PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Eminent legal researcher Dr. Robert Moles has spent years exposing the elephant in South Australia's criminal justice system: A discredited, unqualified, incompetent chief pathologist named Colin Manock, who has accumulated a track record of miscarriages of justice, including the Derek Bromley cases, which is the subject of an informative radio interview with host David Penberthy. (I am eagerly awaiting publication of Dr. Moles forthcoming book, co-authored with Prof. Bibi Sangha, appropriately entitled 'False Witness: The Disgraceful Dr. Manock.')
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
----------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORKED KNOWLEDGE MEDIA REPORT: 19 Feb 2025 08:38 am radio 5AA - David Penberthy interviews Dr Bob Moles. The entire transcript can be read at:
http://netk.net.au/Manock/Manock65.pdf
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The evidence given at his trial was from Dr Colin Manock, who was then the chief forensic pathologist in South Australia. And he said at autopsy I could see signs where he was kicked and bashed, dragged along the ground. And then those bruises, they show that he was held under the water. On his appeal, he had three of the country's leading forensic experts who said all of that evidence was simply wrong, because once the body has been immersed in water for five days, you can't then actually identify any specific injuries and you certainly can't time them. So, when Dr Manock said that they were at or about the time of death, they said that was completely wrong and all of those injuries could have occurred, could have been caused in the post- mortem period.
—————————————————————————————
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: " And the other thing that wasn't raised at his trial was the fact that the state in 1975 had actually gone to the Supreme Court and told the Supreme Court, we have a problem with Dr Manock, and that is he's not actually qualified to do autopsies, and he's not qualified to give expert evidence in court. Now, when somebody says something like that, the Crown has a duty of disclosure, which means that if he's used in any subsequent case, they have to disclose to the court any evidence that might undermine his credibility. But they never explained why it was that having said he can't do autopsies, they continued to employ him doing autopsies for the next 20 years. And when they said he wasn't qualified to give evidence in court as an expert witness, why then did they continue to use him to secure convictions in over 400 cases? So he did 10,000 autopsies, secured 400 convictions when the state had publicly declared he wasn't actually qualified to do either of those two things."
———————————————————————
THE INTERVIEW: "David: In July last year, after spending 40 years in prison, Derek Bromley was finally given parole. Mr. Bromley was given a life sentence for the murder of Stephen Docoza, whose body was found in the River Torrens way back in 1984. Now, Mr Bromley was apparently the longest serving indigenous prisoner ever in Australian history [who claims to have been wrongly convicted]. And the thing about his case is that he never pleaded guilty. He always insisted that he was innocent. He made repeated attempts to have his conviction overturned and at the centre of his conviction laid some extremely disturbing and flawed evidence that was provided at the time by the now discredited fellow who was in charge of state forensics. Dr Bob Moles is an eminent legal researcher who's worked at Flinders University and also formerly at the University of Adelaide. He's an author and he's been following the case Derek Bromley for years. And we have Dr Moles on the line now. Dr Moles, thank you so much for your time. We haven't spoken for a while. It's good to get back in touch with you again.
Bob: Good to catch up with you.
----------
David: Mr. Bromley. He's still with us, and he's still absolutely insists that he did not do this.
Tell us about the flaws in the evidence that was used to convict him.
Bob: Okay. So basically, it was alleged that he'd got into a fight with Steven Docoza down on the banks of the River Torrens. He'd bashed him and kicked him, dragged him along the
ground, and then was said to have drowned him in the river. The evidence given at his trial
was from Dr Colin Manock, who was then the chief forensic pathologist in South Australia.
And he said at autopsy I could see signs where he was kicked and bashed, dragged along the
ground. And then those bruises, they show that he was held under the water. On his appeal,
he had three of the country's leading forensic experts who said all of that evidence was simply wrong, because once the body has been immersed in water for five days, you can't
then actually identify any specific injuries and you certainly can't time them. So, when Dr
Manock said that they were at or about the time of death, they said that was completely
wrong and all of those injuries could have occurred, could have been caused in the post-
mortem period. And the other thing that wasn't raised at his trial was the fact that the state in
1975 had actually gone to the Supreme Court and told the Supreme Court, we have a problem with Dr Manock, and that is he's not actually qualified to do autopsies, and he's not qualified to give expert evidence in court. Now, when somebody says something like that, the Crown has a duty of disclosure, which means that if he's used in any subsequent case, they have to disclose to the court any evidence that might undermine his credibility. But they never explained why it was that having said he can't do autopsies, they continued to employ him doing autopsies for the next 20 years. And when they said he wasn't qualified to give evidence in court as an expert witness, why then did they continue to use him to secure convictions in over 400 cases? So he did 10,000 autopsies, secured 400 convictions when the state had publicly declared he wasn't actually
qualified to do either of those two things.
----------
David: Do you worry, Dr Moles, that perhaps part of the reluctance in pursuing this case -
and we know that the High Court ruled against reopening his case in late 2023, is there a bit
of a can of worms aspect to it, given how many other cases the discredited Dr Manock was
involved in?
Bob: Without any possible doubt, of course there is. I can tell you with confidence that there's around 4,000 wrongful convictions which have been identified in various places. So, in America you've got around 3500, Canada have about 80, the UK around 560. And not one of them have involved a case where the state has publicly declared that this man is not qualified to do the job and then carried on employing him to do precisely that. And if you could imagine somebody doing an autopsy when they don't know what they're doing - to do that once would be just a terrible tragedy. But they instructed Dr Manock to do it 10,000 times!. So, if the state has to publicly own up to that, and then of course it's going to be not only embarrassing but extremely difficult to unravel that. And if they then have to go and look at 400 criminal convictions which they have secured using this man who didn't know what he was doing, then clearly that's going to create a problem for the state. But the trouble is, you see that the longer you leave it, the worser it gets, doesn't it? You know, because you not onlyhave to explain why you did those terrible things in the first place, you then have to explain why you've covered them up for the next 25, 30 years.
----------
David: So Dr Moles do you have a single one of those cases or any of that evidence that was
put forward been tested in a court with the revelation that this was someone who wasn't
perhaps suitable or to be an expert, or to be an expert witness or even conducting these
autopsies?
Bob: Well, that's a fascinating point that you raise because we realised this 25 years ago.
David: Yeah.
Bob: And we struggled throughout those 25 years to actually get the fact this man's not
qualified before the courts. Initially, we had to go through ten years of going to the courts and the courts saying, sorry, we can't hear what you've got to say. We don't have jurisdiction to hear you. So, then we struggled and went to the Human Rights Commission, found that the criminal appeal laws were in breach of international human rights obligations, and then got a new right of appeal. And then we were able to get Mr Bromley’s case back to the Court of Appeal. And he had begged and pleaded with his lawyers to bring the fact that Manock wasn't qualified to the attention of the courts. And he wrote and told his barristers precisely that. But on the day before the last day of the appeal, his barrister stood up and said, I'd like to withdraw all of that evidence about Dr Manock's background. And he did so without consulting with his client and then obtaining his instructions on that. And we've never understood why that occurred. And the court more or less congratulated him afterwards by saying Mr Bromley's defence counsel decided not to raise the broader issues about Dr Manock, but just to look at what he said and did. But of course, ‘the broader issues’ is really code for saying he’s not qualified to do anything at all so therefore what he said and what he did would be entirely inadmissible. When it went to the High Court, people would often say, it's been to the High Court, they’ve knocked out so that’s it, everything is over and done with. But when it went to the High Court, the judges said, when we hear your application for leave to appeal, we don’t want anyone saying anything about forensic pathology. However, they did allow the prosecutor to say you can rely upon Dr Manock’s evidence as given at trial. And we had written to the prosecutor to say if you’re going to say anything about this case at all, you must disclose the fact that Dr Manock wasn’t qualified. We tabled the letter in parliament. And then the DPPwent to the High Court and said you can rely upon Dr Manock’s evidence as given at trial and made no further comment about it. So, the point that you raise is ‘No’ – the courts have never allowed any evidence about Dr Manock’s shortcomings to be raised in any of the court proceedings over the last 25 years.
----------
David: It’s a disturbing case Dr Moles, and is something for those of our listeners who would like to learn more about it, tomorrow night from 6.30 to 7.30pm, you along with Associate Professor Bibi Sangha are going to be speaking about it at the Marion Library. It's free, but you do need to make a booking through Eventbrite In Pursuit of Justice Dr Bob Moles and Associate Professor Bibi Sangha and there’ll be details about that on the Marion Library website. For now Dr Moles thank you so much for joining us on 5AA.
Bob: Absolute pleasure, thank you for asking me."
————————————————————
For a treasure chest of material relating to these issues, check out:
Networked Knowledge Dr Manock Homepage
Networked Knowledge Derek Bromley Homepage
Networked Knowledge Henry Keogh
-------------------------------------------------------------
