Parklands drowning murder trial: Peter Dansie’s lawyer says his actions were only sinister ‘if one presumes he’s guilty’
The lawyer for a man accused of drowning his wife in a parklands pond says his client’s apparent lack of grief and online sex-talk with Chinese women do not mean he is a murderer.
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The conduct of a man who stands accused of drowning his wheelchair-bound wife is only “sinister” and amounts to a murder plot “if one presumes he is guilty”, a court has heard.
On Monday, lawyers for Peter Rex Dansie told the Supreme Court that prosecutors had failed to disprove Helen Dansie’s death was anything other than a tragic accident.
They said the evidence amounted only to “maybe”, not proof beyond reasonable doubt, while his “steamy” online trysts with Chinese women were merely the “late-night fantasies of a lonely old man”.
Greg Mead SC, for Dansie, conceded his client had an “unusual personality” and had displayed less grief and sense of loss than would other people.
However, he said Dansie’s only true failing was a lack of recognition of his age and poor health.
“What he was lacking was sufficient insight into, and recognition of, his own limitations – and that lack of insight might have led to the tragic death of Mrs Dansie,” he said.
“In a sense, he lost his wife 20 years ago (when she had a stroke) ... Your Honour might think he’s had a pretty hard time of it over 20 years.
“If one presumes he’s guilty, then his comments and actions are sinister.”
Dansie, 70, has pleaded not guilty to having murdered Helen, 67, by drowning her in a Veale Gardens pond in April 2017.
She was disabled due to a stroke – Dansie has maintained her wheelchair accidentally went into the pond and she drowned despite his attempts to save her.
Prosecutors say he threw her into the water because she was “a burden he was no longer prepared to tolerate”, then embarked on “a course of deception and subterfuge” to avoid arrest.
When questioned by the couple’s son, Grant, about Helen’s death, Dansie – who had not been charged at the time – replied “I’ve been told not to comment”.
Prior to the drowning, prosecutors allege, Dansie researched “cheap funerals” and insurance policies, as well as “sexual role-playing games” and fetishwear.
He allegedly had online sex trysts with two women in China, telling them “playing comes first, then husband” and packing sex toys and Viagra for an overseas trip.
In his closing address, Mr Mead said a person who “planned and executed the murder of his wife” would not have been so forthcoming with police about his online searches and travel plans.
Dansie, he said, displayed no malice toward his wife when questioned by police and “lacked signs of a guilty mind”.
He said the funeral insurance company contacted Dansie – not the other way around – and offered him cover.
“Does that then put it in his mind to stage the accidental death of his wife? ‘Maybe’ is about as high as you can put it,” he said.
Mr Mead said Dansie had clearly wanted to continue caring for his wife, and was upset that his son and relatives were seeking to have her placed in a nursing home.
That desire, he said, explained why he talked to police more about the “family feud” than he did his grief over her loss.
He said Dansie’s online exchanges were consistent with “the longings of a lonely, ageing man” who had been caring for his wife.
“These steamy conversations may reflect the desires of an unfulfilled man, but it cannot be automatically assumed they represent some sort of plan to murder his wife and then run off to fulfil those desires,” he said.
“Mrs Dansie was in respite care... if he wanted to pursue other interests, as it were, he was free to come and go as he pleased.
“(His comments) could have meant ‘I’m happy to play around, then I have to go back to being a husband’.”
Justice David Lovell - who has heard the case in the absence of a jury - said the online chats could not “be put to one side” like that, and had to be considered in the context of the entire case.
He said that, from his viewing of the evidence, Dansie had shown “just no sense of grief at all” from the moment he called 000.
“I can see your client is a man who’s a little different and does things differently... this is odd even for someone who’s odd,” he said.
He will hand down his verdict on a date to be set.