Trial of Jake Ansell, Corey Bradbury dismissed after officer deletes evidence from phone

The sensational reason a high-profile rape trial of two men at a popular park near Bundaberg was dismissed has finally been revealed.

A Bundaberg rape trial has been sensationally axed and barred from ever returning to the courts amid revelations a police investigator deleted evidence.

The trial, which was held over several days regarding allegations Jake Edward Ansell and Corey John Bradbury raped a woman at a campsite in 2018, was dismissed from the Bundaberg District Court on June 16.

Mr Ansell and Mr Bradbury were each charged with two counts of rape.

They each pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In a published ruling Judge Ken Barlow said the officer, under cross-examination as to what he did with the complainant’s phone when he first interviewed her, he had taken it and downloaded its contents through software called Cellebrite.

The trial of Cory John Bradbury (left) and Jake Edward Ansell, who each pleaded not guilty to rape charges, has been dismissed and permanently stayed amid revelations a police investigator deleted evidence form a phone.

Mr Barlow said this “downloads all that can be downloaded from a phone, whether deleted or not, including photographs and possibly social media”.

These reportedly included screenshots of Snapchat exchanges between her and Mr Ansell.

“The officer said that, having looked through the download, he decided that there was nothing in it that was of any relevance and he therefore deleted it,” Mr Barlow said in his ruling.

In police interviews before the trial “no doubt intended to be tendered by the prosecution”, Mr Barlow said, Mr Ansell claimed “during the evening the complainant showed him photographs of her where she was nude”.

A published ruling from Judge Ken Barlow said the trial was cancelled after an investigating officer deleted information from the complainant's phone.

“Clearly, it was only when the investigating officer was told those things by the first defendant (Mr Ansell) that he might have first thought there might be photographs that were relevant on the complainant’s phone,” Mr Barlow said.

“But by then it was too late because she had destroyed her phone, or at least she no longer had it, and he had deleted the Cellebrite download of her phone.”

Mr Barlow ruled these pictures would have been relevant to the case, including as to her reliability as a witness and as to whether or not she was too inhibited and “might have knowingly or voluntarily” engaged in the sexual activity on the night.

“Of course, we will never know now and the jury could never know whether or not she had such photos and had shown them to the first defendant (Mr Ansell),” Mr Barlow said.

Judge Ken Barlow said the deletion of the phone’s contents, which allegedly included nude photos of the complainant the one of the defendants said she showed them, meant the courts and jury “would never know now … whether or not she had such photos”.

The defence said this was a “deliberate deletion of forensically relevant material which has irrevocably prejudiced the fair trial in a way that cannot be overcome by any directions that I give to the jury”.

They told the court the deletion of the images “tends to indicate impropriety” and “which not only leads to unfairness but, if the trial were allowed to proceed and the defendants were convicted, would lead to the process of the court being brought into disrepute and public confidence in the court system being reduced”.

Mr Barlow ordered the “proceedings on the indictment be permanently stayed”.