Shopping to improve The System

Posted on February 18, 2024 by andrew

Andrew L. Urban

Jury research, divorcing forensic services from police and quality control of The System – a shopping list for reforms in a new book by Professor Stephen Cordner AM and Dr Kerry Breen AO.  Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 5 Comments

The UK post office scandal of wrongful convictions began 14 years ago

Posted on February 17, 2024 by andrew

ANDREW BRIDGEN, Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire, reveals the back story of this serial miscarriage of justice. “In 2010, as a newly elected MP, nothing prepared me for a constituency surgery appointment with Michael and Susan Rudkin, a couple who gave me their account of how they had been treated by the Post Office.”   Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 3 Comments

Presumption of guilt & the burden of proof

Posted on February 17, 2024 by andrew

The presumption of innocence is under attack, writes DAVID RICHARDS, founding member of Australians For Science and Freedom (ASF).  Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 1 Comment

Folbigg’s lawyer (also) questions the system

Posted on February 12, 2024 by andrew

It has taken two lawyers working pro bono, lifelong friends who won’t give up, experts who worked for free, strong supporters behind the scenes and much more. What does this say about our system if we need all of this support to get one person the justice they deserve, asks Rhanee Rego, Kathleen Folbigg’s lawyer. It’s not so much a question as an accusation; the system and especially the appellate mechanisms, are not fit for purpose.  Continue reading →

Posted in Case 17 Kathleen Folbigg | 10 Comments

Faked admission of a rape that didn’t happen

Posted on February 11, 2024 by andrew

The day before the rape trial began, the complainant’s deception came to light: she had rehearsed a script for a phone call to manipulate AA* into making admissions to a rape that didn’t happen. In the interest of public debate on the subject of false rape claims, we publish in full BRENDEN HILL’s exclusive report in the Sunday Telegraph (11/2/2024) and ask what consequences follow for women making false claims of rape? Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 13 Comments

UK Post Office scandal: 700 wrongly convicted

Posted on February 7, 2024 by andrew

Channel 7 will screen UK ITV’s drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office over two evenings on 14 and 21 February, the dramatised true story that finally broke the UK’s shocking post office scandal into the public consciousness, and has rocked British politics.  Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 7 Comments

New York takes the wrongful conviction cake

Posted on February 4, 2024 by andrew

Andrew L. Urban.

Bypassing the police with her rape allegation, the complainant publishes it in a book, some 37 years later. But it may have been 36 years …The case goes to trial in a civil court.  Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 4 Comments

Mark Tedeschi KC “impermissibly straining for a conviction”

Posted on February 1, 2024 by andrew

To date, we have published 37 negative comments from readers on this blog about the former NSW Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi KC, adding to our own criticisms of his prosecutorial behaviour in several cases. Tedeschi finally resigned in 2018 and is no longer a senior Crown prosecutor. He was a high profile prosecutor, famed for his high conviction rate – but Justice Fullerton once admonished him for “impermissibly straining for a conviction”. The following is a snapshot of Mark Tedeschi’s track record, compiled by an interested and well informed reader and edited by Andrew L. Urban.  Continue reading →

Posted in General articles | 10 Comments

CCRC – how NOT to do it

Posted on January 31, 2024 by andrew

Andrew L. Urban.

 The worst possible failure of a Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is to TWICE refuse to review a case on the request of the accused before DNA proves the accused was wrongfully convicted in the first place – 17 years earlier. And to repeat the refusals with another convicted applicant. (Mis)managing forensic information is at the heart of the failures. Should the CCRC UK sack its boss?  Continue reading →

Posted in CCRC | 3 Comments

Remember Robert Xie, another murder by the prosecution

Posted on January 28, 2024 by andrew

Andrew L. Urban.

ANNIVERSARY OF SHAME: On February 4, 2015, nine years ago this weekend, the third trial began of Robert Xie for the brutal murder of five members of his wife’s family. Eleven months later, it became the longest criminal trial in NSW history involving a single ­accused, with more than 160 days of ‘evidence’ and at least $1 million of taxpayers’ money spent on running the case. It ended on December 2, 2015, with a hung jury. By then, Xie had spent four years and seven months in jail without a conviction.  Continue reading →

Posted in Case 11 Robert Xie | 17 Comments