Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

On Tuesday night I ended my speech about massive short comings in the investigation of Eden Westbrook's death by promising more to come. The culture and procedures of Tasmania Police allowed paedophile police officer Senior Sergeant Paul Reynolds, now deceased, to groom and abuse 50 young men and boys in Tasmania across 30 years. This man was a key player in the inadequate investigation into Eden's death. That's just one red flag about her death. There are many more.

Today I want to tell Australians about what I believe is another botched Tasmanian police investigation. I am talking about the Sue Neill-Fraser case. Sue was convicted in 2010 of the murder of her long-time partner, Bob Chappell, on a moored yacht in Hobart on Australia Day 2009. She was released on parole in 2022, after serving 13 years in prison. It was a case with no body, no weapon, no cause of death and no plausible motive. Sue's appeals failed. But Sue has staunch supporters who have been working on this case for years in the hope of uncovering fresh and compelling evidence to overturn her conviction. Today I can tell you that such evidence has been found.

Instances of the police misleading the court and failing to disclose material evidence for Sue Neill-Fraser's 2010 trial have been previously exposed, with papers tabled in the Tasmanian Legislative Council several years ago. This brought no action—none at all.

Independent Tasmanian MPs, both state and federal, have since obtained valuable information from police records under the Right to Information legislation. Analysis of this new information shows basic flaws and oversights in both police investigative work and forensic work. There is clear evidence of failure by police to properly disclose in a timely way to the court, the prosecution and the defence materials supportive of Ms Neill-Fraser, including their investigation into Meghan Vass and her DNA and the use by Meghan Vass of her mobile phones—not just one phone; the police search for the fire extinguisher, said to be missing from the yacht; and the actions, relevant histories and whereabouts of Meghan Vass's known associates on and around Australia Day and several days following.

Regarding associates, no-one was told there were two 'Sams of interest' not one, as previously thought. Either or both may have had information about where Ms Vass went with who and when on the evening of Australia Day 2009. There was also the small blue towel found on the deck of the yacht, near the Meghan Vass DNA. That the item was missing from 2009 major forensic biology reports is still without explanation. We know it was in the DNA lab in early February 2009, and police are still refusing to allow an independent expert to review relevant records or organise independent testing.

The Tasmanian coroner has refused to release autopsy photos in the Eden Westbrook case. There is a pattern of behaviour here. It's a pattern of refusal to release relevant evidence in Tasmania Police matters. At the heart of the evidence in Sue's case is correcting the wrong approach to the manner and the time of when Ms Vass's DNA was left on the deck of the yacht. Ms Vass gave evidence at Sue's trial that she had not been on the yacht. The prosecution claimed that it had come in on the bottom of someone else's shoe. In later years, Ms Vass twice made sworn statements that she had not been on the yacht that day. Then at the second appeal, in 2021, she recanted those admissions.

Only one ground of appeal remained, and it centred upon Ms Vass's DNA, including when it was left on the yacht. Sue Neill-Fraser lost her appeal in 2021. The appeal court accepted by majority, based on expert evidence from 2017, that her DNA was more likely to have been left on the yacht, a few days after the murder, at a slip yard in Goodwood, to where the yacht had been towed. Go figure! The court would not have reached that conclusion had it been properly informed about both the true state of the scientific research and the evidence, and the factual unlikelihood of Ms Vass and her associates, being at that slip yard.

The appeal court was not told about a report prepared for the appeal within the Tasmanian police's Forensic Science Service Tasmania that said it was possible that the DNA was left on Australia Day. The court and Ms Neill-Fraser's lawyers were also not told about a referral by Forensic Science Service Tasmania to an interstate DNA expert in 2019, just after leave for a further appeal was granted.

The time has come when only a thorough, independent inquiry can actually expose the full extent of the problems and lay out a new path for investigations to be done and conducted by Tasmanian police in the future.