Sue Neill-Fraser – re-reporting from court

By Andrew L. Urban

In her long running appeal against her 2010 murder conviction, Hobart grandmother Sue Neill-Fraser is finding new obstacles, compounded by inaccurate reporting: a fellow prisoner, Stephen Gleeson, has been charged with perverting justice (in her favour). After his hearing on March 23, 2018, the ABC’s Edith Bevan reported that prosecutor “Mr Shapiro told the court Gleeson had a number of visitors to Risdon Prison during 2017. They included Neill-Fraser’s then lawyer Barbara Etter, filmmaker Eve Ash, private detective Colin McLaren and lawyer Jeffrey Thompson.”

Eve Ash wrote to Bevin pointing out that she had never met Gleeson, never visited him in prison. Bevan didn’t reply, but her report on the ABC website was changed to: “Mr Shapiro told the court Gleeson had a number of visitors to Risdon Prison during 2017. They included Neill-Fraser’s then lawyer Barbara Etter, private detective Colin McLaren and lawyer Jeffrey Thompson. Mr Shapiro told the court the private detective was working for documentary filmmaker Eve Ash. Ash did not personally visit Gleeson in prison.”

In which version was Mr Shapiro quoted accurately?

In her letter Ash took exception to the prosecutor’s suggestion, as reported by Bevan, that “a group of Neill-Fraser supporters ‘duped’ Stephen Gleeson. How does that happen in a maximum-security prison, riddled with cameras, microphones and guards? The insinuation being that four professionals – who have better things to do in their lives – had committed a crime. Yet, some of them didn’t know each other before the prison visits.”

For the record, Ash pointed out that Colin McLaren is no private detective, but a five-book author and documentary filmmaker. His trade requires him to delve deep and find the truth. As mine does!”

In her (unpublished) letter to The Editor of The Mercury, also on March 25, 2018, Eve Ash suggested that “Jack Shapiro has disgracefully stepped over the line, suggesting that visits to Stephen Gleeson were for the purpose of duping him.”

Later in her letter, Ash referred to another instance of being wrongly placed in a meeting, this time with another witness in the case: “At Sue Neill-Fraser’s leave to appeal, Darryl Coates SC was so eager to place me in a room with Meaghan Vass that he asked her a leading question, “and a person by the name of Eve Ash was there? Is that a yes?” and Meaghan Vass agreed. On the date in question I was overseas, and I have never met or spoken with Meaghan Vass.”

The leave to appeal hearing continues on June 26, 2018.

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6 Responses to Sue Neill-Fraser – re-reporting from court

  1. Fiona Peate says:

    So much bad/stupid/incompetent stuff surrounding SNF & often by people who should know better. They never seem to be held to account. I have very little faith in police, Prosecutors & legal fraternity any more. One hopes a Commission of Inquiry would expose it.

  2. SH says:

    Forgive spelling error, I commented but then did some research. Edith Bevin (as I’ve written a few times until said research), is actually Edith Bevan (with an ‘a’) and, in March 2013, won the journalist of the year award at the Tasmanian Media Awards ceremony in Hobart.
    My mistake…with all the inaccurate reporting of what has been obviously factually inaccurate by even just looking at the transcripts), I had thought she was a rookie reporter, not one who has been lauded for her journalistic skills!
    Hmmm

  3. SH says:

    Could someone come and lead ABC’s Edith Bevin by the hand…does she realise that her inaccurate reporting of this nature on a case of such importance, could lead to her being prosecuted?!!!

  4. SH says:

    BTW why has the Mercury not published Eve Ash’s letter? It seems odd, given that the original writings, which she refutes in this unpublished letter, have been published by same?!

  5. SH says:

    Oh, tables have turned…
    Does that mean ABC’s Edith Bevin, prosecutor “Mr Shapiro and Darryl Coates SC (who should have been picked up on his leading the witness!!!) will all be hauled away (as Jeffrey Thompson was) for perverting the course of justice?? Hmmm?
    BTW what did happen about that file given in good faith to our Premier, by a leading law person? I

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