Alex Robert Smart wins appeal against Gympie Father’s Day murder conviction

A man accused of murdering a father of five on Father’s Day while he waited at a set of traffic lights in Gympie has had his conviction overturned on appeal.

Alex Robert Smart, who was accused of murdering father of five Tylor “TJ” Bell (inset) in 2019 while he sat behind the wheel of his car at a busy Bruce Hwy intersection in a regional Qld city has had his conviction overturned on appeal.

A man found guilty of the September 2019 murder of a father of five at a Bruce Hwy intersection in Gympie has won a retrial after the Supreme Court found there had been a miscarriage of justice at his trial.

Alex Robert Smart, 29, was convicted by a jury in May 2022 of murdering Tyler “TJ” Bell as he sat in his car at traffic lights at the intersection of the highway and Monkland St in Gympie.

It was alleged Mr Smart had committed the crime following a heated argument in the car park of the Gympie Central Shopping Centre 2km away.

Police allege he followed Mr Bell to the Monkland St intersection, and stabbed him twice while he was behind the wheel.

Mr Bell died in hospital a week later.

Mr Smart appealed the conviction in March 2023.

Alex Robert Smart appealed his conviction by a jury in May 2022 be set aside and a retrial ordered on the grounds the trial judge erred in their instructions to the jury over how it should consider four “purported lies” he had allegedly made while in the watch-house following Tylor Bell’s death. Pictures: Facebook

The published Supreme Court appeal ruling released on Friday, November 17, says Mr Smart appealed on two grounds.

The first was that the trial judge erred when instructing the jury it could conclude any of four purported lies, made in the watch-house following Mr Bell’s death, revealed a consciousness of guilt.

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The second was the judge’s orders were insufficient to correctly direct the jury on how they might use those to infer guilt of murder instead of manslaughter, or even manslaughter instead of something else.

Justice David Boddice said the crown prosecutor “contended four assertions made by (Mr Smart) to undercover police officers were deliberate lies”.

These included that Mr Bell and his father had chased Mr Smart up the highway, that Mr Smart was heading home, that Mr Bell had attacked him with a knife, and that he had disarmed Mr Bell.

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The Queensland Court of Appeal found Alex Robert Smart had been deprived a “fair chance at acquittal” over how the “purported lies” had been addressed at the 2022 trial. Pictures: Facebook

Justice Boddice found Mr Smart’s claim he was heading home “arguably related to his future intentions when he was picked up by his girlfriend at the shopping centre”.

He said under the circumstances the statement was made “that purported lie was incapable of being considered … a lie at all”.

The inclusion of the “false lie” with the others “infected” the entire direction given by the judge.

Justice Boddice said the trial judge had correctly directed the jury in how it must consider these purported lies “the summing up did not direct the jury as to the relevance of each purported lie, in the circumstances of the case and as to how each may be material to an intention to kill or do grievous bodily harm, or as to the unlawfulness of any killing”.

The lies were dealt with as a “generalisation”.

He said in the circumstance where there was a live issue of who produced the knife which “directly impacted” the jury’s ability to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt “there is a real risk the jury impermissibly used the purported lies in determining” that.

“In the circumstances of this case, these matters deprived the appellant of a fair chance of acquittal, occasioning a miscarriage of justice,” Justice Boddice said.

He ordered the appeal be allowed, the jury’s verdict set aside, and a retrial ordered.