Andrew L. Urban
I just have to share this with readers who may have missed it. In recent weeks, a number of comments have turned up on previous stories about the Sue Neill-Fraser case. It’s been 16 years since the abomination of her trial and wrongful conviction (and she is now out of prison on parole), and still there are those who are obsessed with some aspects of the case. None more vividly than to continue the prosecution’s fevered attempts to ‘keep Vass off the boat’, as I first called in March 2021. The most recent yesterday. The only reason I raise it again is to share my amazement at the repeated but irrational efforts to save the prosecution from the massive embarrassment of having been found out about how this sausage (wrongful conviction) was made.
So here is the short version. (See the link above for the longer version.)
Meaghan Vass was a homeless 16 year old drug user at the time of Bob Chappell’s disappearance on Australia Day 2009, from the Four Winds yacht he jointly owned with Neill-Fraser. She was hanging around with youths around the Hobart waterfront, with leisure activities such as looting yachts for saleable items, to bankroll the purchase of drugs and alcohol.
At Neill-Fraser’s trial in 2010, Vass was called as a witness, her DNA having been found on the deck of Four Winds, but she denied having been on the yacht. The prosecutor, then Tasmanian DPP Tim Ellis SC, denigrated the DNA evidence as a red herring.
Cut to the chase…(this is the very short version). A few years later Vass confessed both in an affidavit and in a tearful interview with Liam Bartlett on 60 Minutes, that yes, she was on the yacht at the relevant time with two male accomplices, having boarded without realising someone was on board, there being no dinghy alongside. (Neill-Fraser had gone ashore in it.) That someone was Bob Chappell, working below deck. When he confronted the surprised youths, a fight broke out … Vass fled. Obviously, Sue Neill-Fraser was not present. She did not murder Bob Chappell. That’s why ever since, the machinery behind the legal cohort who made the mistake of framing Neill-Fraser – and their proxies/supporters – has been and still is desperate to ‘keep Vass off the boat’.
To accept any of the various bits of speculation as to how Vass was not on board, or that her DNA was deposited later, we would have to accept that after Vass denied being there at the trial, she changed her mind and for reasons we cannot fathom, she chose to insert herself into the case with testimony that confirmed that she was, thus proving Neill-Fraser’s innocence. On 60 Minutes she admitted it risked repercussions from the youths with her at the time.
The fact Neill-Fraser was not on board at the time also scotches the implausible scenarios that have on one hand wanted ‘Vass off the boat’ and Neill-Fraser ON the boat.
(You can feel some sympathy for the poor old Moderator of this blog having to constantly bat away bat-crazy comments like these. I fear there’s another batch coming …)