Andrew L. Urban
The judge whose summing up was convoluted and in places incomprehensible even to lawyers, told the jury that the accused had “made admissions” of the offence – which is not true – but as one barrister puts it, “the jury had NO CHOICE but to find him guilty“. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
In the wake of yesterday’s story about the legal system’s reluctant response to appeals, a significant misunderstanding about what constitutes ‘fresh and compelling’ evidence is explained by legal academic Dr Bob Moles. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Excuse my headline, but it’s a translation from legal language. Even among legal academics and former High Court justices, there is great unease about how our already imperfect legal system turns positively negative at the thought of being questioned. Why else make appeals nigh-impossible? The system prefers the legal certainty of finality to substantive justice by correcting wrongful convictions. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Less than a dozen in notional number*, less active and certainly less transparent than the Sue Neill-Fraser Support Group, but incessantly annoying, the group of commentators on this blog I have dubbed the Tim Ellis Support Group, uses innuendo and obfuscation to support former DPP Tim Ellis in prosecuting Sue Neill-Fraser for murder, a conviction we (and thousands of others) consider egregiously wrongful. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Yesterday, we published a letter from former Tasmanian DPP Tim Ellis SC in which he accused former barrister Hugh Selby of a failure of integrity in Selby’s article. Today, Selby replies, to emphasise how the jury was misled by disclosure failures. Continue reading
Former Tasmanian DPP Tim Ellis SC was the prosecutor in the now infamous 2010 Sue Neill-Fraser murder trial. In a letter to wrongfulconvictionsreport.org, he accuses Hugh Selby’s March 16, 2026 article of “sadly lacking in the integrity he constantly accuses others of lacking.” Continue reading
In what can be seen as a companion piece to our article, Duty of disclosure lasts forever by Bibi Sangha and Dr Bob Moles, former barrister HUGH SELBY explains why the police and prosecutors are required to disclose to the defence before trial all relevant material that they have about a case and the consequences of its breach…. and says that “taken together, the non-disclosures in Sue Neill-Fraser’s case are so significant that her conviction cannot stand.” Continue reading
“There is no good reason in 2026 to allow directors of public prosecutions to be less accountable than anyone else for their conduct and their decisions. The present ‘non-accountability’ brings our criminal justice system into disrepute” writes former barrister HUGH SELBY in CityNews. Continue reading
Forensic science services, at the heart of many trials, are under the microscope like never before. Last month, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published a report concerned about lack of labs’ independence from police. On March 4, 2026, in Melbourne this year, an expert panel discussion will explore the apparent wrongful conviction of Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson for rape and murder, driven off course by old school verballing, made possible by ignorance of linguistic forensic science. In a December 2025 Science Direct article, Aaron Olson (Truth, power, and the crisis of forensic independence) paints a picture of forensic independence in crisis. See extracts below. Continue reading
The case of Stephen “Shorty” Jamieson and insights into the legal misconceptions that cause transcript injustice in forensic contexts. How the flaws live on, despite the reforms of the 1990s, writes HELEN FRASER, Director of the Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence at the University of Melbourne. Continue reading