Sue Neill-Fraser: the worst miscarriage of justice in Australian history? | 60 Minutes Australia

welcome back to 60 minutes Susan Neal Fraser is tonight behind bars a mother a grandmother convicted of murdering her partner Bob Chapel convicted by a jury of her peers sentenced to 23 years but there's one problem Susan Neal Fraser is innocent that's the unqualified conclusion by some of the finest legal and police minds in the country including one of our foremost experts in miscarriages of justice I first looked at a case a year ago and was convinced there was enough reasonable doubt to acquit her at trial now the case to set her free is even stronger if not undeniable thanks to the new and compelling forensic evidence for the past five years Susan Neal Fraser's been languishing in Hobart's Risdon jail convicted of murdering her partner Bob Chapel a charge she's always denied back at home her daughters Sarah Bowles herself now a mother is still coming to terms with what happened [Music] it's always bittersweet you know because you know it's beautiful to see mom playing with Elizabeth and interacting and having that really special time together but because it's so short it's so sad to see and it makes me so angry but you can't do anything about it our interview is interrupted that's mom it's Sarah's mum the one 10-minute call per day that she's allowed I'm just doing an interview at the moment and today Susan Neal Fraser is struggling if this was a work of fiction this would be a great discussion to continue with but to actually think that we're discussing a trial process in which somebody's being convicted of murder is quite shocking in my view in the hundreds of cases that you looked at how bad is this one this is the worst of the worst tonight the new forensic evidence that rips apart the police case and shows that Sunil Fraser should be set free we're seeing the same error that was made in Lindy Chamberlain over 30 years ago the blood that was never there there's no blood in the deity and not a drop I saw a boat out there the confused eyewitness when you say it was there or would you say it was there I couldn't be sure and the possible suspect Boone police completely ignores the fact that you have a person at a crime scene a potential murder scene when they say they weren't there changed the whole complexion of the case [Music] [Music] Bob chapel and Sunil Fraser had been partners for 18 years by most accounts happily living in Hobart they'd spent much of Australia Day 2009 on the Derwent River aboard their dream yacht the four winds Bob decided to stay on board alone overnight which wasn't unusual Susan went ashore and their inflatable white dinghy and around 2:00 that afternoon but next morning the yacht is discovered half submerged and Bob is missing presumed murdered I mean even at a personal level you know my mum must have been going through so much more intense sort of emotions than I was but even me you know Bob missing presumed dead being a part of a murder I mean that stuff you know like we've never been involved in anything like this police yesterday charged Susan Neal Fraser with a murder of her partner Bob Chapel seven months after Bob's disappearance Susan Neal Fraser would be charged with his murder it is true that she seriously weakened her defense by initially lying to police about her movements that night and in the court of public opinion she wasn't seen to play the role of a distraught widow but as we discovered last year the prosecution case was big on imagination there's no body there's no murder weapon there are no injuries to be interpreted and yet the prosecutor put all those things together and told the jury that this man had been struck on the head and killed with a single blow dr. Bob moulds is Australia's leading expert on miscarriages of justice of the hundreds of cases he's reviewed Bob ranked Susan's among the worst in justices in Australian criminal history the prosecution case lacking in logic according to the prosecutor she's killed him or laid him out and no she has to manipulate the body up there she's not a strong woman but then once it's actually up on the deck there she's then got maneuver it over the side into the dingey which is quite away down below the four winds dinghy supposedly drenched with Bob chapels blood is the first of several pieces of evidence now shown to be jubie's an independent expert is shown there is no confirmed blood from Bob Chapel in that dinghy Barbara Etta is a lawyer and former high-ranking police officer she was Western Australia's assistant police commissioner Barbara is bringing her considerable legal and policing experience to the task of freeing Sunil Fraser the court was shown I think a highly prejudicial photo yeah of the four winds dinghy glowing bright blue and being told that there was blood that Bob chapels blood was in that dingy but this independent report by Australia's leading expert on blood strain analysis proves that the blue luridly glowing substance is in fact not blood it's a chemical reaction from the testing agent called luminol the luminol is a presumptive sort of screening test but the point is that a screening test actually doesn't identify the existence of blood what it does do is identify a whole range of possible substances that could give a positive result and these include bleach paints metals vegetables and will give a positive result and sometimes it'll give a positive result just because you've sprayed too much luminol even Sue's daughter Sarah was convinced in court I thought oh my god there's been a bloodbath in the dingey he's been slaughtered I wasn't I just decide when along the lines of thinking all there's blood all through the dingey because that's that's what it was made out be the judge made it perfectly clear to the jury in his summing up that we could exclude the fact that mr. Chappell had disappeared because of the presence of blood that was found in the dinghy and on the yacht he served a large part of the state cases vanished absolutely fundamentally misinformed and she's entitled to have her conviction set aside this false blood test is just the first of many holes in the prosecution case well once I'd brung in and said look I think I saw the boat but I'm not sure Peter Lorraine was a star witness for the prosecution he was walking along the foreshore late that Australia Day Afternoon he believes he saw Bob Chapel working on the deck of the four winds just before five o'clock all I can say is I saw a boat out there with a elderly man on it and and the boat look like the boat that was described as the gentleman's boat and there wasn't any by the boats we're looking at now which one would have been close to where the four winds was at the time I would say it would be between that motorboat and that sailing by it between the nearest sailing boat and the motorboat Peter points directly out in front consistent with his statements and evidence in court but in fact the four winds wasn't moored where Peter thought was 45 degrees to the right and 320 meters off the jetty much further out to test Rita's account we placed this white yacht with a black canopy on the Four Winds mooring I guess all I can say is I saw a boat and I saw a person on it and it it looked like mr. Chappell from there's a big difference there as if the four winds was actually there and the boat you saw was there then it's not one in the same boat is it no but I'm not as I said I'm can't be completely cleared so I couldn't identify mr. Chappell personally all I could say was as you know an elderly figure on the boat that afternoon the same time Peter thought he saw Bob alive several other witnesses saw things very differently I'm looking at the boats that were the furthest out and one in particular caught my eye V July Caen was also looking out on the Derwent River and noticed the four winds she saw no sign of Bob but did notice a dinghy attached to the yacht despite the fact that Susan Neal Fraser had gone ashore and their inflatable white thingie approximately three hours earlier as the boat swung around slightly I could see that there was a dinghy tethered to the starboard side which was an aluminium dinghy so not the dinghy that goes with the boat not an inflated not an inflatable Jill was actually one of four witnesses who saw a grading he attached to the side of the four winds late that afternoon they all said that it wasn't Bob and Sue's white inflatable the mystery is why didn't the police follow up on this dinghy who owned it and what was it doing here perhaps it didn't suit their case the police did come to see me and I showed the gentleman where it was and the policeman confirmed that where I was looking for was whether for wind the sighting of the great aluminium ding he becomes crucially important his Peter was looking at the wrong boat who's to say but wasn't killed earlier by whoever came aboard from that dinghy so the grading he and the people associated with that grading he could well be the murderers and the people who sabotage the four winds the six-year-old mother of two is serving a 23 year sentence for the murder of her partner Bob Chapel but legal experts are convinced is one of Australia's most serious miscarriages of justice Sunil Fraser is behind bars largely because the prosecution successfully argued she was the only possible suspect we now know that's not true the fact of the matter is the case was carefully tailored to fit a particular outcome and a preferred scenario and it didn't take into account all the other factors and didn't comply with the relevant legal rules about her trial should be conducted [Music] in the days after Bob Chappell went missing mystery DNA was found on the deck of the four winds it would eventually be matched to our then sixteen-year-old homeless girl Macon FASS in court she denied ever being on the four winds and the prosecution said her DNA must have got on board by what's called secondary transfer at the trial they said it could have been brought in on the boot of some copper or something of that sort by having trodden on it somewhere else but that's wrong according to the highly respected Victoria police forensic services department which concludes there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the DNA detected was the result of a secondary transfer event caused through foot traffic on the deck of four winds it had to be what they call a primary deposit which means it must be either blood bodily fluids or saliva or something of that sort which was deposited by the person themselves as they got onto the boat so it means that Meghan vas can now be said to have been on the boat at that point yeah and even if we didn't say that that girl particularly dealer it does say that the process of forensic process was flawed dude you don't have to establish that Sunil Fraser was innocent you don't have to establish that many of us is guilty of anything you just have to show that the case that was put to the jury was incorrect and that would be in itself sufficient to warrant a retrial and meet vas wasn't the only homeless person in the vicinity that night who would be dismissed by police the court during sunil Fraser's trial was led to believe that there was no evidence of homeless people on the foreshore that night that they had been accounted for when she's not the case we can prove that that was not the case the police records indicate that that is not the case the worth three itinerant men and the for sure that night one of them stands out violent criminal Paul Road mr. Roe was referred to as a hit man and a person who had multiple identities bullrope has a nine page criminal history including time served in New South Wales for malicious wounding in 2007 he moved to Tasmania living on this yacht it was moored just a few hundred metres from the four winds on the day Bob Chappell disappeared but from the police point of view you actually have a person who is a past history of violence and criminal activity and in the vicinity of a purported crime you'd obviously conduct the careful inquiry at the time but if you it wasn't until three years after Bob chapels disappearance and more than a year after Sunil fraises conviction that police finally interviewed Paul bro shortly afterwards he sold his yacht and left has mania it's another example of failing to follow up on key leads because they already had mom in their sights they had a theory they wanted to secure an arrest and a conviction you would argue they're looking for a conviction and not necessarily to solve a crime absolutely because you know I even had one of the detectives say this was a career case for him this was about you know people's careers it's about statistics is about getting a result but Susan Neal Fraser's supporters think really happened out there in the four winds was a break-in gone wrong bob was alone on the boat with no dinghy attached now it's usually a sign but there's no one there break-ins are extremely common around here and those who know Bob say that if someone had trespassed in his boat he would have reacted angrily there could be making vast for example that could have been homeless people to put up in people on the gray dingy there have been all sorts of people who may have been involved and cannot be satisfactorily excluded but we have to exclude if we're going to have Sunil Fraser convicted of murder Megan vas and Paul Rowe might well be innocent but what's beyond doubt is this they were not thoroughly investigated because police only had eyes for Susan Neal Fraser for Susan calling in from prison the break-in gone wrong theory is the most likely but the cards are still stacked against Susan Neal Fraser in Tasmania as with most of Australia new evidence is not admissible on appeal Sarah this is about more than just her mother's fate it calls into question the justice system itself that's really shattered my faith in a system that's held up to be you know about truth and justice and unless we're prepared to recognize and address those faults then they just keep happening to other people hello I'm Charles Wooley thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our Channel you can also download the 9 now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 187,788

Rating: 4.7749195 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Ellen Fanning, Peter Overton, Karl Stefanovic, Ray Martin, Peter Stefanovic, Jana Wendt, Jeff McMullen, Jennifer Byrne, Mike Munro, Richard Carleton, Tracey Curro, Sarah Abo, Sue Neill-Fraser, Bob Chappell, Crime, Investigation, Tasmania, Hobart, Meaghan Vass

Id: _78lpOF79Zc

Length: 19min 12sec (1152 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020