The appeal court in Bromley has fundamentally failed to pay due regard to the rule of law and to the well-established principles governing criminal appeals, according to legal academics Dr Bob Moles and Bibi Sangha, as we first reported on July 2, 2018.
Derek Bromley’s arguably wrongful murder conviction launched one of the longest running battles against a miscarriage of justice, having begun 40 years ago. The Moles/Sangha report is a concise yet comprehensive “briefing note”, a deconstruction of how South Australia’s justice system lost its right to be called a ‘justice’ system.
The analysis by Moles and Sangha reveals deeply troubling behaviour by the appeal court – which follows deeply troubling behaviour by the legal system throughout the history of the case, after Bromley’s 1984 conviction. The appeal court effectively retried the case, egregiously contrary to the rules. They write:
It is our view that the appeal court in Bromley has fundamentally failed to pay due regard to the rule of law and to the well-established principles governing criminal appeals. The appellate function is to review the conduct of the trial to determine if appealable error has occurred. If it has, the proper procedure is to set aside the conviction, and in appropriate cases, allow for a retrial. Not to conduct that retrial before the appeal court.
It is not part of the appellate function to allow the Crown to present additional evidence on an appeal with a view to persuading the appeal court to dismiss serious errors at trial. If the Crown wishes to persuade a court of the guilt of an accused person, it had to be done in front of a jury, with the facts to be determined by the jury. In this case the appeal court has, in effect, abolished the right to a jury trial, and at the same time abolished the right of a wrongfully convicted person to an effective appeal and to a retrial.
There is well established authority to support the view that the appeal court cannot usurp the function of the jury. It is not permissible for an appeal court to uphold a guilty verdict on the basis of evidence which has not been put to a jury. Especially is this so where the additional evidence was in the possession of the prosecution at the time of the trial but not then used by them. If the evidence was in fact ‘extremely probative of the appellant’s guilt’, then why was it not presented by the Crown at the time of the trial?
Current status as at May 2026:
Derek Bromley (2009)
Ngarrindjeri and Narungga man Bromley was sentenced to life imprisonment by the South Australian Supreme Court on 14 March 1985, for the murder of Stephen Docoza, who was bludgeoned to death on 4 April 1984 and was found floating in Adelaide’s River Torrens days later. Bromley’s case is significant as he’s maintained his innocence ever since. Indeed, Bromley was the longest serving inmate in Australia claiming to be innocent.
Bromley was released on parole in March 2024. In a 3:2 split decision against his May 2023 appeal, the High Court’s majority view accepted that the witness (Gary Carter, suffering a schizoaffective disorder at the time) had credibility problems (mental impairment, inconsistencies) but said that juries are entitled to believe imperfect witnesses and that there was some corroboration of parts of the account.
In the dissenting view, the witness was so unreliable that it was unsafe to base a conviction on his evidence. His account was inconsistent, contaminated, and possibly influenced. In short, this wasn’t just a weak witness—it was evidence incapable of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
As his case now stands, his original conviction was based on Dr Colin Manock’s impermissible (fraudulent) forensic evidence, his appeal was mangled by the court’s erroneous approach and the High Court dismissed his final appeal because the jury was entitled to believe a mentally ill witness. That is three strikes against the system …