Supreme Court jury finds Ian Turnbull guilty of murdering Glen Turner

A FARMER thought he was being targeted and “snapped”. The result was 40 minutes of sheer terror.

THE last 40 minutes of Glen Turner’s life must have been terrifying.

Bleeding and injured after being shot at by farmer Ian Turnbull, he sheltered behind his vehicle with a colleague, Robert Strange. But it wasn’t enough.

As he darted, bleeding, around the vehicles as the shots continued, Mr Turner made a break for a line of trees he hoped would give him cover and save his life.

He didn’t make it far. Another shot rang out and struck Mr Turner in the back, forcing him to the ground where he died.

Mr Turnbull would later say “a sense of calmness” came over him after the shooting and he allowed Mr Strange, who also had been hiding behind the vehicle, and been pleading for him to stop, to leave.

“You can go now. I’ll be at home waiting for the police,” he told him.

MURDER OR MANSLAUGHTER?

Turnbull, now 81, was found guilty on Friday afternoon of murder. Jurors had deliberated for a day — the question was not who pulled the trigger, but whether his actions that night in 2014 amounted to murder or manslaughter. Turnbull did not dispute he shot Mr Turner, but says he was suffering a mental condition, which reduced his capability from murder to manslaughter, because the illness affected his ability to recognise the difference between right and wrong.

His barrister Todd Alexis SC told the jury Turnbull had become obsessive about the land clearing prosecutions that Mr Turner, in his role as environmental compliance officer from the Office of Environment and Heritage had been involved in.

The scene of Glen Turner’s death.

Glen Turner.

Turnbull, the court heard, believed Mr Turner hated his family and was trying to ruin them and force them off his land.

The Crown had a different view, however.

In his opening statement, Crown Prosecutor Pat Barrett said the farmer was consumed by a “personal hatred of Mr Turner” and that, not a depressive illness, was the cause of the shooting that followed.

The Crown argued Turnbull’s actions were premeditated, and that his anger towards Mr Turner was widely known by his family and friends

JULY 29, 2014: THE DAY GLEN TURNER DIED

The afternoon of the shooting Mr Turner and Mr Strange saw fires coming from the Turnbull property. Suspecting they were native vegetation being cleared, Mr Strange stopped to take pictures of the activity, while Mr Turner recorded GPS coordinates.

They were at the side of a road at Croppa Creek near Moree.

Turnbull knew they were there because he’d been told by a farm employee of their arrival. He approached from behind and pulled up behind their ute.

“Without saying anything he raised and aimed a rifle at Mr Turner and shot him resulting in Glen Turner being injured to the neck and chin,” Mr Barrett said.

He fell to the ground, but the injury wasn’t fatal, and the two men took cover behind their ute.

Ian Turnbull is led into the Supreme Court.

Photos of the back of Ian Robert Turnbull's ute where he put the .22 caliber pump action browning rifle he used to shoot Glen Turner.

‘THE ONLY WAY YOU ARE GOING HOME IS IN A BODY BAG’

Mr Strange tried to negotiate with Turnbull and allow him to get medical help for his colleague. But he said Turnbull wouldn’t listen.

“I said, ‘We are not here to hurt you’. He said, ‘You have ruined the Turnbulls, you have sent us bankrupt’.’’

He said he heard the first shot and saw Mr Turner drop to his knees. A second shot followed, this time hitting him in the chest.

At one stage his colleague tried to get back into the car — but his evidence was Turnbull kept the gun on him trying to get a clear shot.

“I said, ‘Sir, put the gun down, what are you doing?’,” Mr Strange said.

Mr Turnbull allegedly told him to get rid of his digital camera and said, “No, you’ve ruined the Turnbulls, you’re continually persecuting us, the only way you are going home is in a body bag.”

Mr Strange was in no doubt he was referring to Mr Turner.

Robert Strange gave evidence about the shooting of his colleague.

For the next 40 minutes they engaged in a frightening game of cat and mouse. On one side of the vehicle Mr Turner was crouched down, out of Turnbull’s view. When Turnbull moved, Mr Turner would head in the opposite direction, carefully keeping his head down.

The trial heard Mr Strange tried to get into the drivers seat, but was prevented in doing so by Turnbull who threatened him with a bullet “to the heart”.

Through tears, he spoke from the witness box of how Mr Turner urged him to go and save himself.

Darkness fell and Mr Strange tried to call 000, but the signal was too weak due to their remote location. He once again tried to reason with him.

“I said to Turnbull, ‘We are only doing our job’, and he said we were not letting him do his job and we wanted to send him broke.”

Finally, the injured Mr Turner rose and made a break for it. Mr Turnbull raised the rifle and fired. Mr Turner had only made it 10m.

Mr Turnbull then said: “You can go now. I’ll be at home waiting for the police,” before driving away.

Paramedics were called to the scene but Mr Turner couldn’t be saved.

‘A CALMNESS CAME OVER ME’

Giving evidence in his own defence, Turnbull said something just “snapped” when he heard the compliance officers were on his property.

“Something snapped. I got the rifle out and I drove down behind his vehicle,” he said to the jury.

He told his barrister Todd Alexis SC he thought about shooting them as he drove there.

“You aimed to kill him both times, didn’t you?” asked prosecutor Pat Barrett, reported the ABC.

Turnbull answered: “Yes.”

He said at first he felt extremely nervous and was unsure that he would shoot Mr Turner.

“Once I fired the first shot calmness came over me like I couldn’t believe and it remained until I finished,” he said.

By his own account, Turnbull told the jury he pulled up and shouted: “Turner you bastard you want to put the Turnbulls off their land and you have done it.”

It was then he fired.

Members of the Glen Turner's family leave court.

Mr Alexis asked him how he felt when he fired the fatal shot.

“I felt like, I thought I killed him, I didn’t want to kill him, I don’t know why I thought a bullet would not kill him but that is the way it was.”

When he returned home his wife Robeena Turnbull said he washed his hands and asked for a chair to sit down.

She thought he looked different.

“He looked utterly wretched, like everything had been drained out of him,” she told in evidence.

He told her: “I simply snapped, I didn’t mean it”.

Mrs Turnbull told the court she and her husband believed they were being unfairly targeted.

“We didn’t feel like we were doing anything wrong, so why were we being targeted?” she said.

Mrs Turnbull denied her husband had ever expressed wanting to harm Mr Turner before the shooting.

WAS HE SUFFERING FROM MAJOR DEPRESSION?

Mr Alexis told the court his client could not be “condemned” for not realising he wasn’t well, and “nor should his family”.

“The evidence shows that there was a marked, demonstrable change in the many months before the shooting,” Mr Alexis said.

Friends and family told of him becoming steadily withdrawn with his sleeping and eating habits interrupted.

A forensic psychiatrist treating Turnbull told the court the farmer had major depression and was not in a rational state of mind at the time of the shooting.

Mr Alexis said the case was “bizarre” in the sense that his client’s actions were “completely at odds” with the way he had previously led his life.

“You might think that the significantly out-of-character conduct rather strongly underlines the severity of the mental illness at the time.”

Depression affects people in different ways and could occasionally lead “ to tragic consequences — and this case is a regrettable example.”

GUILTY OF MURDER

After the verdict was read on Friday afternoon, members of Mr Turner’s family hugged and cried. Turnbull reportedly had tears in his eyes.

A sentence hearing will be held on June 15.

Originally published as Supreme Court jury finds Ian Turnbull guilty of murdering Glen Turner