Wrongful Convictions Report

Andrew L. Urban

It was in the main street of Mintabie, 980 kms northwest of Adelaide, the remote opal mining community (now closed). It was 1978 and an Aboriginal man had been found dead, in mysterious circumstances. The Coroner sent a team to investigate. Refusing an offer of a cool room for the procedure, the State’s forensic pathologist set up a make shift morgue in the street and proceeded to perform his gut wrenching task. After Dr Colin Manock had removed the bodily organs from the chest, he used a ladle to scoop up some of the body fluids and quipped, ‘does anybody fancy a slurp?’  Continue reading →

Andrew L. Urban

It starts today. Witnesses will be heard at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, starting with Alex Ryvchin,  co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Ever since the release of the Terms of Reference, we have been concerned at how probing Commissioner Virgina Bell will be to examine how Labor’s actions generated the environment in which antisemitism flourished since October 7, 2023. Are we heading for a case of wrongful conviction, wrongfully blaming failures of the security services while ignoring the grave mistakes – commissions and omissions – of PM Albanese and Team? See our full submission to the Commission. Continue reading →

STEVEN FENNELL explores both sides of the Nicola Gobbo debate, wrongful convictions and the fracture of Australian justice.  Continue reading →

In his post on April 25, 2026, The Record and the Reality:  What Transcripts Don’t Show in Criminal Appeal, STEVEN FENNELL argued that transcripts are an incomplete reconstruction of a trial. In this companion piece, he provides a cautionary tale from personal experience of what occurs when an appellate court doesn’t struggle with an incomplete record but actively adopts a mistaken narrative from the prosecution as part of its legal architecture. 
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