Evidence shows that justice was not done

TWO words Tony Van Der Baan will never forgive or forget: Not guilty.

Jason Van Der Baan (left) ... his victim Irene Wilson and Tony Van Der Baan.

TWO words Tony Van Der Baan will never forgive or forget: Not guilty.

"I turned to the jury and told them to just read the newspapers tomorrow and see what the truth is," he said.

"It was not a fair trial."

The jury that acquitted his nephew Jason Van Der Baan of murder was never told of evidence - including his confession to an undercover police officer - after a string of decisions by the trial judge.

The victim was Irene Wilson, Tony's sister and Jason's aunt.

The mother-of-three was found tied up and strangled in the bedroom of her Northmead home in 1995.

When Jason Van Der Baan faced trial in 2002, Justice Greg James ruled the jury could not hear admissions he had made to an undercover police officer during four conversations in prison and in a prison van. The judge indicated he believed the police had acted improperly and that the confessions were not voluntary.

Prior convictions are inadmissible so the jury did not know that Van Der Baan had two convictions for rape, one in which the victim had been bound and assaulted in a similar fashion to Mrs Wilson. The judge also ruled inadmissible evidence that Van Der Baan had an obsession with his aunt and in 1985 stole a bra and a pair of her underpants and mutilated them.

Van Der Baan has since pleaded guilty to two other rapes. All four rapes were committed in 1995 and 1996 with two victims sodomised.

Mrs Wilson had suffered eight anal tears but this was not accepted as evidence she had been raped. In the confessions to the undercover officer, Van Der Baan said he had not left semen but had been concerned police would find his hairs.

Tony Van Der Baan said the family had lost faith in the judicial system and juries were treated like idiots.

"There was an arrogance in court about what they could and could not hear. I lost faith in the judicial system but I have regained faith in the police," he said.

It is not the only notorious example of the vagaries of the jury system.

In 1994 Jay Thomas Hart, 42, was of acquitted of the murder of a 16-year-old youth. In 2006 he was acquitted of the murder of Evelyn Greenup, aged 4. Both victims were linked to Hart in the northern NSW community of Bowraville.

An inquest was told that it appeared the primary reason the murder charges failed was because of alleged sightings of both young people after the crown said they had died.

Homicide detectives have told an inquest Hart was the only person with the motive and opportunity to have killed both people. Former state coroner John Abernethy believed there was enough evidence to convict.