Convicted Market Square murderer Karl Hague tries to overturn jury’s verdict on Ricky Balcombe killing
The legal team of Karl Hague has argued a jury’s decision to convict him of the 1995 murder of Geelong teenager Ricky Balcombe in Market Square was a “substantial miscarriage of justice” and that his trial was “unfair”.
Cold Cases
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THE man convicted of murdering teenager Ricky Balcombe in Geelong’s Market Square shopping centre 24 years ago made a bid for freedom Friday.
Karl Michael Hague, 46, was found guilty of the cold case murder last year, but yesterday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn that verdict.
If that does not happen he has asked for a retrial, or a reduction to his 26-year (20-year minimum) sentence.
His legal team argued the jury’s decision was a “substantial miscarriage of justice” and “unreasonable”, and said “the trial was unfair”.
Felicity Gerry, QC, told the three appeal justices new evidence had emerged since the verdict that should’ve been presented to the 12 jurors, or would have influenced the way she ran Hague’s defence.
She said the jury was subjected to improper identification and confession evidence, singling out the 15-hour testimony of Balcombe’s friend Paul Bellia.
Among more than 60 people to give evidence at the trial, Mr Bellia was the only one to directly identify Hague as the person who stabbed 16-year-old Balcombe with a knife near the shopping centre’s lifts on May 5, 1995.
It was a crime that shocked Geelong, and a mystery that disturbed the city for more than two decades until Hague’s conviction in April, 2018.
No one at the trial appeared more tormented by it than Mr Bellia.
He was 17 at the time, and was walking with Balcombe near the shopping centre lifts when the killer attacked, saying “do you remember me, mother---ker?”.
After giving police varying versions of events over the years, Bellia was aged 40 by the time the trial happened.
He gave evidence for 15 hours over five gruelling days.
Ultimately, his evidence was that he saw the long-haired murderer clearly, knew his face, and later learned his name was Karl Hague.
Ms Gerry tried to have Mr Bellia disqualified as a witness before the trial started last year, arguing his evidence over two decades had been inconsistent, unreliable and contradictory.
Justice Lex Lasry, who presided over the trial, was willing to let him testify about everything but the fact Hague was the killer. But His Honour’s ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal at a pre-trial hearing, and the man’s evidence was fully explored at the trial.
Ms Gerry argued Friday that, in hindsight, that should not have happened, and while Mr Bellia claimed he was motivated by fear as a younger police witness, some of his evidence was shown to be “preposterous”.
But Crown prosecutors Fran Dalziel, QC, and Angela Ellis urged the Court of Appeal to uphold the jury’s verdict, saying Mr Bellia was an important witness but not the decisive factor at the trial. They said the Crown’s case was built on a wide range of circumstantial evidence.
Justice Mark Weinberg, of the Court of Appeal, said the jury members would’ve scrutinised the candour of many of the witnesses that took the stand.
“There wasn’t much that was reliable about a lot of the witnesses in this case,” he said.
He added that might have extended to Hague’s own ill-fated stint in the witness box.
“The great big elephant in the room is your client’s evidence. He did not come over terribly well in my opinion,” Justice Weinberg said.
Mr Gerry responded: “It wasn’t a performance that would get him an Oscar.”
Weinberg: “It might get him an Oscar but it’s not going to get him an acquittal.
“The prosecutor (Andrew Tinney SC,) effectively eviscerated your client under cross examination.”
Hague was first questioned about Ricky Balcombe’s murder three days after the stabbing. He was charged with the murder in 1996, and spent a year in jail before being released when the charge was dropped.
The case went cold until new evidence came t light in 2017 and he was again charged as the killer. He has already served more than three years of his jail term, and appeared in court yesterday minus the bushy beard he wore at his sentencing last year, but with a new-look ponytail.
The three Court of Appeal justices will deliver their decision on his applications at a later date.
Originally published as Convicted Market Square murderer Karl Hague tries to overturn jury’s verdict on Ricky Balcombe killing