Philip John Rollond cleared of all charges arising from alleged theft of $1.5m in farming and car-racing equipment in SA’s Mid North

A murder trial witness has been cleared of any involvement in the alleged theft of $1.5m in farming and car-racing equipment over a 10-year period.

Philip John Rollond outside the Adelaide Magistrates Court in 2016.

A key witness in a Supreme Court murder trial has been acquitted of, and faces no further accusations regarding, the alleged theft of $1.5 million in farming and car-racing equipment.

Following an appeal that overturned a District Court guilty verdict, prosecutors withdrew all charges against Philip John Rollond.

Prosecutors also dropped all remaining charges laid against Mr Rollond in the Adelaide Magistrates Court – and paid his legal costs as a result.

The allegations against Mr Rollond, 55, arose from the alleged theft of a distinctive trailer – used to transport racing cars – from Burra, in the state’s Mid North, in 2015.

In March 2016, Mr Rollond was charged over the alleged theft and further accused of having stolen a total of $1.5 million worth of equipment over a 10-year period.

In September 2017, the court heard he was a witness to the murder of Tungkillo man Kevin Skeyhill, who was stabbed by Darren Geoffrey Lorke over a fencing dispute.

Lorke was convicted of murder by the Supreme Court and sentenced to life imprisonment with a 20-year non-parole period.

Mr Rollond was subsequently found guilty, in the District Court, of seven counts of theft and argued he should be spared prison because his assistance with Lorke’s case would put his safety at risk in jail.

In June 2020, he was jailed for three years – however that sentence was revoked, and his convictions quashed, by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

That court acquitted Mr Rollond of one count of theft and ordered the remaining six be the subject of a retrial.

However, prosecutors instead tendered no evidence on all six counts, and then withdrew the remaining matters in the Magistrates Court.