Elizabeth Anne Turner in Mackay court over fugitive son case
A mother accused of helping her fugitive son buy a boat to flee the country ahead of his cocaine smuggling trial wants her case stalled until the Crown pays for her hefty legal bill.
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A mother accused of helping her fugitive son flee the country ahead of his cocaine smuggling trial wants her case stalled until the Crown pays for her hefty legal bill.
Elizabeth Anne Turner was found guilty at her trial in November 2020 of one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice and three counts of giving a false testimony.
She was jailed for four years to serve at least two, but in 2021 the conviction was overturned and a retrial ordered on appeal after she had spent about 10 months behind bars.
Brisbane silk Saul Holt argued in Mackay District Court on Monday for a stay of proceedings in relation to the case until the Crown “pays costs thrown away” at the previous trial after the conviction was overturned because of a prosecutorial error regarding an objection.
It is alleged Mrs Turner, 67, offered a $520,000 surety to help her son get bail before helping him in buying a yacht that he sailed to the Philippines, a month before his trial in Mackay Supreme Court.
Markis Scott Turner was facing serious charges including drug smuggling – it is alleged he was the ringleader of a major cocaine importation syndicate.
He was arrested in 2011 but absconded from Australia four years later in August 2015 and remained on the run for two years. He was captured in the Philippines in September 2017.
It is further alleged Mrs Turner lied to the supreme court about her conduct and her belief her son had taken his own life.
During the trial, Mr Holt tried to lead evidence from Mrs Turner’s daughter-in-law Magdalena Turner about his client’s state of mind before he was found in the Philippines.
Prosecution objected, arguing it was hearsay and inadmissable and the trial judge allowed the objection. However, the Queensland Court of Appeal determined the excluded evidence was relevant to Mrs Turner’s credit and overturned the four convictions.
Mr Holt said neither his client nor her husband could work and if they sold their assets – a shed worth about $395,000 and a mining camp at Moranbah worth between $600,000-$635,000 – the net equity after debts were paid would be $86,000.
Mr Holt said both assets were unavailable for sale and even if they were it would “yield nothing like sufficient to allow the trial to be run” and to leave Mrs Turner and her husband with funds to live.
“By virtue of the Crown’s error leading the trial judge into error in the first trial,” he said, also stating the entirety of the circumstances amounted to unfairness against his client especially given the Crown knows her entire defence ahead of any retrial.
However, Queens Counsel Lincoln Crowley, acting for the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions, argued in the first trial “as the evidence is unfolding it’s a dynamic situation, the prosecutor has made a forensic judgment in a moment to object to the evidence that had been given”.
“When one comes to look at the critical issue of fault of the prosecution, this is not the type of case that justifies the discretion being exercised in favour of (Mrs Turner),” Mr Crowley said.
He said if it were the case, it would set the precedent that any time and objection taken that turned out to be wrong “then the premise the foundation for this type of application” would be set for other cases.
Presiding judge Vicki Loury reserved her decision to a later date.
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