Yacht at the centre … The Four Winds …
Sue Neill-Fraser was sentenced to prison for 26 years. This was the high end of sentencing because, according to Justice Alan Blow, she had failed to show remorse and had refused to tell anyone where she had put Bob Chappell’s body.
DPP Tim Ellis had given the court and the jury a detailed scenario of exactly what had happened. He said she had come up behind Bob Chappell in the well of the yacht, killed him with a ‘wrench’ or ‘screwdriver’ or ‘something’, tied his body to a 15 kilo fire extinguisher, winched it up, carried it across the deck and down the gangway into her small dinghy, taken it out into the main channel of the Derwent, pushed it overboard, then motored back to shore and left the dinghy by the rowing sheds.
Now how did the DPP ‘know’ that this was what had happened when he wasn’t there?
Or did he have clear and detailed evidence such as an eyewitness to underpin this scenario?
Well, absolutely no evidence was brought forward to underpin his scenario. Forensics said luminol reacts to dozens of substances, including itself, so the suggestion put to the jury per photo that the dinghy was awash with blood is unproven. Not even a drop of blood was found on deck or on the gangway. Yet Sue Neill-Fraser had no means to remove any blood, let alone down to the tiniest spot, from the dinghy in the dark by the rocks at the side of the rowing sheds. If Bob Chappell had bled in the dinghy at any time his actual blood, not a contestable luminol reaction, would have been found. It wasn’t.
The one thing which gives the public trust in our police, courts, judges, and juries is that people are convicted on clear uncontested and verifiable evidence. Speculation, stories, scenarios, possibles, probables and maybes take our court system into dangerous areas. “I suggest” is not evidence.
The simple fact remains that we do not have clear uncontested and verifiable evidence that:
1. Bob Chappell is dead.
2. Bob Chappell was murdered.
3. Bob Chappell was killed and disposed of in the way that was presented to the court and on which a jury convicted Sue Neill-Fraser of his murder.
Now you can see why there is a need for a re-trial.
*Jennie Herrera, a staunch believer in justice and peace, is the President of the (Sue) Neill-Fraser Support Group Inc. She is a past secretary of the Hobart East Timor Committee, a position she held for 20 years and is a member of the Tasmanian Writers’ Fellowship.
Jennie Herrera*
