Kathleen Folbigg to move to a farm in Grafton if she is released

After 20 years in jail freedom is within reach for Kathleen Folbigg, but what will be the next step for the woman once dubbed the most hated in Australia.

If Kathleen Folbigg is released from prison, which now appears more likely than not, she will swap her jail cell for the wide open spaces of a farm in the Northern Rivers not far from where she is currently imprisoned.

Folbigg was jailed for the murder of her three children and the manslaughter of another in 2003, but after 20 years she now faces the real prospect of freedom following an inquiry which cast fresh doubt on her convictions.

Currently serving her sentence in the Clarence Correctional Centre on the outskirts of Grafton, where she was once seriously bashed by another inmate, Folbigg will move to the property owned by her best friend and lifelong supporter Tracey Chapman.

Kathleen Folbigg’s friend Tracey Chapman has built an apartment at her property for her to live at. Picture Deb Novak,

Ms Chapman said her friend would live with her on her farm near Grafton where her family has built a home for her.

“We have built a new two bedroom apartment on the farm and she will come live with me,” Ms Chapman said.

It came as Folbigg’s lawyer Rhanee Rego called for her immediate release.

Ms Rego said Attorney General Michael Daley has the power to make that happen, at any time.

MOTHER’S GUILT: LISTEN TO OUR EXCLUSIVE PODCAST ON KATHLEEN FOLBIGG’S LIFE

“Premier Minns and the Attorney General have an incredible opportunity to stop a grieving mum’s suffering,” Ms Rego told The Saturday Telegraph.

“Premier Minns and the Attorney General not only have the authority and power to see that justice is done, but the moral responsibility to ensure it is done swiftly.”

Folbigg has always maintained her innocence and Chapman will be by her side as she begins the long process of rebuilding her life.

Kathleen Folbigg has spent the past 20 years in jail but could soon be free. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

Ms Chapman said her friend not only lost four children, and two decades of her liberty, but she was left with a massive debt of $250,000.

Folbigg also lost the family home when her husband divorced her shortly after she was convicted.

“Shortly after she was incarcerated, she was sent paperwork that said you owe the government a quarter of a million dollars. Craig Folbigg claimed $50,000 for each child and $50,0000 for himself as a victim of crime and Kath got lumbered with that bill,” Ms Chapman said.

“It was very confronting at the time because it reinforced (that) everyone saw her as a mother who had killed her four children when of course she knew she didn’t,” Ms Chapman said. She added that she hoped if there was a retrial or a pardon, that the bill would be dropped.

In stark contrast to the first inquiry in 2018, which cost the taxpayer $2.4 million, the current inquiry chaired by retired chief justice Tom Bathurst has heard overwhelming scientific evidence of a “plausible” cause that at least two of the children, Laura and Sarah, died of fatal cardiac arrhythmias.

Kathleen and Craig Folbigg with their baby Sarah who died in 1993.

Ms Folbigg has been described as Australia’s worst female serial killer and Australia’s most hated woman, after being found guilty of three counts of murder and one of manslaughter in 2000 was sentenced to 40 years in jail, reduced on appeal to a minimum of 25 years.

The four infants aged from 19 days to 18 months – died between 1989 and 1999.

Off the back of a petition signed by over 156 eminent scientists that a rare mutation linked to sudden cardiac arrhythmias that could have caused the sudden deaths in at least two of the infants, former attorney General Mark Speakman almost apologetically announced the second inquiry.

With no physical evidence any of the children had been smothered, police and lead investigator Detective Bernie Ryan, and the prosecution relied on the discredited theory known as Meadow’s Law that more than one sudden infant death was suspicious and four in one family unheard of, therefore homicide was the default cause.

“(The) belief that one unexplained death of an infant may be called SIDS, a second should be considered undetermined and a third should be considered murder until it is proven not to be. This thinking has of course now been discredited,” Bathurst said.

The theory had already been discredited in 2003 after several women in the UK were wrongly accused of killing their infant children.

There are several pathways to possible freedom for Folbigg.

While no time frame has been given for the final report from former NSW chief justice Tom Bathurst, he can either recommend the case be referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal, or he could request a pardon from the NSW government.

Attorney General Michael Daley could also issue a pardon. The Government can also grant her early parole., which would not be “a finding of innocence” according to her lawyers.