Andrew L. Urban.
Sixteen years ago on August 20 Sue Neill-Fraser was arrested at her home in Hobart for the murder of her partner, Bob Chappell, supposedly on their yacht Four Winds. A year later in 2010 Sue was tried, convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, of which she served 13 before being released on parole. But as we all know, she is not guilty. It’s an open sore on Tasmania’s legal system. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
It took 16 years to put Paul Charlton before a jury for the murder of his girlfriend, Joanne Howell. Just before the trial, he was kidnapped, taken into the bush, bashed and warned to plead guilty. The Herald Sun reported it, police took statements but the alleged thugs were never found. He pleaded not guilty. Emails to us from his partner Linda Barry (before a lapse in our communications) add some flesh to the bare bones of the time line. And there’s more to come on this story… Continue reading
In April 2026, Nick Feik, Michelle Fahy and Elizabeth Minter published the results of their investigation into the National Anti-Corruption Commission in The Point.* and find that the NACC’s three current deputy commissioners as a group represent the least qualified combination of deputies permitted under the NACC Act. For example, Deputy Commissioner Nicole Rose, the delegated decision maker who decided not to investigate the Robodebt Six, has a diploma of hotel management as her highest academic qualification. Continue reading
Writing in her substack column, BETTINA ARNDT reports on the damage to men falsely accused of rape by women, often as revenge, weaponising a legal system biased in their favour – and the devastating impact on the men’s lives. Continue reading
“After everything she said that is done to her in that room, Mr Barrientos rings room service to ask for a burger and she asked for chips to go,” said her lawyer David Edwardson. “A request made by her to him, when minutes earlier he slapped, choked and raped her and she said, ‘Can I have chips to go.’ That is what her narrative is … what you might think is utterly improbable,” reports The Australian’s Emma Kirk from a trial in Perth. Continue reading
After a district court judge’s decision to exclude from evidence a video of two Sydney nurses allegedly threatening to kill Israeli patients has been overturned by the Supreme Court ahead of their trial, reports The Australian’s Bimini Plesser. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Our reader Peter writes in a Letter to the Editor: “In Australia there has been a call for the establishment of a judicial review board. There are perhaps hundreds of convictions of people [convicted] with a complete lack of evidence. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
“The Tasmanian establishment :–the courts, lawyers and Police are totally corrupt,” wrote Countess Antonia Scrivanich in a comment on our March 13, 2022, article Is Australia fair dinkum about wrongful convictions? Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
‘If it’s justice you want, go to divinity school.’ a Harvard law professor once snapped at a law student, as legend has it. It may be the best short lesson the student learnt on the way to the profession. The law is a law unto itself and Parliament can only make the laws, not police its administration. Consequently, the legal system does not always serve democracy. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
On this the 17th anniversary of the brutal murder of five members of the Lin family in Sydney’s Epping, we revisit what – after years of scrutiny – we* have determined to be the 2017 wrongful conviction of Robert Xie, loving uncle to two of the murdered. We lay out the evidence behind this claim in the book, FRAMED – How the Legal System Framed Robert Xie for the Lin Family Murders. Continue reading