in the Chilliwack Progress was the subject of a post on this Blog on July 29, 2009;

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"A Surrey family that had their three children seized by the government of British Columbia in October of 2007 is still desperately trying to get them back more than 26 months later," columnist Raphael Alexander's Vancouver Sun column, published on December 28, 2009, begins, under the heading "A family in need of reunification."

"Their children were taken by the province after Child Services believed that the parents had shaken their then two-month-old baby girl, Bethany, even though those allegations now seem to be false, and government workers even advised their boys be returned as early as November of 2007," the column continues.

"The children have been in foster care ever since. The two boys who are aged five and four, respectively, and Bethany, now two, were taken by the Ministry of Child and Family Development when Paul and Zabeth Bayne were suspected of shaking their baby girl causing a head injury. The accusation is commonly known as “Shaken Baby Syndrome”. The Bayne’s insisted the injury occurred when their younger son tripped and fell on their daughter, but those pleas fell on deaf ears.

But the case has been fraught with concern about the power that government authorities have to seize children from their parents on slim evidence, and the lengthy time it has taken to restore the children to their parents again. Worse yet, evidence has surfaced which indicates the province had numerous opportunities to return their children, but for some reason did not.

From a correspondence dating back to July 14, 2008, a government lawyer, Finn Jensen, didn’t think the case for keeping the boys in government custody would stand up in court of law. A medical report from November of 2007, almost two months after the boys were seized, indicated absolutely no evidence of injury to the children, nor has any new evidence been presented in the two years since the family was torn apart by the government. The boys have been placed in four different foster homes in the Lower Mainland since they were taken by the state.

Then in April of this year a new and shocking revelation came to light that could explain the injuries of their daughter. Internal documents from the Ministry of Child Development revealed that the head injuries to the little girl were likely not caused by abuse, accident, or otherwise, but from a rare genetic disorder called glutaric aciduria.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne have had to find night jobs in the time since their children were abducted by the government, so that they can visit them during the days when they are granted access.

A court hearing on the alleged abuse will finally commence on January 10. Before then, the parents are holding a fund-raising concert entitled “For Love and for Justice” at Richmond Peace Mennonite Church on January 3 between 6:30-8pm. Those attending are encouraged to call the number 778-228-4717 to reserve a place. You can also visit several Facebook pages to learn more about their plight to get their children back.

For Love and for Justice: Facebook Event
The Bayne Campaign for Justice: Facebook Group
The Bayne Petition Site;"

The column can be found at:

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/communityofinterest/archive/2009/12/28/a-family-in-need-of-reunification.aspx

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

THE GRAHAM STAFFORD CASE: PREFACE FROM BOOK BY GRAEME CROWLEY AND PAUL WILSON ON THEIR EFFORTS TO EXPOSE THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE;

"WE AT NO STAGE SUGGEST THAT SUCH EVIDENCE WAS INTRODUCED BY UNPROFESSIONAL OR UNETHICAL POLICE OFFICERS AND FORENSIC SCIENTISTS. WE BELIEVE ALL POLICE OFFICERS AND FORENSIC SCIENTISTS WERE PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL DURING THE INVESTIGATION OF THIS CASE AND IN THEIR EVIDENCE GIVEN IN COURT. BUT THEY ARE ALSO HUMAN, AND AS IN SO MANY MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE, MISTAKES AND OMISSIONS CAN OCCUR AND CERTAIN OPINIONS GIVEN MAY BE SUBJECT TO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS. IN THE INTEREST OF CLEARING GRAHAM STAFFORD’S NAME, WE POINT TO DIFFERENT CONCLUSIONS THAT CAN REASONABLY BE DRAWN FROM THE SCIENTIFIC AND FORENSIC EVIDENCE."

FROM PREFACE TO "WHO KILLED LEANNE: AN INVESTIGATION INTO A MURDER AND A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE" BY GRAEME CROWLEY AND PAUL WILSON; (ZEUS PUBLICATIONS) (2005);

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BACKGROUND: (WIKIPEDIA): Graham Stuart Stafford was a sheet metal worker from Goodna, near Ipswich, Queensland who was convicted in 1992 of the murder of twelve-year-old Leanne Sarah Holland. Leanne Holland, the younger sister of Stafford's former partner, Melissa Holland, was murdered in September 1991. Her viciously mutilated body was found three days after she was reported missing in nearby Redbank Plains. It is possible she was also sexually interfered with and tortured with a cigarette lighter. Stafford appealed to the Queensland Court of Appeal, but this appeal was rejected on 25 August 1992. In 1997, the Queensland Court of Appeal re-examined the case after Stafford lodged an application for pardon with the State Governor on the basis of evidence gathered by private detective, Graeme Crowley. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal again by a two-to-one majority on the grounds that there was still enough evidence to convict. Two applications for special leave to the High Court of Australia subsequently failed. Stafford was released in June 2006 after serving over 14 years in prison. Stafford, who was born in England and does not have Australian citizenship despite having migrated to Australia in 1969, faced deportation in November 2006. Some people, including Professor Paul Wilson of Bond University believe that Stafford is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. The Queensland Attorney-General, Kerry Shine, has agreed to closely consider any request on Stafford's behalf concerning a petition to clear him of the murder conviction. In April 2008, the Queensland Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal for a very rare second appeal for pardon. On December 24, 2009 the Court of Appeal overturned Graham Stafford's conviction and ordered a retrial by a 2-1 majority. The dissenting judge wanted an immediate acquittal.

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"Lindy Chamberlain, Kelvin Condren, Alexander McLeod-Lindsay and Edward Splatt are just some Australians who have suffered gross miscarriages of justice as a result of being convicted of crimes they did not commit," the preface begins.

"In each of these cases, subsequent investigation has shown that both police and forensic experts made major mistakes resulting in the conviction of an innocent person," the preface continues.

"Some forensic experts and police investigators are fond of saying that their techniques are now so sophisticated that it is all but impossible for similar miscarriages of justice to arise. Forensic science is increasingly seen as the panacea for solving what the media continue to portray as an upsurge in violent crime. Advances in DNA profiling, new blood typing techniques, sophisticated ballistics analysis and other scientific methods of criminal investigation appear to have given police an edge in the battle against crime.

But despite these advances, forensic mistakes continue and innocent people are convicted by a justice system that stacks the odds against them. Despite the significant advances made by forensic science there are at least two reasons for the persistence of major miscarriages of justice in Australia. The case of Graham Stafford dramatically illustrates both of these reasons.

The first relates to our adversarial legal system. Inherited from Britain, the system is designed, at least in theory, to seek out the truth. In the modern world, however, lawyers tend to fight each other and point-score. In the process, they use forensic science and forensic ‘experts’ to gain ascendancy over the other side, rather than to impartially pursue justice. Sadly, the jury system as it exists today is more a matter of salesmanship than a quest for the truth, as it can be a case of the most eloquent lawyer wins.

The second reason focuses on how the police and prosecution mount a case against a suspect. Natural justice is supposed to ensure that a suspect receives a fair trial and all evidence, for and against the suspect, is presented to the court. It is our view that the adversarial system gives police enormous discretion over what evidence is followed up or ignored and which suspect is eventually interrogated, detained and charged. Unlike the system of justice in most European nations, where independent oversight is provided by a judge or non-police official, Australia’s adversarial procedures allow the police to cull the evidence they collect. Unless the defence is able to pour enormous resources into their own investigation, the jury will have no idea that what is presented to them by police and prosecution is potentially distorted. The worst case scenario is where evidence has been illegally obtained or fabricated. However the evidence does not have to fall into this category to give a misleading impression to a jury.

The Stafford case exemplifies some flaws in police and legal procedures and this is one of the main reasons why this book was written. We believe that the conviction of Graham Stafford for the murder of Leanne Sarah Holland is a significant miscarriage of justice in the Australian judicial system. And it becomes an even more appalling miscarriage of justice when it is obvious that the criminal justice system and forensic science appear to have learned very little from the mistakes made in the Chamberlain and other cases involving convictions of innocent people based almost entirely on forensic evidence.

Paul Wilson, a criminologist, has written a great deal on wrongful convictions in murder cases. He became involved because he believes this case, more than any other in recent years, shows how easily such travesties can come about, and how difficult it is to correct such mistakes. Graeme Crowley, a former police officer who served in the Queensland force for twelve years, spent many years investigating the facts surrounding the murder of Leanne Holland and the police case against Graham Stafford. He too, is convinced that the criminal justice system has failed utterly in this case. Both are drawn to the inescapable conclusion that a violent sexual killer remains unpunished for this crime.

The brief facts of the case are as follows: Leanne Sarah Holland, twelve years of age, went missing on or about Monday 23 September 1991, from her home at 70A Alice Street in Goodna, an outer western suburb of Brisbane. Her body was found three days later, ten kilometres away, dumped on a bush track at Redbank Plains. She had been viciously battered to death. It is possible that she was sexually interfered with and tortured. She had been apparently burned in a number of places, perhaps with a cigarette, and marks may have been carved into her skin after she died. It was a horrendous crime and all the more brutal given the child’s age. Graham Stuart Stafford, the live-in boyfriend of Melissa Holland, was arrested for Leanne’s murder on Saturday 28 September 1991, five days after her apparent disappearance. To this day, Stafford remains a prisoner in a Queensland gaol, serving a life sentence for a crime he maintains he did not commit and was not connected with.

The police alleged Stafford had murdered Leanne sometime between 8.00am and 4.00pm on Monday 23 September in the house at Alice Street. It is further alleged that he secreted the body in the boot of his car before dumping it at Redbank Plains early on the morning of Wednesday 26 September. Although there were no eyewitnesses, no confession and no motive, he had opportunity and there was forensic and circumstantial evidence connecting him to the crime. Tyre marks, his bloodstained car at the crime scene, inconsistencies in his police statement, and a maggot all formed part of the Crown case. The defence case was straightforward. Stafford was not involved in the disappearance or the death of Leanne. Graham claimed Leanne left the house where they lived together early on the Monday morning and was never seen again.

Crowley first became involved in late 1992 when he was a licensed private inquiry agent operating in the Brisbane area. Stafford’s parents, Eric and Jean, came to him by way of a referral from a firm of solicitors for whom Crowley had undertaken some work. They told Crowley that they knew within their hearts that their son was innocent, for he had continually assured them he had nothing to do with the crime and they unshakably believed him. Jean said that when Graham was arrested they did not know all the details of the allegations against him. On the day of his arrest they telephoned a solicitor who was a friend of a friend. The lawyer strongly suggested that Graham be told to tell the truth and, if he did this, ‘everything would be all right’. That was the advice the parents passed onto Graham but given the outcome of the trial they regret very much giving him such naïve advice.

In 1992, the Stafford family also decided to approach criminologist Paul Wilson. Dr Wilson had a public profile as a criminologist who was known to speak out on issues relating to miscarriages of justice. Wilson had been vocal in the media about the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain and that of Kelvin Condren. In that Queensland case, Condren, an Aboriginal man, was subsequently found to be innocent of a murder for which he had been imprisoned. Wilson was also known to be critical of the Queensland police generally and, in particular, of the methods they used to solve some crimes. He spent many hours analysing the transcripts of the trial and spoke to the Stafford family in some detail. His partner, Robyn Lincoln, herself a criminologist, assisted him in these tasks and both of them came to the same conclusion. They believed the death of Leanne Holland and the media publicity it generated provoked a hasty police investigation with a view to obtaining a quick arrest. As a result, investigation procedures were not followed, leading to weak forensic and circumstantial evidence being collected that wrongly convicted an innocent man.

At this stage Wilson and Crowley had not met, though Wilson was aware of some newspaper articles that linked the private detective to the Stafford family’s search for justice. Crowley spent some time going through hundreds of pages of trial transcripts and making other preliminary inquiries. At the end of this period he was sure that the evidence implicating Stafford in this murder was overwhelming. He wanted to go straight to the prison and tell Stafford to confess to his parents and put the family out of their collective misery. Crowley believed Jean and Eric to be wonderful people, deserving of the truth, whatever it might be. They may not have liked what Crowley was about to tell them, he thought, but at least they would be able to get on with their lives.

Within a short time however, he made further inquiries and became intrigued by the irregularities and inconsistencies in the police case. By the time the small amount of money that Eric and Jean Stafford had provided for investigations was spent, the detective was sure that he had found serious and significant discrepancies in many areas of the police investigation. He has never taken on unpaid work before. The likelihood of getting further monies in this investigation looked remote. However, he was unsettled by the case and decided to pursue it at his own expense. He believed in a ‘fair go’ and to his mind, Graham Stafford had not received this.

As he worked through the material relating to the case he found the evidence against Stafford to be almost entirely circumstantial and of a questionable forensic nature. On the face of it, the Crown had a strong case but the evidence had never been thoroughly tested, even in a courtroom. There had been little or no cross-examination of the witnesses; the forensic evidence lacked credibility; and, at least in Crowley’s (and later Wilson’s) eyes, the personality profile of the killer simply did not fit Stafford’s character or history.

Crowley’s tenacity lost him friends in the police service. He was perceived by some as a ‘bleeding heart’ and rumours circulated about him and his relationship with the Stafford family. One such blatant lie was that the family home had been transferred into Crowley’s name to pay his fees. Some months later, Graeme Crowley the investigator met Graham Stafford the convicted murderer. The young man continued to deny any involvement in Leanne’s death. He did not speculate on what Leanne may have done that day or what the police said happened. He simply told Crowley that he did not kill Leanne and had no idea who had. He repeated his claim that Leanne had walked out of the house early on the Monday morning to go to the local shops; he never saw her again.

Early in 1993 Crowley approached detectives in Brisbane’s western suburbs who were involved in another murder investigation at that time. He wanted to explore any connection between that murder and the killing of Leanne. He expressed concern that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and explained his suspicions of a possible link between the two murders. Instead of receiving a favourable reception, Crowley was rewarded for his efforts by being the subject of a complaint of interfering in an ongoing police investigation. The complaint came to nothing but Crowley was concerned, suspicious and angered by the over-reaction of the police, making him wonder about the real agenda behind their actions. This attempt to derail his inquiries, however, had the opposite effect because Crowley became even more determined to press on with his scrutiny of Leanne’s murder.

This is the story of a police investigation conducted hurriedly and no doubt under extreme pressure to produce a positive result. It is a story of evidence being introduced which had the effect of implicating Stafford as the killer. It is also the story of evidence that existed at the time of his trial that would show beyond reasonable doubt that Stafford did not and could not have killed his girlfriend’s young sister.

We at no stage suggest that such evidence was introduced by unprofessional or unethical police officers and forensic scientists. We believe all police officers and forensic scientists were professional and ethical during the investigation of this case and in their evidence given in court. But they are also human, and as in so many miscarriages of justice, mistakes and omissions can occur and certain opinions given may be subject to different interpretations. In the interest of clearing Graham Stafford’s name, we point to different conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from the scientific and forensic evidence.

Beyond this, it is also the story of other innocent victims of our criminal justice system. Leanne Sarah Holland is one victim. Her family members are others, having to deal with the loss of a loved one on a daily basis. The Stafford family has also lost a loved one; for while Graham is alive, he is serving a life sentence in gaol and is stigmatised as a vicious killer. His family has to endure the pain and shame of their son’s incarceration. Broader still, it is fair to say that truth and justice are also victims in this case."

The preface can be found at:

http://www.zeus-publications.com/who_killed_leanne.htm

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

FERAH JAMA CASE: "THE AGE" SAYS RECENT DEVELOPMENTS - INCLUDING APPEAL COURT DECISION IN JAMA CASE RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY OF POLICE PRACTICES

"THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER MUST BY NOW BE ACCUSTOMED TO ACTING IN CRISIS MODE: ON WEDNESDAY HE HAD TO BAN POLICE FORENSIC SCIENTISTS FROM GIVING EVIDENCE ''UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE'' BECAUSE OF FLAWS IN DNA EVIDENCE PROCEDURES. THE FLAWS WERE NOT CONNECTED TO THE CONTAMINATED DNA SAMPLE THAT LED TO MONDAY'S COURT OF APPEAL RULING THAT OVERTURNED THE RAPE CONVICTION OF FARAH JAMA, WHO HAD SPENT 15 MONTHS IN JAIL. THE CONJUNCTION OF THAT RULING, THE DNA EVIDENCE BAN AND THE OMBUDSMAN'S REPORT WILL, HOWEVER, RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT THE INTEGRITY OF POLICE PRACTICES..."

EDITORIAL: THE AGE;
PHOTO: FERAH JAMA AND HIS LAWYER;
(WIKIPEDIA DESCRIBES "THE AGE" AS:"A LIBERAL BROADSHEET DAILY NEWSPAPER, WHICH HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA SINCE 1854);

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACKGROUND: According to the Australian, Farah Jama was found guilty of raping a 40-year-old woman at a nightclub in Melbourne's outer-eastern suburbs after the victim was found unconscious. She had no memory of the crime but Mr Jama's DNA was later found on the victim. The then 20-year-old denied ever being near the nightclub on that night, saying he was reading the Koran to his critically ill father at his bedside in their home in the northern suburbs. The only evidence police had was the DNA sample of Mr Jama, which was coincidentally taken 24 hours before the alleged crime after he was investigated over another unrelated matter but not charged. Prosecutors told the Victoria Court of Appeal earlier this week that it had since been discovered that the same forensic medical officer who took the first DNA sample of Mr Jama had coincidently taken the DNA sample from the 40-year-old rape complainant 24 hours later. They said it had emerged that the officer had not adhered to strict procedure when taking the sample and therefore they could not “exclude the possibility” of contamination. Therefore they argued the guilty verdict was unsafe and satisfactory and should be quashed. His lawyer Kimani Adil Boden hailed a “momentous” day for Mr Jama, whose case he described as “tragic”. “He's been in custody for close to one-and-a-half years on charges he didn't commit. “Justice has finally been done, however, at a price.” Victoria's police chief responded to Mr. Jama's release by banning all forensic officers from submitting DNA evidence or providing statements to the courts until further notice.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"FOR the second month in succession, Ombudsman George Brouwer has released damning findings of mismanagement in key agencies of Victoria Police," the editorial, published by the Age on December 11, 2009, begins, under the heading Findings will dent public trust in police practices," begins.

"Last month, in a report Chief Commissioner Simon Overland described as an embarrassment, the Ombudsman brought to public attention dodgy deals and bungling that had left the information technology division $39 million over budget," the editorial continues.

"And yesterday, Mr Brouwer laid bare disturbing practices at the police Forensic Services Centre. Police records of drug exhibits were unreliable, he said, because there had been no independent audit of drug holdings for at least 15 years. Mr Brouwer found that senior executives had failed in their roles, with the resulting lack of accountability creating an environment in which corruption could go unnoticed. The report noted lax practices that included storing drugs in open boxes without seals or evidence tape. Again, Mr Overland responded swiftly to the criticisms: the centre's director, Cate Quinn, has been suspended on full pay pending an investigation of misconduct, and the police have agreed to store drugs in lockable cages.

The Chief Commissioner must by now be accustomed to acting in crisis mode: on Wednesday he had to ban police forensic scientists from giving evidence ''until further notice'' because of flaws in DNA evidence procedures. The flaws were not connected to the contaminated DNA sample that led to Monday's Court of Appeal ruling that overturned the rape conviction of Farah Jama, who had spent 15 months in jail. The conjunction of that ruling, the DNA evidence ban and the Ombudsman's report will, however, raise doubts about the integrity of police practices. To allay those doubts, Mr Overland may have to initiate a comprehensive reform of procedures."

The editorial can be found at:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/findings-will-dent-public-trust-in-police-practices-20091210-km76.html

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

GRAHAM STAFFORD CASE: APPEAL COURT DECISION QUASHING MURDER CONVICTION SPARKS CALL FOR CRIMINAL REVIEW COMMISSION;

"PROFESSOR WILSON SAID ANYONE WHO THOUGHT THEY WERE THE VICTIM OF A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM COULD APPLY TO THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION, WHICH WOULD REFER CERTAIN CASES TO THE APPEAL COURTS.

HE SAID THE NEED FOR THE NEW BODY WAS BACKED BY THE FACT HE CURRENTLY RECEIVED INFORMATION ON THREE OR FOUR NEW CASES OF POSSIBLE MISCARRIAGES EVERY MONTH, SOME OF WHICH MAY BE WORTH PURSUING.

AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES PRESIDENT TERRY O'GORMAN LAST YEAR BACKED CALLS FOR AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW COMMISSION."

REPORTER DANIEL HURST: THE BRISBANE TIMES;

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BACKGROUND: (WIKIPEDIA): Graham Stuart Stafford was a sheet metal worker from Goodna, near Ipswich, Queensland who was convicted in 1992 of the murder of twelve-year-old Leanne Sarah Holland. Leanne Holland, the younger sister of Stafford's former partner, Melissa Holland, was murdered in September 1991. Her viciously mutilated body was found three days after she was reported missing in nearby Redbank Plains. It is possible she was also sexually interfered with and tortured with a cigarette lighter. Stafford appealed to the Queensland Court of Appeal, but this appeal was rejected on 25 August 1992. In 1997, the Queensland Court of Appeal re-examined the case after Stafford lodged an application for pardon with the State Governor on the basis of evidence gathered by private detective, Graeme Crowley. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal again by a two-to-one majority on the grounds that there was still enough evidence to convict. Two applications for special leave to the High Court of Australia subsequently failed. Stafford was released in June 2006 after serving over 14 years in prison. Stafford, who was born in England and does not have Australian citizenship despite having migrated to Australia in 1969, faced deportation in November 2006. Some people, including Professor Paul Wilson of Bond University believe that Stafford is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. The Queensland Attorney-General, Kerry Shine, has agreed to closely consider any request on Stafford's behalf concerning a petition to clear him of the murder conviction. In April 2008, the Queensland Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal for a very rare second appeal for pardon. On December 24, 2009 the Court of Appeal overturned Graham Stafford's conviction and ordered a retrial by a 2-1 majority. The dissenting judge wanted an immediate acquittal.

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"Queensland needs a UK-style independent commission to assess miscarriage of justice claims, according to a criminologist who backed Graham Stafford's fight to clear his name," reporter Daniel Hurst's story, published on December 25, 2009, in the Brisbane Times begins.

"Stafford was released from jail in 2006 after serving almost 15 years over the death of Leanne Holland, 12, whose body was dumped in bushland south-west of Brisbane, in September 1991," the story continues.

"The Queensland Court of Appeal yesterday quashed his murder conviction and ordered a retrial, which will go ahead if the Director of Public Prosecutions decides to pursue the matter.

Bond University criminologist Paul Wilson, who co-wrote a book arguing Stafford's innocence, renewed his call for a new body to be established to negotiate such matters.

When Stafford sought to clear his name following his release from jail, he sent a brief of evidence to the then attorney-general Kerry Shine who referred it to the Court of Appeal, Professor Wilson said.

"Despite the decision I think it's critical that we have a criminal cases review commission like they do in the UK," he said.

"The CMC is incapable by their record of rectifying miscarriages of justice and the fact the Stafford case has gone on for years shows just how hard it is to change one miscarriage of justice."

Professor Wilson said anyone who thought they were the victim of a miscarriage of justice in the United Kingdom could apply to the independent commission, which would refer certain cases to the appeal courts.

He said the need for the new body was backed by the fact he currently received information on three or four new cases of possible miscarriages every month, some of which may be worth pursuing.

Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman last year backed calls for an independent review commission.

Mr O'Gorman claimed the existing process was "fundamentally flawed" because it required the decision of a politician."

The story can be found at:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/criminal-review-commission-needed-criminologist-20091224-lefp.html

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

THE FARAH JAMA CASE: REPORT OF THE VICTORIA OMBUDSMAN ON FORENSIC PRACTICES; LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU "TRUST US."

"SOME WITNESSES EXPRESSED A VIEW THAT IMPROVEMENTS WERE NOT
REQUIRED AS THERE SHOULD BE A HIGH LEVEL OF TRUST IN THE ACTIVITIES
UNDERTAKEN BY THE FORENSIC OFFICERS. TRUST OR PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT
THE ISSUE IN MY VIEW. RATHER IT IS A MATTER OF ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY
AND APPROPRIATE PROCEDURES ARE ADHERED TO. IT IS ALSO TO ENSURE THAT
THE COURTS AND THE VICTORIAN COMMUNITY CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THE
INTEGRITY OF THE PROCESSES USED FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF DRUG EXHIBITS AT
THE VICTORIA POLICE FORENSIC SERVICES CENTRE."

REPORT OF THE VICTORIA OMBUDSMAN;
PHOTO: FARAH JAMA AND HIS LAWYER;

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am very grateful to Dr. Robert Moles for providing this site with the direct link to the Victorian Ombudsman's recently released report on forensic practices. The report reveals an extraordinary amount of sloppiness and a lack of procedural safeguards for the storage, protection and tracking of forensic exhibits which may be required in court. Dr. Moles is the publisher of "Networked Knowledge" (NetK) which publishes a wealth of useful legal materials and investigates and provides information on alleged serious miscarriages of justice. He is indeed a major player in the battle against wrongful convictions - wherever they may occur. Dr. Moles is the author of "A State of Injustice which was published in October 2004", and "Losing Their Grip – The Case of Henry Keogh" published January 2006. Since the site was established in August 2005 NetK has delivered 1,540,000 documents to over 400,000 readers in some 200 countries. Its annual rate of document deliveries is now over 500,000. Networked Knowledge can be found at: http://www.netk.net.au/; Context is important here. This Blog has reported seriously flawed forensic lab processes in Canada, the United States and now in Australia. The reports reflect the consequences of sub-standard forensic laboratories wherever they occur - the reality that they will cause innocent people to be convicted of serious crimes. Governments have a duty to revamp their flawed forensic processes and set and obtain the highest standards possible - and must also review past cases in depth in order to root out miscarriages of justice which may have occurred. As the Age, has pointed out in a recent editorial which will be featured in an up-coming post, "The flaws (pointed out by Ombudsman George Brouwer) were not connected to the contaminated DNA sample that led to Monday's Court of Appeal ruling that overturned the rape conviction of Farah Jama, who had spent 15 months in jail. The conjunction of that ruling, the DNA evidence ban and the Ombudsman's report will, however, raise doubts about the integrity of police practices."

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Back to the Victorian Ombudsman's report which discloses that the MacLeod Centre, where some 18,000 drug-related items were stored, "(Drug) exhibits were being stored on pallets in an open work space in open boxes without seals or evidence tape."

Two passages caught my attention:

Passage One: "During my investigation I noted that the manner in which exhibits were Being stored was less than optimal and the then Deputy Commissioner was advised of my concerns about the security of exhibits seized from clandestine laboratories. Exhibits were being stored on pallets in an open work space in open boxes without seals or evidence tape."

Passage two: "Some witnesses expressed a view that improvements were not
required as there should be a high level of trust in the activities
undertaken by the forensic officers. Trust or professionalism is not
the issue in my view. Rather it is a matter of ensuring accountability
and appropriate procedures are adhered to. It is also to ensure that
the courts and the Victorian community can have confidence in the
integrity of the processes used for the management of drug exhibits at
the Victoria Police Forensic Services Centre."

This humble Bloggist was utterly taken back by the "trust us" attitude.

Indeed, look what happened when they weren't being watched!"

Judge the report for yourselves: You will find it at;

http://netk.net.au/whatsnew.asp

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

GRAHAM STAFFORD CASE: "BODY OF EVIDENCE. THE CASE OF LEANNE HOLLAND" ABC AUSTRALIAN; PART ONE; AUGUST 20, 2007. FORENSICS EXPLORED; PARTS 1 and 2;

"GRAHAM CROWLEY: THE TIME OF DEATH IN THIS MURDER INVESTIGATION WAS EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT. THE CROWN CASE WAS THAT GRAHAM STAFFORD MURDERED THIS GIRL BETWEEN 8:00AM AND 4:30PM ON THE MONDAY.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD: IN HER ORIGINAL EVIDENCE THE FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGIST WAS ASKED TO COME UP WITH THE TIME OF DEATH BASED ON THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE MAGGOT. SHE LATER DISCOVERED THAT SHE'D BEEN GIVEN THE WRONG BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT'S CALLED THE AMBIENT TEMPERATURE IN THE AREA AT THE TIME.

GRAHAM CROWLEY: WHEN I MADE ENQUIRIES I FOUND THERE WAS ACTUALLY, THERE WAS A VARIATION OF SOME TWO DEGREES IN THE TEMPERATURES. I CONTACTED THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND ASKED IF THERE WAS ANY SIGNIFICANCE IN THE DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE AND SHE ASSURED ME THAT IT WAS EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT AND SHE AGREED TO RE-CALCULATE THE GROWTH RATE OF THE MAGGOTS AND THEREBY THE TIME OF DEATH AND SHE CAME BACK TO ME AND SAID THAT NOW IN HER OPINION, THE TIME OF DEATH WAS AROUND 10.30AM ON THE TUESDAY. ON TUESDAY, GRAHAM STAFFORD WAS AT WORK ALL DAY AND THE POLICE VERIFIED THIS, AND CONSEQUENTLY, IF THE TIME OF DEATH IS NOW 10.30AM ON TUESDAY, HE DID NOT COMMIT THIS CRIME. BY 1996, I'D ESSENTIALLY FINISHED MY INVESTIGATIONS AND I FELT THAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWING THAT GRAHAM STAFFORD HAD NOT COMMITTED THIS MURDER WAS OVERWHELMING. THE STAFFORD FAMILY APPROACHED A SOLICITOR. THEY PREPARED A PETITION TO THE GOVERNOR OF QUEENSLAND SEEKING A PARDON OR A RE-TRIAL."

FROM "BODY OF EVIDENCE. THE CASE OF LEANNE HOLLAND" ABC AUSTRALIAN; PART ONE; AUGUST 20, 2007.

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BACKGROUND: (WIKIPEDIA): Graham Stuart Stafford was a sheet metal worker from Goodna, near Ipswich, Queensland who was convicted in 1992 of the murder of twelve-year-old Leanne Sarah Holland. Leanne Holland, the younger sister of Stafford's former partner, Melissa Holland, was murdered in September 1991. Her viciously mutilated body was found three days after she was reported missing in nearby Redbank Plains. It is possible she was also sexually interfered with and tortured with a cigarette lighter. Stafford appealed to the Queensland Court of Appeal, but this appeal was rejected on 25 August 1992. In 1997, the Queensland Court of Appeal re-examined the case after Stafford lodged an application for pardon with the State Governor on the basis of evidence gathered by private detective, Graeme Crowley. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal again by a two-to-one majority on the grounds that there was still enough evidence to convict. Two applications for special leave to the High Court of Australia subsequently failed. Stafford was released in June 2006 after serving over 14 years in prison. Stafford, who was born in England and does not have Australian citizenship despite having migrated to Australia in 1969, faced deportation in November 2006. Some people, including Professor Paul Wilson of Bond University believe that Stafford is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. The Queensland Attorney-General, Kerry Shine, has agreed to closely consider any request on Stafford's behalf concerning a petition to clear him of the murder conviction. In April 2008, the Queensland Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal for a very rare second appeal for pardon. On December 24, 2009 the Court of Appeal overturned Graham Stafford's conviction and ordered a retrial by a 2-1 majority. The dissenting judge wanted an immediate acquittal.

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"Caroline Jones: Hello I'm Caroline Jones," the transcript of Part One of ABC Australia's superb two part series called "Body of Lies: The case of Leanne Holland, the program as edited by NetK's Dr. Robert Moles, begins.

"Tonight's program is about a terrible and haunting murder case and a former detective's long crusade," the program continues.

"It all started 16 years ago with the murder of a 12-year-old girl called Leanne Holland. A family friend of the little girl was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. But since that time ex-policeman Graeme Crowley has been re-investigating and campaigning for a fresh look at the case. He has been joined by a broad based group of supporters - some of them from inside the justice system. This is Graeme Crowley's story.

(Excerpt from re-creation of court case):
Prosecutor: I mention the matter of the Queen against Graham Stuart Stafford. An indictment has been presented to the court charging him with murder.
Judge: Graham Stuart Stafford, you stand charged by that name, that on or about the 23rd of September 1991, in or around Ipswich in the State of Queensland, you murdered Leanne Holland. How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?
Graham Stuart Stafford: Not guilty.
(End of excerpt)

Graeme Crowley, Former Detective: When you pull a brief apart, you're possibly going to find something wrong with it, you know? I just did not realise that I would find what turned out to be significant problems with virtually every piece of evidence that the Crown presented at the trial.

(Excerpt continued):
Prosecutor: I will put it to you that on that day you attacked Leanne with some heavy instrument like a hammer.
Graham Stuart Stafford: No.
Prosecutor: And you cleaned up the blood in the house.
Graham Stuart Stafford: No.
Prosecutor: I'll put it to you that you attacked her in the house and you later cleaned up the blood in the house.
Graham Stuart Stafford: No.
(End of excerpt)

Darrell Giles, Journalist, The Sunday Mail: I think you've got a lot of people who don't know Stafford but they have invested a lot of time into this over 14,15 years and I think it's not because they owe the Stafford family anything. They honestly believe there has been a miscarriage of justice.

(Excerpt from taped police interview):
Police Officer (to Graham Stuart Stafford): Do you recognise any of those items of clothing, Graham?
Graham Stuart Stafford: I recognise the jumper.
(End of excerpt)

(Excerpt from re-creation of court case):
Court: Are you able to say why during the police interviews you broke down and cried?
(End of excerpt)

Darrell Giles, Journalist: There's no one else fighting for him. I mean, I don't feel like I want to give up until it's been exhausted.

(Excerpt from re-enactment of court case):
Court: It wasn't a guilty conscience coming through was it?
Graham Stuart Stafford: No.
(End of excerpt)

Professor Paul Wilson, Criminologist: Well a lot of people say to me, Why do you work on this? You know he's a child killer. And sometimes I say, Why am I working on this? And what happens if Graham Stafford wakes up one day and says to the press, says to 'Australian Story', 'I did it'. How will I feel? And then I get my sanity back and I think, he didn't do it. The real killer is out there now.

Graeme Crowley: Leanne Holland was living with her father, Terry, in Alice St Goodna in the western suburbs of Brisbane. Leanne was in grade eight at school. Graham Stafford was in a relationship with her older sister, Melissa Holland, and they were living elsewhere.

Jean Stafford, Mother: He'd been going out with Melissa for about 12 months and then her father asked them if they'd go to live at his place, just to keep an eye on Leanne because he had to work. And if Melissa and Graham were there then there were more people to take care of her. So that's basically why they went and lived with Terry.

Caption:
On Monday September 23, 1991, 12-year-old Leanne Holland was on school holidays. She didn't come home that night.
Graham Stafford told the Holland family Leanne's friend had rung during the day and Leanne might be at the friend's place.

Graham Crowley: On the Tuesday afternoon when no-one had heard from Leanne, Melissa and Graham Stafford became somewhat concerned. They went back, spoke to Terry. About six o'clock they went down to the police station, Goodna Police Station, and reported her missing to the police there.

Carmel Moorcroft, Stafford Family Friend: I can remember Graham ringing up and I spoke to him. And he said, Leanne's gone missing. He said, She didn't come home last night. And then the next day he rang me and said, Carmel, and he was like, you could just hear it in his voice. He says, Carmel, the police have come and taken my car. He said, I don't know why they've taken my car.

(Excerpt from Channel 9 News, September 1991):
Reporter: After a day of searching, two police trail bike riders found the girl's half naked body in bushland only 30 metres from busy Redbank Plains road.
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: On the Thursday afternoon some police trail bike riders found the body.

(Excerpt continued):
Reporter: Scientific officers are searching the area. A cigarette lighter was found a short distance away and police have begun taking plaster casts of a number of footprints.
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: On the Friday they interviewed Stafford and on the Saturday they arrested him for the murder.

Jean Stafford: Graham had never been in trouble with the police. I think he got a fine one time for not having his seatbelt on. We thought, Oh it's all going to be a mistake, you know. We knew that he wasn't the type that would do anything like that. Not for a second did we think it.

(Excerpt continued):
Reporter: The 28-year-old sheet metal worker will appear in the Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday charged with murder.
(End of excerpt)

Darrell Giles: The Holland family initially accepted Graham Stafford's innocence. They were very supportive of him but I think the police team were able to convince them that they had the right man there.

Carmel Moorcroft: When he had been taken to the watch house and we went to see him there, the first words out of his mouth was, how's Melissa. So when he heard that she'd actually broken off the relationship he was, he was just devastated. It was like another blow on top of the first blow.

Debra Mackinnon, Former Girlfriend Of Graham Stafford: I met Graham when I was about 23. Boyfriend and girlfriend probably about three and a half years. Graham was a really like, carefree, happy guy. He looked after my son, treated him like his own son. We split up only because we both had different priorities at the time, but we've always remained the best of friends. I first found out that Graham was charged with this murder by police coming to my front door to ask me questions. They were quite persistent with sex questions. I was quite persistent in my answers, stating that no he did not prefer to have kinky sex, he did not prefer to have sex toys. And in the end when my answers didn't change, they just turned around and they said, Oh we can't use you as a witness, we're going now.

(Excerpt from Channel 7 News, March 1992):
Reporter: Today prosecutor David Bullock said the Crown would allege Leanne was murdered by her sister's defacto husband. Stafford has pleaded not guilty.
(End of excerpt)

Peter Hobbs, Jury Foreman: When Graham took the stand he was very, very calm, very cool. It almost smacked of arrogance. I thought a person that's under trial for murder would be agitated.

Graham Crowley: The Crown story was that on Monday the 23rd of September 1991, Leanne Holland was on school holidays and Graham Stafford was on a rostered day off. So he was the last one to see her alive.

Paul Wilson: Well the police case against Graham Stafford was that he killed Leanne Holland. This must've happened between 10 o'clock on Monday and 4 pm in the afternoon. He allegedly then cleaned up the bathroom where the murder took place, took the body downstairs, put the body in his car, left it in the car for two days and then dumped the body in bushland.

Graham Crowley: It was a very savage, brutal murder. She had been bashed repeatedly and without mercy. There was evidence that she had been sexually assaulted. There were marks on her body around her thighs, inner thighs, which were consistent with her being burnt with something which looked like perhaps a cigarette in at least half a dozen places.

(Excerpt from Channel 7 News, March 1992):
Reporter: The jury was told blood similar to Leanne's extremely rare type was found in the boot of Stafford's car. Blood was also allegedly found in a bathroom, landing and steps of the house Stafford shared with Leanne, her sister Melissa and their father Terry.
(End of excerpt)

(Excerpt from court re-creation):
Court: This is a video that depicts those locations. I ask that it be played.
(End of excerpt)

Associate Professor David Field, Criminal Lawyer: The video of the scene was shown to the jury and they were given the strong suggestion that there would have been plenty of blood around the place and that he must have cleaned it up.

(Excerpt continued):
Court: The examination of the boot ...
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: There was blood found on three items in the boot of his car.

(Excerpt continued):
Court: And we located a maggot in the boot of the car ...
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: There was a maggot found in the boot of his car, and that maggot was the same type of maggot as was found on the body.

(Excerpt continued):
Court: The maggot was approximately 15 millimetres in length and was of a dark colour. It was still alive and wriggling.
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: The Crown case was that the body had been in the boot of his car for two days. So the blood and the maggot were damning evidence against him.

(Excerpt continued):
Court: Do you recall driving along Redbank Plains Road going towards Ipswich?
Female Witness: Yes, I do ...
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: The Crown called two witnesses to say that they saw Stafford's car up next to the body on the Wednesday morning. Forensic police said his tyres' imprints were found at the scene where the body was found. And he'd denied that his car was there.

Peter Hobbs, Jury Foreman: Well some of the evidence we had to look at like, we had to actually handle the clothing that was worn by Leanne when she was killed. Some of the pictures, the graphic pictures we had to go through and the descriptions of what happened, and seeing the site where she was found and where she was supposedly murdered, and all this sort of stuff. It was yeah, really scary sort of stuff.

(Excerpt continued):
Judge: These are the matters that the Crown relies upon - that there was a hammer missing from the bedroom in the house ...
(End of excerpt)

Jean Stafford: Once the judge gave his summing up, the way he was summing up we had no hope.

(Excerpt continued):
Court: There was a maggot in the boot of the car; they refer to the car tracks at the scene ...
(End of excerpt)

Jean Stafford: It's a dreadful thing when it happens. You just feels like your heart drops through your body.

(Excerpt continued):
Judge: Do you find the accused, Graham Stuart Stafford, guilty or not guilty of the offence of murder?
Jury Foreman: Guilty.
(End of excerpt)

Stacey Stafford, Sister: And it was just horrendous to sit there and watch your brother go to jail. It just, it just rips your heart out and there's nothing that you can do about it. It just, his life's taken away from him and he's taken away from us.

Peter Hobbs, Jury Foreman: For me to find Graham Stafford guilty it was quite an easy decision due to the circumstances and the facts that we were given. The facts were: the maggot in the boot, the blood in the boot, the location of the vehicle seen on site where the body was found. All those sort of things, the time frame, all matched up that Graham Stafford was a party to it.

Caption:
Graham Stafford appealed against his conviction. It was rejected.

Graham Crowley: I was in the police 12 years. I was in the CIB for nine years, conducted a lot of investigations. I left the Queensland Police in 1985 and subsequent to that started a private inquiry business.

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... And then the lady at the shops saw her around 12 midday with two youths ...

Graham Crowley: About November 1992 the Stafford family came to me.

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... So I think it's quite, very likely that they did see Leanne ...

Graham Crowley: And they wanted some enquiries made.

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... And he had a couple of phone calls as well ...

Jean Stafford: He did say to us, Well I'll take it on but if I find things that are bad for Graham, and it means that he did do it, I'll be telling you that too. So I said, Well that's fine.

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... Well I worked it out if it was 2:59 when he washed the car and then drove home it would have taken at least 20 minutes to wash the car and drive home ...

Graham Crowley (to Jean Stafford): He wouldn't have been home much before 3:20.

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... Yeah, that's what I thought ...

Graham Crowley: I'd had a background of locking guys up not getting them out. (to Jean Stafford): ... So the only time he really had to do it was from 9:30 'til 11am or sometime between, what, 3:30 and 4:30?

Jean Stafford: (in conversation with Graeme Crowley): ... Three-thirty and 4:30.

Graham Crowley: I didn't have sympathy for convicted criminals. So when I first read the brief of evidence and read the court transcript, I was actually quite satisfied this guy had done this murder. But when I looked at the evidence, no one had actually checked it. Stafford had a legal aid solicitor and, I'm not having a go at legal aid but I guess they didn't bother spending any money to test the evidence. And the barrister who appeared for him had the brief for two days before the trial started so how much work's he going to do on it, you know? He hasn't got any chance to do any work on it. And so it basically went through untested and accepted and he's found guilty.

Darrell Giles: I think the police targeted Stafford from very early on. I think police at the time were under pressure. There were quite a few unsolved killings in Brisbane. I think from day one they went for the most obvious suspect.

Graham Crowley: Everything I touched, there was a problem with it and I was just, I just was really surprised. It didn't matter what I looked at, it was just not straight forward. It was not as it appeared to be and it was not as it should have been and it was not the way it was given to the jury.

(Excerpt from court re-creation):
Prosecutor: Were you able to look at the tracks in the soil?
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: The court was told that the tyres on Graham Stafford's car matched with the tyre impressions found in the dirt where the body was found.

(Excerpt continued):
Prosecutor: Were there any differences?
Response: No, I could not find any differences.
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: When I viewed the overlays at the court, I wasn't satisfied that they were identical and so I went to the tyre manufacturer and asked their opinion of the evidence.

Rod Thomas, Former Bridgestone Qld Manager (to Graeme Crowley): They virtually said that the tyres were identical.

Graham Crowley (to Rod Thomas): Mmm.

Rod Thomas: My Technical Field Services Manager and myself did a lot of research on the actual tread patterns. We couldn't conclude that a) they were exactly the same tyres on Graham Stafford's car or could we conclude that the tread pattern was identical.

Graham Crowley: Part of the evidence that did go a long way to convict Graham Stafford were the two witnesses that were called by the Crown who said that they saw Graham Stafford's shiny red Gemini sedan up in the bush on the Wednesday morning. When I compared their original statements with the evidence that they gave in court, I noticed several discrepancies. Both witnesses weren't sure on what day they saw the car up at the scene for a start, whether it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday. One witness was quite sure that it wasn't a sedan, that it was a hatchback or a wagon. I was concerned about that because Graham Stafford's car was quite clearly a sedan. And the other witness changed her evidence at trial from her statement and told the court that she had been shown a photo of Graham Stafford's car shortly before she gave evidence. In 1994 when I went and interviewed her, she says: I have to say, when I saw the photo of Graham Stafford's car I was a bit surprised by the colour. It was bright red, but the car I saw was darker in colour. The end result was that the evidence of both people would be deemed unreliable. I submitted a preliminary report to the Stafford family. In the meantime his solicitors sought leave to appeal to the high court of Australia and that leave was rejected. In this country, in this day, if you seek leave to appeal to the High Court and it's dismissed, that's the end of the road. You do the time. So I don't know, I just couldn't let it go. I felt I wanted to make some more enquiries. And I guess that's it, I just couldn't let it go. So I just kept looking.

Jean Stafford: He kept going on and he did it at his own expense. So it's probably cost him quite a bit to keep going and I think he gradually became to think like we did, Oh gee, I don't think this guy really did it.

Professor Paul Wilson: Well it was about 12 years ago and Graeme Crowley rang me up one day and I sort of yawned and said, Oh, I get these calls all the time. Graeme Crowley came down and I said to myself, This guy is pretty convincing. He's an ex-copper, he's very direct, he's very honest, he's very thorough. And then I looked at the material he left me and I kept saying to myself, This can't be right, this guy couldn't have committed the murder. So I rang Graeme up and said, Look I want to be involved. This was a murder of great hostility, of great violence. I cannot think of any other murder like this where there has not been some indication in the past that the person has committed some sort of violence or has violent streaks. He's got nothing, no violent streaks in him whatsoever.

(Excerpt from police interview tape):
Detective: This is a continued tape 2 of record of interview between ...
(End of excerpt)

Professor Paul Wilson: The other evidence which comes up is the interview with Graham Stafford himself.

(Excerpt continued):
Detective: Graham do you agree the time is 2:59pm?
Graham Stafford: Yes.
(End of excerpt)

Professor Paul Wilson: Two police officers interviewed Graham Stafford at great detail and alleged that Graham Stafford lied about dates and times. Well, you know, as a forensic psychologist and criminologist I've gone through that interview and it makes a mockery of what an interview should be about.

(Excerpt continued):
Detective: So in your original statement you gave us on Tuesday, on Wednesday sorry.
Graham Stafford: Yeah.
Detective: You stated to us that ah, you arrived home at approximately 2:30 to 3 o'clock on the Wednesday. That was in the original statement?
Graham Stafford: On the Wednesday?
Detective: Sorry, on the Tuesday, on the Monday.
(End of excerpt)

Professor Paul Wilson: The police officers themselves stumble over the dates and time, are confused about it themselves.

(Excerpt continued):
Detective: Do you agree that yesterday you stated that you did go to the carwash?
Graham Stafford: On the Wednesday?
Detective: Beg pardon?
Graham Stafford: I wasn't here yesterday.
Detective: Sorry, on Wednesday, yes.
Graham Stafford: The car wash was Tuesday. It wasn't Monday, I remember now because um ...
Detective: The car wash was Tuesday?
Graham Stafford: …trying to think.
Detective 2: Ah, no, no Monday was your day off, right?
Graham Stafford: Yeah…
Detective 2: And you went to work on Tuesday didn't you?
Graham Stafford: Yes.
(End of excerpt)

Professor Paul Wilson: It doesn't show that Graham Stafford was lying at all. It shows very clearly that both Graham Stafford and the police officers doing the interview were very confused about the sequence of events.

(Excerpt continued):
Graham Stafford: I'm not sure anymore, actually, I'm starting to get so confused.
(End of excerpt)

Darrell Giles: I was directed towards Graeme Crowley as a person who might make an interesting story.

Graham Crowley (to Darrell Giles): It seems inconceivable that you could just carry a body down those stairs without someone driving past and seeing it ...

Darrell Giles: He presented a lot of evidence on this case which seemed suspicious, that left a lot of questions hanging in the air and I wanted to investigate it as well. Leanne's body was found about 10 kilometres away from the house. Now the body had cigarette burns and torture marks from a lighter that had been heated up and put on her body. Now being a non-smoker, Graham Stafford was a non-smoker too, you don't suddenly light up a cigarette and start putting burn marks on a body. Those kind of things you just don't, it doesn't happen. That was just something right from the outset, police should have said, well no it just doesn't make sense. There was another point to do with the car. On the first day Leanne went missing, about four or five o'clock, Melissa Holland, Leanne's older sister, came home from work and they went out shopping. Now this is according to the police with the body in the boot. Now she could have quite easily have put the shopping in the boot of that car and he's discovered right away. Now what person in his right mind would take that risk? Either he's the smartest, cocky criminal you've ever come across or not, and in this case not.

Graham Crowley: The time of death in this murder investigation was extremely significant. The Crown case was that Graham Stafford murdered this girl between 8:00am and 4:30pm on the Monday.

Associate Professor David Field: In her original evidence the forensic entomologist was asked to come up with the time of death based on the life cycle of the maggot. She later discovered that she'd been given the wrong basic information about what's called the ambient temperature in the area at the time.

Graham Crowley: When I made enquiries I found there was actually, there was a variation of some two degrees in the temperatures. I contacted the entomologist and asked if there was any significance in the different temperature and she assured me that it was extremely significant and she agreed to re-calculate the growth rate of the maggots and thereby the time of death and she came back to me and said that now in her opinion, the time of death was around 10.30am on the Tuesday. On Tuesday, Graham Stafford was at work all day and the police verified this, and consequently, if the time of death is now 10.30am on Tuesday, he did not commit this crime. By 1996, I'd essentially finished my investigations and I felt that the evidence showing that Graham Stafford had not committed this murder was overwhelming. The Stafford family approached a solicitor. They prepared a petition to the Governor of Queensland seeking a pardon or a re-trial.

Associate Professor David Field: This petition system is only available where in effect you can show that there is new or fresh evidence.

(Excerpt from Channel Ten news - June 1997):
Reporter: Graham Stafford may have lost his first appeal but this time his lawyers are feeling more confident ...
(End of excerpt)

Associate Professor David Field: There was additional evidence that the girl, Leanne Holland, had been seen after the time when the police maintained she had been murdered.

(Excerpt continued):
Reporter: But today bar maid, Christine Lawrence, who was never interviewed by police, told the Appeal Court she saw Leanne alive the day after she was said to have been murdered. The girl was sitting in a car parked next to hers at a shopping centre. Another witness, forensic biologist Leo Freney, told the court ...
(End of excerpt)

Graham Crowley: Stafford's solicitors asked Leo Freney who was at that time the Crown's leading forensic scientist to review the blood evidence and his evidence was fairly disturbing.

Associate Professor David Field: What the police said was in effect, we believe that Graham Stafford hammered this girl to death in the bathroom. We didn't find a lot of blood therefore he must have cleaned it up. What Leo Freney said was no, there was no sign of a lot, of a cover-up even you look at the cracks in the tiles. There's no evidence suggesting there was a big clean up therefore there never was sufficient blood to account for a death like this. Therefore the death did not occur in the bathroom. There was insufficient blood even to account for a shaving cut, never mind a messy death with a hammer.

(Excerpt from 7:30 Report ABC TV - April last year):
Leo Freney, Forensic Scientist: Even if Stafford had time to clean up, I've never seen and I've been to hundreds of scenes and done thousands of court cases, 4000 or so cases all up, I've never seen anyone successfully clean blood up.
(End of excerpt)

Associate Professor David Field: Secondly there wasn't sufficient blood in the car boot to account for a body having been put in there, and that links in with further forensic evidence to say that had the body been left in the car for that length of time, there would have been a strong odour of decomposing flesh, which there wasn't.

Graham Crowley: Freney's evidence was essentially that in his opinion the murder did not happen in the house at Alice street, in Goodna, and that Leanne's body had never been in the boot of Stafford's car.

Associate Professor David Field: I've had all together about 40 years' experience in criminal law. In my experience the petition put to the Appeal Court was a very strong one. It proved that the fundamental assertion being made by the prosecution in the original trial was seriously flawed. Putting it in simple terms if you like the jury had been misled.

Graham Crowley: I was extremely confident. I felt that the chances of the appeal being denied were extremely small and I just felt it was a walk in the park.

In 1997, the Queensland Court of Appeal dismissed Graham Stafford’s second appeal.
Queensland Police, the DPP and Leanne Holland’s family declined to be interviewed."

The program can be found at:

http://netk.net.au/Queensland/Queensland5.asp

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BODY OF EVIDENCE: PART 2; ABC AUSTRALIAN; TRANSCRIPT OF THE PROGRAM (AUUST 27, 2007);

CAROLINE JONES: Hello, I'm Caroline Jones. Tonight the conclusion to our story about the murder 16 years ago of 12-year-old Leanne Holland. A man called Graham Stafford was in a relationship with Leanne Holland's older sister and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. Despite the failure of successive appeals, there's been a growing campaign to overturn the conviction. It's been led by a former detective, Graham Crowley and includes a broad base of supporters, some of them from within the justice system. In a moment we take up the story, but first, this recap.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I just did not realise that I would find what turned out to be significant problems with evidence that the Crown presented at the trial.

(Excerpt from re-creation of court case):
PROSECUTOR: I will put it to you that on that day you attacked Leanne with some heavy instrument like a hammer.
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: No.
(End of excerpt)

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: Well the police case against Graham Stafford was that he killed Leanne Holland, cleaned up the bathroom where the murder took place, took the body downstairs, put the body in his car.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: The Crown case was that the body had been in the boot of his car for two days.

PETER HOBBS, JURY FOREMAN: For me to find Graham Stafford guilty it was quite an easy decision.

CCC: The court was told that the tyres on Graham Stafford's car matched with the tyre impressions found in the dirt where the body was found.

(Excerpt continued):
PROSECUTOR: Were there any differences?
RESPONSE: No, I could not find any differences.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I wasn't satisfied that they were identical.

ROD THOMAS, FORMER BRIDGESTONE QLD MANAGER: We couldn't conclude that a) they were the exact same tyres that were on Graham Stafford's car ...

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: In her original evidence the forensic entomologist was asked to come up with the time of death.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: And she came back to me and said that now the time of death was around 10.30am on the Tuesday. If the time of death is now 10.30am on Tuesday, he did not commit this crime.

(Excerpt from Channel Ten news - June 1997):
REPORTER: Graham Stafford may have lost his first appeal but this time his lawyers are feeling more confident ... forensic biologist Leo Freney, told the court ...
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Freney's evidence was essentially that the murder did not happen in the house at Alice street, in Goodna, and that Leanne's body had never been in the boot of Stafford's car.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: Well in my experience the petition put to the Appeal Court was a very strong one.

PART TWO:

(Excerpt from re-creation of court case):
JUDGE: On September the 18th 1996, a petition for pardon was presented. It seems to me impossible to avoid ...
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Appeals have been won and lost on one single piece of evidence being cast in doubt. I was extremely confident.

(Excerpt continued):
JUDGE: ... circumstances which have been demonstrated to be unreliable ...
(End of excerpt)

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: The Court of Appeal at that time consists of three very senior judges including Tony Fitzgerald from the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Now Tony Fitzgerald tested the evidence.

(Excerpt continued):
JUDGE: I would allow the appeal, quash the conviction ...
(End of excerpt)

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: ... and decided that the conviction should be quashed and retrial ordered.

(Excerpt continued):
JUDGE: ... and order the appellant be retried.
JUDGE 2: ... Although the new evidence may make it unlikely that the appellant killed Leanne in the house and left her body in the boot of his car for two days...
(End of excerpt)

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: Unfortunately it goes on a majority verdict and two of his brothers said no, they weren't satisfied.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: The two judges who rejected the appeal basically took the position that the evidence casting doubt wasn't strong enough. I think to put it simply, they just weren't impressed by the new evidence.

(Excerpt continued):
JUDGE 2: ... There was evidence on which the jury were justified ...
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Leanne's blood found to be in the boot of Graham Stafford's car, that was very strong. They placed a lot of emphasis on the maggot that was found in the boot of his car. And I believe those two items in particular ensured that the conviction was upheld.

(Excerpt continued):
COURT: The appeal of Graham Stuart Stafford is dismissed.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: It was a disappointment when the appeal was rejected and I felt that justice had not been served.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: It really squashed both of us and we thought, what's the point? We're bashing his head against a brick wall, how can we keep going? But Graeme Crowley kept going. And he's been the main stay of this whole thing.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I still felt so strong about it as did Paul Wilson, that we decided we'd write a book.

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: And the reason we wanted to do that was really to kick jump this case in the public mind again.

(Excerpt from radio show):
VOICEOVER: Brisbane's news talk 1116 4BC, with Greg Carey.
GREG CAREY: The case concerning the murder of Leanne Holland presumably, at least that's how the court found by Graham Stafford has been one of most notorious or infamous cases in the history of crime. Graeme Crowley is in the studio with us this afternoon, private investigator who did a lot of detective work in all of this. Welcome Graeme good to see you too. For those who are new to the case let me just go to the...
(End of excerpt)

PETER HOBBS, JURY FOREMAN: In December 2005 I heard on the radio they were promoting a book called "Who Killed Leanne?".

(Excerpt continued):
GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: What they convicted him on was the blood on items in the boot of his car.
GREG CAREY: And I know that impacted big time on the jury.
GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Absolutely yeah.
(End of excerpt)

PETER HOBBS, JURY FOREMAN: I was filthy on it because it kept coming back to the jury made a mistake, the jury did it wrong.

(Excerpt continues)
GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I don't want to speculate on what the jury's opinion of it was ...
(End of excerpt)

PETER HOBBS, JURY FOREMAN: So I rang the radio station and blew up and told them what I thought and they said well, okay, do you want to read the book? And I said well, I'll probably read it but I wouldn't buy it, thinking it was going to be a waste of time. It probably took me 20 pages reading that book before I realised there was something dreadfully wrong and the further I read the worse I felt. I read this book to the end, 169 pages I think it was, that night. I didn't put it down and I just felt horrified. I couldn't sleep, I just felt absolutely terrible.

(Excerpt continued):
GREG CAREY: Stafford has spent the intervening years as a prisoner in Queensland jails serving a life sentence...
(End of excerpt)

PETER HOBBS, JURY FOREMAN: The tyre tracks were shown to us on an overlay as being identical. They were similar but they weren't identical as it turns out. The blood in the house, we were told there was blood everywhere. There wasn't blood everywhere, there was a little bit of blood. And these are the things I kept saying, I can't believe this, this is just not what we were told. You can't just let somebody rot in jail for 15 years, lose half his life and just do nothing about it. I was part of putting him in there, I've got to be part of getting him out. So I'm just going to try me best and tell the truth and hopefully everything will happen the right way for Graham.

(Reading of letter from Graham Stafford): Dear Mum, Dad and Sis, I can't help getting the impression you're running yourselves ragged out there and it scares me more than being in here ...

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: Graham Stafford always maintained in jail that he was innocent and that has affected him quite considerably I think.

(Reading of letter from Graham Stafford): All this has just served to make me stronger ...

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: He wouldn't do the sex offenders course because he didn't commit a sex crime and he kept saying that. And because he wouldn't do the sex offenders course you had some quite bizarre reports by psychiatrists who said, well look he should be kept inside because he doesn't admit his guilt, which is really the ultimate catch 22.

(Reading of letter from Graham Stafford): Remember, I'll be okay if I know you guys are. Love yous lots, your Son.

DEBRA MACKINNON, FORMER GIRLFRIEND OF GRAHAM STAFFORD: I don't know a great deal about everything that happened to him in jail. He was quite reserved about that and in some ways I can understand why he wouldn't want to tell anybody what had happened. I know that he was bashed for what people thought he had done.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: And that was a bad time. I think he just made the best of it. I'm actually quite proud of how he's handled it.

GEOFFREY DUNNING, FORMER PRISON OFFICER: Eva and myself were correctional officers and we knew Graham from 1994 onwards. A lot of the inmates at Moreton claim to be innocent but you get to know them and you know they're guilty as guilty.

EVA DUNNING, FORMER PRISON OFFICER: From what I knew of Graham and his demeanour, he was never aggressive with anybody. His demeanour was always level headed. So I don't know how you could be like that all the time and then do an awful thing like that. That's why I think he's not guilty. I think he's innocent.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (in car, speaking to Darrell Giles): We won't be able to cross over the double lines but that's the road going up, that's the track up there ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: What's driven me in this case is not so much Graham Stafford. What has happened to him is extremely regrettable but what I find more important is the fact that the killer has not been brought to bear for this. It's important to me that the person who did that crime be made pay for it. I think I've very close to being able to prove who killed Leanne.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): I can't really remember the exact spot from the photos now ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: At this point in time I have three suspects that may have acted independently or together or two of them together and committed this murder.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): One of the Crown witnesses mentioned that she saw a second car turning off, over the double lines to come up the trail ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: One of them is in prison in Brisbane for murder.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST (walking in the bush, speaking to Graham Crowley): She was adamant it was connected to that other car ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): Sure, yeah ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Thirteen days after Leanne Holland was killed, about 500 metres from her house, another 12-year-old girl was murdered.

(Excerpt from Channel 7 News, 1993):
REPORTER: The 12-year-old was found face down in a creek at Goodna west of Brisbane in October 1991. The man accused of her murder told police he and the girl had been mucking around ...
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: This man knew Leanne Holland. Experience will tell you - you do not get two 12-year-old girls murdered in the same locality within a very short space of time without the very high possibility of those crimes being connected. And it's apparent that Stafford did not do the second murder because he was in custody at that time.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): As far as I know there was no other murder ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: The second suspect is doing life for murder in Hobart. He allegedly confessed to his then girlfriend that he had murdered a young girl in the western suburbs.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST (walking in the bush, speaking to Graham Crowley): ... threatened his girlfriend that he would do the same to her as he had killed a girl near the beehives at Redbank Plains ...

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: And the third person is a career criminal with a lengthy criminal history who did a long sentence of imprisonment for incest and was a family friend of Leanne Holland.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: His family have approached me and I've had several discussions with them. They are firmly of the opinion that he is involved in this murder.

(Excerpt from interview with Graeme Crowley, 1997):
FAMILY MEMBER: The way he is and the way he was with me he would have killed me and I'm his flesh and blood. And I believe that if he didn't go to jail, we would all, we wouldn't be sitting here today.
(End of excerpt)

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: Now this person was a known police informant. He had a history of sexual abuse, sex crimes. Our information was he was at the scene of the crime when police found the body. He was there - why? These are the kind of questions we want answered.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST (walking in the bush, speaking to Graham Crowley): And police never went near him.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): Well he was assisting police wasn't he?

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST (walking in the bush, speaking to Graham Crowley): Yeah.

(Excerpt from interview with Graeme Crowley, 1997, continued):
FAMILY MEMBER: I don't know how to explain his police officer friends. They, they're all best friends. They all look out for each other.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: The daughters told me that as well as committing incest on them, he was brutal and violent towards them.

(Excerpt continued):
FAMILY MEMBER: He always like grabbed me by the hair, always across the face, and in the knees. Always bashed me in my knees. He just doesn't care if you're in pain. He'd prefer to see you in pain ‘cause he's having the final laugh.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: For instance one would say that he burnt her with cigarettes and cigarette lighters.

(Excerpt continued):
GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: …prepared to go out there?
FAMILY MEMBER: Why not? I've relived everything else.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): I asked them to take me to the spot where he used to bring them and this is where.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST (walking in the bush, speaking to Graham Crowley): The exact spot.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE (walking in the bush, speaking to Darrell Giles): The exact spot, this is where the girls brought me to.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: One said that her father had taken her to that bush spot which turned out to be the murder scene and that he'd taken her there before Leanne's body was found there.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: I certainly believe the police should be pulling this man in. The minute that Stafford's case is finished they should be looking at this man.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: When I found out that police were trying to put a charge on me in relation to my inquiries, I was really quite upset about it. With the police, I perceived myself as trying to help them and solve a case and I was unhappy to get a report back that they were trying to charge me for a criminal offence of interfering in a police investigation and perverting the course of justice. I really felt that there was a reason why that action was trying to be taken and that was to stop me making investigations into this matter.

SUE CROWLEY, WIFE: I feel for Graeme because he's done extra long hours with his ordinary job as well as this case. He has a passion for finishing a job that he starts until he gets the result he wants.

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: Graeme Crowley has put his whole life in this. He won't tell you this, I doubt whether he'll tell you this, but I know Graeme and I know it's affected him, his life, his business. It must have. In a way he can't let go. He can't let go, he's put so many years into this. He's got to see it to the end.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I've only spoken to Terry Holland once and he told me that he'd never speak to me again and I have respected that wish ever since. His position is that I'm obsessed with the case and that the police got the right person and I can understand him saying that but it's just unfortunate that he doesn't understand that this is as much about Leanne as it is about Stafford.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: In the early days of my investigations I tried to make contact with Terry Holland, Leanne's father, the police, the judiciary, the DPP. But none of that side want to talk to us. From Terry's point of view I think it must be awful to have to read story after story. I can sympathise with the Holland family but equally I put myself in the shoes of Graham Stafford. If this person didn't commit the crime, he's spent 15 years of his life behind bars for something he didn't do. That is equally as wrong.

(Excerpt from Channel 7 News, June last year):
REPORTER: Forty-two-year-old Stafford is now on parole and living with his parents on the Sunshine Coast.
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: Graham Stafford was released from prison in the middle of last year after serving almost 15 years of a life sentence.

STACEY STAFFORD, SISTER: It was great, it really was. It meant that we had Christmas because we never celebrated Christmas until he was home. We never put up a Christmas tree because Christmas never felt the same. So it was just nice, nice to have him home.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: When Graham went in to prison he had his hair streaked, he was happy go lucky. By the time he came out he was going thin on top. He was more introverted and didn't want to go with crowds.

DEBRA MACKINNON, FORMER GIRLFRIEND OF GRAHAM STAFFORD: There's a photo of him at Expo 88 with my son and Graham behind bars. Just a lot of those photos you just look back and you think, what happened? Some of them I just, I can't even look at anymore because they just make me so mad, that they've taken so much away from his life.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: He's in a factory, a glass place.

CO-WORKER (at factory): At the moment we've got Graham loading trucks.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: He feels he's back in society. He's doing a job and paying his taxes and getting on with his life like everybody else.

CO-WORKER (at factory): Graham's really easy to get on with so no-one really thinks about anything he's done in the past.

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, CRIMINOLOGIST: Well you won't see Graham Stafford in this story because he's not allowed to talk to the media. That was one of the conditions of his parole.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: I think he'd like to talk about it. Well, who wouldn't? But if he did they could put him back in prison for breaching his parole. So, whatever they want, he's sticking to it. He doesn't want to be sent back. The parole is for life. It goes on forever. It doesn't stop.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: Graham Stafford is very fortunate that there are people who’re still going into bat for him. Here at Bond University, his case has attracted large interest from a body of lawyers and we're in the process of putting together another petition on Graham Stafford's behalf.

PROFESSOR PAUL WILSON, BOND UNIVERSITY: That's getting very close to being finished. We are optimistic, cautiously optimistic, because we do have some new evidence which is important.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: The key pieces of new evidence in this petition really relate back to some of the assumptions that were made in the original trial, in particular for example the assumption that Graham Stafford hid the hammer that he'd used to murder the girl.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: And also in the boot of your car, we have found a hammer.
(End of excerpt)

(Excerpt from re-enactment of court case):
PROSECUTOR: You mentioned in your evidence that you had a hammer beside your bed, in the bedroom.
STAFFORD: That is correct.
PROSECUTOR: Where is it now?
STAFFORD: I assume the police have got it.
PROSECUTOR: The police haven't got it.
(End of excerpt)

(Excerpt from police interview)
POLICE OFFICER: It's painted black and it's a "Cyclone" brand.
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: That's correct.
POLICE OFFICER: Is that your hammer?
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: It's mine.
(End of excerpt)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: The appalling fact is that the hammer was taken by the police as an exhibit the first time they examined the house. They took the hammer away and it was clearly there on the police exhibit list from day one. Everyone seems to have missed the fact that the hammer was there. It hadn't been hidden by Graham Stafford at all.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: There's been some recent important new information come out from a Crown witness, a scientist who gave evidence at the original trial of Graham Stafford. Angela van Daal's evidence was very significant because it showed that Leanne Holland's blood was in the boot of Graham Stafford's car.

PROFESSOR ANGELA VAN DAAL, BOND UNIVERSITY: I gave evidence at Graham Stafford's trial that the DNA from the blood was the same as that of Leanne Holland. Looking at the blood evidence now, the presence of Leanne Holland's blood in the boot of the car, I don't think is compelling because of the amount of blood. There is probably less than a drop of blood and that's not consistent with someone who was bludgeoned about the head and placed in the boot of that car for several days.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: This was only a small amount of blood. A drop of blood on Graham Stafford's toolbag, a drop of blood on a blanket owned by Melissa Holland.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: But of course there was an incident with Leanne when she cut her foot on the window, the kitchen window ...
(End of excerpt)

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: It's known and been stated in evidence that Leanne Holland did cut her foot some weeks before her murder and bled down the steps, front steps of the house, to show her father.

PROFESSOR ANGELA VAN DAAL, BOND UNIVERSITY: This source of blood is as legitimate an explanation, and in fact of course there are many explanations for how her blood could have been on a number of items in an environment where she lived. In all my years as a forensic scientist this is the first case I've been involved in where I believe that the person was wrongly convicted of the crime. The forensic science evidence, and there is other evidence beyond the DNA evidence which I believe does not support Graham Stafford's conviction for this crime, and I'm prepared to say that. I very strongly believe that this case has been a miscarriage of justice.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: Can you explain how come on Wednesday, when a search of the rear of your car was conducted that a maggot was located in the boot of your car?
(End of excerpt)

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: We've always had concerns about the maggot in the boot evidence. In my mind it was the key piece of evidence in the case that put Leanne's body in the boot of Stafford's car. Last year I made contact with a forensic entomologist, Russell Luke.

RUSSELL LUKE, FORMER QUEENSLAND HEALTH ENTOMOLOGIST: The police noticed a maggot in the boot. They failed to collect the maggot. They failed to photograph it. The fact that it wasn't collected to me is almost unforgivable. The vehicle was then towed away and the next day when the boot was opened the maggot was still there, according to the evidence given by the police. And I find that impossible. Maggots do wander, they find their way into very small places. You know, really the fact that it was still there to me is astounding. The fact that it virtually had not changed in appearance since the day before is equally astounding.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: ... and the size of that maggot coincided with the size of the maggots which were located on the body of Leanne Holland.
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: No.
POLICE OFFICER: When she was located.
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: No.
(End of excerpt)

RUSSELL LUKE, FORMER QUEENSLAND HEALTH ENTOMOLOGIST: A bare boot of a car is effectively a desert for a maggot. One would have expected some shrinkage, some dehydration. In my mind the allegation that the maggot arose from a body in the boot is impossible. I guess this raises other possibilities for the origins, including the one that may have been assisted in finding its way into the boot.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: Well I was there when the maggot was located.
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: No.
(End of excerpt)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: Well the officer who allegedly discovered that maggot was one of the senior investigating officers and that officer has subsequently been reported to the CMC for allegedly tampering with evidence in other cases. Now there are legal precedents for saying that if a police officer has been found tampering with evidence in one case then you must look seriously at the credibility of the evidence he presents in other cases. And that I think presents another very strong ground for asking for this petition.

(Excerpt from police interview):
POLICE OFFICER: Have you got any complaint to make about the conduct of police today?
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: No complaint, but I would like to see some physical proof that I keep being shown, I mean thrown at me. Now all I get is, you know, all these things I know aren't true. I mean ...
POLICE OFFICER: Is that all you wanted to say about that?
GRAHAM STUART STAFFORD: Yes. That's all I want to say.
(End of excerpt)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DAVID FIELD, CRIMINAL LAWYER: I think if there is such a thing as justice then on the facts that I've seen, on the true facts as they are now emerging, Graham Stafford should never have been convicted and his name should now be cleared.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: After being able to get a petition together again, we were so high thinking, oh it's all coming together at last. And then in the middle of all that we got a phone call from the immigration saying that they might deport him.

DARRELL GILES, "THE SUNDAY MAIL" JOURNALIST: Because he was born in England - lived his whole life in Australia, came out here very young - he now faces deportation because the immigration department consider with his conviction that he's not suitable to stay here anymore. He's going to be kicked out of the country, sent back to a city he hasn't been for over 35 years to a place he's got no family, no friends. He's going to be dumped there. It continues. It gets worse and worse for him.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: The only thing we can do is try and get the best lawyer that we can and fight it because if he does go back, we're too old now to go. If my husband went back he'd be dead in six months. The prison was bad enough but this will actually be worse for him because he'll be on his own over there.

DEBRA MACKINNON, FORMER GIRLFRIEND OF GRAHAM STAFFORD: Well Jean and Eric have always remained strong and supportive. They have sold everything that they possibly can to pay for lawyers to try to prove Graham's innocence. They're still hopeful that one day their son will be cleared and boy will we have a party. That's always been the plan. The day he gets his innocence back is the day that we're going to hold the biggest party that anyone's ever seen.

JEAN STAFFORD, MOTHER: It's been a terrible nightmare and a very bad time but we've had all this help and all these people helping us and fighting for us, people like Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson and Darrell Giles. We are so grateful, all of us, especially Graham who can't say it but I can tell them that he is. Maybe something good will come out of it in the end, hopefully. You got to think that way because otherwise you'd just go mad.

GRAEME CROWLEY, FORMER DETECTIVE: If this petition fails, I don't think there will be any further involvement by me in this case. I will follow up any leads that come to me and I actually expect that this program may generate some leads. Someone, somewhere may remember something. Other than that I don't see any further participation by me in this matter. There's nothing, nothing further I can do.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s2018408.htm

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;