High Court overturns murder conviction for Ben Mitchell, Alfred Rigney, Matt Tenhoopen and Aaron Carver
Four men convicted of the beating murder of a man at a drug house have had their convictions overturned by the nation’s highest court.
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The High Court has unanimously overturned the murder conviction of four Adelaide men over the death of an Albanian national at a drug grow house.
Benjamin John Mitchell, 35, Alfred Claude Rigney, 48, Matt Bernard Tenhoopen, 26, and Aaron Donald Carver, 39, were found guilty by a jury of the murder of Urim Gjabri.
All four were sentenced in March 2021 to the mandatory life in prison with a 20 year non-parole period.
On Wednesday, the full sitting of the High Court unanimously found that the jury in the trial had not been instructed correctly and ordered the men stand trial again.
Mr Gjabri died from a fatal head wound around 12.30am on October 8, 2018 at a house in Para Vista.
There was evidence at the house that a significant drug crop had been removed from the house around the time of the assault.
Mr Gjabri suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head, which did not kill him straight away.
Instead Mr Gjabri staggered to a makeshift bed in the house where he died. His body was not discovered for three days after the attack.
Rigney, Mitchell, Carver and Tenhoopen were all charged with murder over the incident and stood trial together.
A fifth man, whose identity is suppressed, was also charged with murder and remains before the court.
The High Court was asked to consider the contentious issue of constructive murder and whether it was put to the jury correctly during the trial.
The prosecution case at trial was that if the jury was satisfied the group had acted with the purpose of committing a major indictable crime and in the act of that crime Mr Gjabri was murdered – then all four were guilty of murder regardless of whether they struck the killing blow or not.
All the jury had to be satisfied of was that the group had contemplated an act of violence could occur and still joined the joint criminal enterprise.
The foursome contends that they had only planned to commit trespass onto the property to steal the cannabis crop.
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