STORY: "Neill-Fraser evidence hype fails to deliver," by reporter Charles Wooley, published by The Sunday Tasmanian on July 22, 2017.
GIST: "Channel Seven’s Sunday Night
investigation of the Susan Neill-Fraser case promised “explosive new
evidence” but, as is so often the case with television programs, the
content failed to measure up to the hype. This is in part
because the people who make the gravel-voiced urgent promo are never the
same journalists who make the news story. Hence the kind of embarrassing dissonance between promise and delivery we saw with Seven’s coverage last weekend. There was in fact no explosive new evidence and what ran was virtually a repeat of the 60 Minutes story from 2014. I
reported that story and at the time became convinced that Neill-Fraser
was either innocent or had managed to commit the perfect crime and might
well have expected to get away with it for lack of material evidence. Australia’s
leading expert on miscarriages of justice Dr Bob Moles told me three
years ago, much as he reiterated in Seven’s story last week, that “Susan
Neill-Fraser’s conviction is Australia’s worst miscarriage of justice
since Lindy Chamberlain”. In my time I have reported on a number of murders, but never one like this, right here in my home town. A woman had been locked up and the key thrown away but where was the evidence? Where was the weapon, the witness, the motive and the proof of death? Seven’s
“explosive new evidence” concerned the DNA of homeless girl Megan Vass
found on the deck of the yacht Four Winds from which Neill-Fraser’s
partner Bob Chappell so mysteriously vanished on Australia Day 2009. This
was also reported way back in 2014 when Ms Vass had denied ever having
been on the yacht. The police had disregarded the significance of the
DNA, suggesting it had been transferred on the boots of investigators. Didn’t they watch CSI? Meanwhile,
the evidence of copious amounts of blood in the yacht’s dinghy,
supposedly proof of foul play, is also most likely a forensic error. The
testing agent used, luminol, is known to produce false positives. In
Lindy Chamberlain’s case the foetal blood supposedly found in her car
was much later determined to be a sound deadener sprayed in the wheel
arch by the manufacturer. It took a quarter of a century for the
Northern Territory Government to apologise to the Chamberlains.
Neill-Fraser is in jail for 23 years. The fact that none of this
is new and yet nothing has progressed for Neill-Fraser in the
intervening three years is the real “explosive evidence” that the legal
process stubbornly refuses to concede fallibility even at the expense of
pursuing justice.......... Certainly
it was early in reporting this case that I began to suspect that more
dangerous than putting Neill-Fraser back on the streets (now in a
wheelchair) was the alarming possibility that if it is possible to be
convicted on such scant evidence then no one is safe. “Worse than
scant evidence, Sue Neill-Fraser was convicted on the total absence of
evidence,” Bob Moles told me last week. “If the forensic evidence were
to be reviewed by any competent and independent expert it would be
deemed unacceptable.”.........Neill-Fraser
has enough trouble right now without the public apprehension that her
story has been marketed and is now owned by a television network. Understandably
she has no friends in the judiciary or the police but also not a lot of
public sympathy beyond her dedicated band of supporters. It would
be unfortunate if the impression that some kind of financial deal has
been done should denigrate the legal campaign to exonerate her. As
I’ve said before, I think it is more likely that Bob Chappell is
whooping it up in Rio than it is that Susan Neill-Fraser whacked him
over the head with a wrench and tossed him overboard. But as we know from her conviction, in the absence of evidence perception is everything. Her
family and legal team must move quickly to assure the public that the
issues at stake in the Neill-Fraser case are too important to be bought
or sold."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/neillfraser-evidence-hype-fails-to-deliver/news-story/bc7f2f6aa6dd8f8e596d69b14f8fa323
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/neillfraser-evidence-hype-fails-to-deliver/news-story/bc7f2f6aa6dd8f8e596d69b14f8fa323
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
