Jason Roberts’ ex-girlfriend says she is prepared to testify in court
THE former girlfriend of Jason Roberts says she is prepared to testify in court that they were together at home on the night two police officers were murdered.
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- Police killer bombshell: Jason Roberts ‘was not there, Ron Iddles says
- How Jason Roberts became the protege of killer Bandali Debs
- Jason Roberts’ prison letter to Bandali Debs: ‘Tell the truth’ on police shooting
THE former girlfriend of Jason Roberts says she is prepared to testify in court that they were together at home on the night two police officers were murdered.
In an intriguing police record of interview, obtained by the Herald Sun, Nicole Debs told veteran homicide detective Ron Iddles that Roberts was beside her in bed when police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller were shot.
The assertion was taken to corroborate Roberts’ own statement to police eight months earlier.
Ms Debs has not seen Roberts or her estranged father, Bandali Debs — who with Roberts was convicted of the murders — since 2007. But she says she is prepared to testify to set the record straight.
‘’I have not seen Jason Roberts for six years and I now have a new life,’’ she states in her videotaped police interview in November 2013.
‘’I do not want to see Jason Roberts and I can assure you I would not lie for him. What I want to do is set the record right, and confirm with you Jason Roberts was home with me on the night of 15 August, 1998. I am prepared to give this evidence if required.’’
In her statement, Ms Debs also gives, for the first time, her account of her father’s actions on the night of the police murders.
She says Bandali Debs left the house alone about 10pm, after asking to use her Hyundai Excel.
BANDALI DEBS PAYS PRICE FOR MURDERS OF POLICE OFFICERS AND SEX WORKERS
He returned home alone about 1am on August 16.
She is categorical that she went to bed with Roberts.
And she says that when she awoke to the sound of her car coming into the garage, Roberts was beside her.
‘’I can’t remember him even getting out of bed that night. Like, when I woke up at one o’clock in the morning, he was right next to me,’’ Ms Debs states.
‘’One thing is for sure, is my dad had left and Jason was still with me, and we went to bed together on that night.’’
Mr Iddles concludes in his 2016 affidavit in support of Roberts’s appeal bid that Nicole Debs has no reason to lie.
“I found Nicole to be forthright, open and frank, with no reason at all for her to be untruthful,’’ he states.
“In fact, she implicates her father, which she had never done before.’’
A review of the Roberts conviction was first attempted by his former lawyer, Sean Grant. Mr Grant approached former chief commissioner Simon Overland’s chief of staff, Superintendent Rod Wilson, in February 2009, but was rebuffed.
The year-long review from December 2012, codenamed Operation Rainmaker, was eventually conducted by a homicide squad team led by Mr Iddles.
In three critical meetings in March 2013, Roberts gave an account of the shootings which he alleged had been related to him by Bandali Debs, his former father-figure and partner in crime.
Mr Iddles has concluded that Roberts’s detailed statement on the murders, asserting that Debs was the lone gunman, is “plausible’’.
“I first met Roberts on 12 March, 2013, and spent a considerable number of hours with him, last seeing him in late January, 2014,’’ he says in his affidavit.
“I have dealt with thousands of witnesses in my career, and it is difficult, if someone is telling lies, to maintain the story without error or conflict over a period of time,” he says.
“Roberts has never varied his account in relation to the night Silk and Miller were killed. During the course of 12 months, he relayed the account to other investigators in my presence, and again without error or conflict over a period of time.’’
Mr Iddles acknowledges in his 2013 report to the Office of Public Prosecutions that, given the lapse in time since the murders, some will believe that Roberts’ claims have been concocted.
“The account now given by Roberts is after 13 years in prison,’’ Mr Iddles says.
“Some will take the view he has had a lot of time to think about it, and come up with a concocted story in an attempt to be released from prison by some legal mechanism.
“The other view is he might actually be telling the truth, and if that is the case, then it is a matter for the judicial system to set the record straight.”
But Mr Iddles says: “I have endeavoured to look at the new statement (of Roberts) and all the material in an objective manner. I am unable to find any material or evidence which would show Roberts’s new account is contradicted in any way by evidence presented at the original Supreme Court trial.
“Based on my knowledge of the circumstances which I developed, and with the benefit of having a detailed statement from Roberts, I formed a view that the account of Debs, as told to Roberts, is plausible,” he says.
Roberts has confessed to committing 10 armed hold-ups — known as the Hamada robberies — with Debs.
He also admits to being an accessory after the fact to the murders of Sgt Silk and Sen- Const Miller, by repairing the Hyundai and hiding guns, including those used to shoot the officers.
Roberts, who has been convicted of two counts of murder, has spent 16 years of his life term in a maximum-security prison.
He received a minimum non-parole term of 35 years.
But retrospective laws introduced by the Andrews government last December would prevent Roberts from then being paroled.
POLICE KILLER BOMBSHELL: SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
VETERAN COP’S SHOCK VERDICT: JASON ROBERTS ‘WAS NOT THERE’
HOW A TEEN BECAME A KILLER’S PROTEGE
ROBERTS’ JAIL PLEA TO DEBS: ‘TELL THE TRUTH’ ON SHOOTING
WEDNESDAY: READ PART TWO