Silk Miller police murder shock: Secret report casts doubt
EXCLUSIVE: A POLICE report has found there was no evidence one of the men convicted of the Silk-Miller murders was at the scene on the night.
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A SECRET police report has found there was no evidence one of the men convicted of the Silk-Miller murders was at the scene on the night.
A respected former homicide detective’s finding, seen by the Herald Sun, is understood to be contained in a 100-plus page submission sent to the Department of Justice by lawyers arguing Jason Roberts should be retried.
Roberts and serial killer Bandali Debs are serving life sentences for the murders of Sgt Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller in 1998.
The report by Ron Iddles — written while he was still at the homicide squad — concluded there were doubts about the prosecution case at trial.
The report says: “I am unable to find any material or evidence which would show Roberts’ new account is contradicted in any way by evidence presented at the original Supreme Court trial ... There is no witness who ever saw two offenders.”
Sen-Sgt Iddles spent hundreds of hours studying Roberts, reinterviewing witnesses and the prisoner for the investigation, codenamed Operation Rainmaker.
His report notes that the case against Roberts — who has always maintained his innocence — was based on “adoptive admissions”. It is contended that evidence against Bandali Debs was also used on Roberts because he remained silent on it.
Sen-Sgt Iddles also states that Roberts was taken from prison to a country location to find the murder weapons but they could not be retrieved.
Furthermore, new alibi testimony corroborating his claim that he was not at Moorabbin on the night has emerged and will be crucial in the final considerations of Attorney-General Martin Pakula.
The submission analyses theories put to the jury that placed Roberts at the shooting scene. When contacted about the report yesterday by the Herald Sun, Sen-Sgt Iddles said: “It was done when I was at homicide and I’ve got nothing further to say.”
In his report, he says: “The other view is that he (Jason Roberts) might be telling the truth, and if that is the case, then it is a matter for the judicial system to set the record straight.
“I have endeavoured to look at the new (Jason Roberts) statement and all the material in an objective manner. I am unable to find any material or evidence which would show Roberts’ new account is contradicted in any way by evidence presented at the original Supreme Court trial.’’
Senior Constable Phil Stephens — the crime scene examiner on the night of the police shootings — said Roberts’ statement did not conflict with his examination, according to the report.
No witness who testified at the trial, including police, saw more than one man from the Hyundai pulled over by Sgt Silk and Sen-Constable Roberts.
Senior prosecutor Jeremy Rapke, however, contended that Roberts was secreted in the passenger side of the car. At trial, Mr Rapke alleged that Roberts, after getting out of the car and shooting officer Silk, ran into a nearby vacant block.
Wounded officer Miller was alleged to have said before dying there were two crooks.
Roberts has now stated Debs told him he shot both officers using two guns. The use of a second weapon has always supported the theory Debs had an accomplice.
Roberts’ case was damaged by saying “I kill D’s”, caught on a listening device during the investigation, and taken to mean he killed detectives.
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Victoria Police stood by the prosecution. “The murders of Sgt Gary Silk and Sen-Constable Rod Miller in 1998 had an enormous impact on Victoria Police as an organisation, and was devastating for the families, friends and colleagues of both men and the Victorian community,” Mr Patton said.
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THE staff at Hungry Jack’s had never seen anything like it.
The fortified Special Operations Group truck pulled into the fast-food joint’s carpark in Melbourne’s southeast and a tall detective got out to order something his passenger had craved for 13 years.
Inside the rig was reviled cop killer Jason Roberts, guarded by the heavily armed officers nicknamed the Sons Of God. He devoured the two bacon burgers and they tasted just how he remembered them before he began a marathon prison food diet.
No one but a few high-ranking officials and those guarding him knew Roberts was out of jail for the day.
He was there to show veteran detective Ron Iddles where he hid the guns he said Bandali Debs used to murder Sgt Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in 1998.
Ultimately, the search was unsuccessful but it showed how seriously police were starting to take the prisoner’s claims he had nothing to do with the Moorabbin murders.
Debs was the father of Roberts’ girlfriend, a mentor and patriarch who exerted an overbearing influence on his life.
Roberts does not deny he was robbing restaurants across Melbourne with Debs, during which they would menace staff and diners at gunpoint as they hid behind masks depicting ex-US presidents. But he says Debs was out alone the night officers Silk and Miller died.
It is contended that Debs not only acted alone the night the police officers, who were staking out the Silky Emperor Restaurant, were shot, but he told Roberts all about it.
And Roberts has gone to the Justice Department to get another chance to prove it.
When it reaches his desk, Attorney-General Martin Pakula will be deliberating on a case of enormous significance that has never been forgotten.
The killings of Gary Silk and Rod Miller at an armed robbery stake-out stunned the police force and sickened Victorians when they woke to the news that Sunday morning.
Their deaths were the catalyst for the remarkably successful Blue Ribbon Foundation, which has raised millions of dollars for community projects.
Every year, a special public ceremony is held on the day of the killings while former colleagues and friends remember the pair at a private gathering.
An annual AFL match between St Kilda and Hawthorn — the teams they supported — commemorates their sacrifice.
But the Roberts submission is no desperate throw at the stumps from a legal team which, in reality, thinks it has little to work with.
Lawyers from Stary, Norton, Halphen have invested thousands of hours pulling apart every element of what happened that night and the trial that followed.
The report by Sen-Sgt Iddles appears to support one of their arguments — that there is no evidence to prove Roberts was in Cochranes Rd when Sgt Silk and Sen-Const. Miller were killed on the night of August 16, 1998.
Fresh evidence from secret witnesses has the potential to greatly assist the legal team, who argue facing court with Debs severely damaged their client’s cause.
If Roberts was to be tried alone, there is no doubt he would stand a much greater chance of acquittal than when his fortunes were tied to those of Debs. But his biggest hurdle will be getting to that point.
The bar is set high for a retrial in cases where the defendant has already exhausted every possible legal avenue.
Fresh and compelling evidence is required and saying there was no proof the first time is nowhere near enough.
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