Andrew L. Urban
Sue Neill-Fraser, Henry Keogh, Robert Xie, Marco Rusterholz, Steven Fennell, Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson, Gordon Wood – they are the ‘absent murderers’ whose cases we have reported, convicted of murder despite being absent from the crime scene at the time. Of these seven, only four were later exonerated: Henry Keogh (after 20 years), Steven Fennell (after six years), Gordon Wood (after four years)/ Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
The Federal Police are investigating David Sharaz and the Trustee in Bankruptcy is investigating his wife Brittany Higgins. Sharaz in connection with his Get Up stunt interrupting Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address on June 17, Higgins in connection with some $1 million missing from the Protective Trust which was set up to handle the government’s compensation payout of $2.4 million. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
The handling of Ben Roberts-Smith bail restrictions is becoming farcical, with prosecutors picking and choosing which of two events he can attend – and the judge denying permission for both. Continue reading
She claims she repeatedly warned prosecutors she had no recollection of the incident (alleged rape) and did not believe her testimony alone could secure a guilty conviction. She assumed they were sitting on a pile of evidence that would result in a favourable verdict but that pile never emerged, reports Ellie Dudley in The Australian. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Everyone knows that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Sall Grover of Giggle fame has great hair. The Tickle person definitely does not. Even a former Family Court judge – a woman – is now challenging the Federal Court for its “extraordinary overreach” to find that the ordinary meaning of “woman” includes a biological male. Continue reading
ADRIAN BERTINO-CLARKE is the founder of FIA Labs and the creator of LIA Apex, a governed legal intelligence workspace being developed with miscarriage-of-justice work in mind. LIA Apex is designed to help lawyers, investigators, innocence advocates, journalists, academics, and review bodies organise complex case records, test prosecution theories, challenge expert evidence, identify unresolved doubt, and preserve reviewable governance logs. It is not an innocence machine or a substitute for lawyers; it is a tool for making legal reasoning more disciplined, transparent, and accountable. Continue reading
In his important book, Road to Damnation, Chris Brook takes the reader on a gripping journey to the darkest reaches of human experience – the drowning of three children – when it intersects with the law. Brook places the case of Robert Farquharson – their father – at the interface between law, science, society and psychology, as we first reported on October 15, 2020. Farquharson was found guilty and is still in prison, serving a 33 year sentence, but efforts to overturn his conviction continue. Continue reading
The wrongful conviction of Kathleen Folbigg, who spent over 20 years in custody, is unarguably one of Australia’s worst, acknowledged, miscarriages of justice. A special edition of Current Issues in Criminal Justice (by Mehera San Roque & Emma Cunliffe, May 4, 2026) brings together several academics to examine the implications of the case for the legal system. The following is an extract from the section titled ‘Implications of the case for criminal legal system reform’. Continue reading
Australia has a troubling history of contested medical and forensic evidence contributing to contested or overturned convictions, writes STEVEN FENNELL in response to our story Can the law handle the scientific truth? No, says Lucy Letby case. Continue reading
A compelling new paper published in the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly uses the Lucy Letby case as a lens to expose something criminal lawyers everywhere should take note, says Jae Gerhard, forensic DNA expert and Principal Forensic Scientist at Independent Forensic Services. Continue reading