No Body, No Parole: New shot at freedom for Stephen Renwick over missing body

THE man at the centre of Queensland’s No Body No Parole laws has been given a fresh shot at release from jail, even though the body he pleaded guilty to disposing has never been found.

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THE man at the centre of Queensland’s No Body No Parole laws has been given a fresh shot at release from jail.

Stephen Renwick, is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to disposing of the body of Timothy Pullen, west of Airlie Beach, after he was slain over a $30,000 drug debt in 2012.

Renwick was in June last year the first person to apply for parole under the new laws that keep killers behind bars if they refuse to identify the location of a victim’s remains.

Stephen Dale Renwick is making a bid for freedom, despite the fact Timothy Pullen’s body has never been found.

Renwick’s application was denied after the Queensland Parole Board (the Board) found he had not “co-operated satisfactorily” in locating Mr Pullen’s body, having offered police several locations to where he believed the man’s body was dumped west of Mackay.

Mr Pullen’s remains have never been found.

Renwick has now been given the chance to reapply for parole after the Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a fresh application be heard in front of different members of the Board to those who heard his first bid for release.

The new application comes after the Board in May revoked their decision to deny parole, realising they “failed to take into account material” — namely transcripts of previous court hearings relating to the matter – when deciding whether Renwick should be released.

Mackay man Timothy Pullen was killed in 2012.

In early June, Renwick’s solicitor claimed the Board who originally heard the application would be unable to make a decision without bias because they had previously decided the man was “a liar”.

On Thursday, Justice Helen Bowskill ordered that new members of the Board must sit to consider Renwick’s fresh parole application.

“Here, the decision-maker had expressed clear views about the live and significant issue in the case and about the credit of a witness whose evidence is of significance to that issue,” she said.

“It is reasonable for both the applicant, and the fair-minded lay-observer, to apprehend that the Board, as originally constituted, might have a predisposition towards the same conclusion …

“There is no practical impediment to the Board being constituted differently in order to consider and make a decision in relation to Mr Renwick’s application for parole.”

The new application for parole will be heard at a date yet to be determined.

The Board was ordered to pay Renwick’s legal costs for the application.

Renwick’s solicitor, Nick Dore of Fisher Dore Lawyers, said his client hoped the application will be considered as soon as possible.

“Our client and his family are happy with today’s decision and are hopeful the Parole Board can consider the application for parole as expeditiously as possible,” he said.