Leonard Warwick on trial over four murders and string of bombings
A SYDNEY father is accused of carrying out four murders and a strings of bombings in the 1980s during a bitter custody and property battle with his ex-wife, a court has heard.
NSW
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A SYDNEY father is accused of carrying out four murders and a strings of bombings in the 1980s during a bitter custody and property battle with his ex-wife, a court has heard.
Today is the first day of former firefighter Leonard John Warwick’s NSW Supreme Court trial for 24 historical offences between February 1980 and July 1985, including the murders of his brother-in-law Stephen Blanchard and Family Court judge David Opas.
Warwick pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court today to four murders.
Warwick is also accused of setting off the bomb that killed the wife of Justice Ray Watson — Pearl Watson — and the attempted murder of Justice Richard Gee.
The 71-year-old is also accused of setting off the bomb which killed Graham Wykes and maimed 13 people in a Jehovah’s Witness Hall.
Today the court heard how a trail of blood left on carpet and a piece of cardboard at the Jehovah’s Witness Hall at Casula matched the DNA of Warwick.
The organisation had offered support to Warwick’s ex-wife.
Her brother went missing from his room in the home he shared with the family on February 24, 1980 and his body was found in a creek in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park days later.
Attached around his waist were 11 bricks which were similar to those found at Warwick’s home, the prosecutor said.
Soon after, the legal dispute came before Justice Opas, who made orders and comments which Warwick allegedly would have regarded as being adverse to his case.
During the break, Warwick allegedly told his ex-wife: “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. He won’t be there much longer.”
The judge was shot dead in the courtyard of his home with a .22 calibre rifle, the same type used to kill Mr Blanchard, Crown prosecutor Ken McKay said.
In his opening address this morning Mr McKay said the prosecution’s case was that Warwick committed the murders and bombings as a result of family law court proceedings with his ex-wife Andrea Blanchard, which took place between 1979 and 1986.
“The seven events [murders and bombings] can be understood through consideration of proceedings that took place in the Family Court of Australia involving the accused and his now ex-wife Andrea Blanchard,” Mr McKay said.
“We not only say that the events themselves can be understood in light of those proceedings but the proceedings themselves inextricably link the accused to the offences and provide the foundation for the motivation the Crown says existed for the accused to commit the offences,” he said.
Mr McKay said Warwick’s father had worked at a colliery using explosives and detonators for decades while the accused himself had been in the army from 1967 to 1969.
The trial continues before Justice Peter Garling.