Victoria Police bid to join Jason Roberts court hearing
Victoria Police want to join an Supreme Court judicial hearing about convicted cop killer Jason Roberts and have engaged former Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Rapke QC to argue its case.
Law & Order
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Victoria Police will have to fight to be heard at an extraordinary Supreme Court review of evidence in the case of convicted double police killer Jason Roberts.
Police have engaged former director of public prosecutions Jeremy Rapke, QC, to argue that it should be allowed to join the proceeding, which will assess the credibility of new alibi evidence.
But Justice Terry Forrest, sitting with Justice Lesley Taylor, warned on Friday that police would need to show there was good reason for it to join the proceeding.
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Justice Forrest said it was expected that lawyers from the Office of Public Prosecutions would properly represent the interests of police. “I for my part would need some convincing that the Chief Commissioner should be separately represented,” he said.
A hearing to argue the point is to proceed on December 14.
Mr Rapke failed in an application for access to two petitions for mercy that have been lodged by Roberts’ lawyers over the past three years.
He had argued that not having those documents put police at an unfair disadvantage in preparing their application to join the proceeding. “We just haven’t got a clue what’s going on,” Mr Rapke said.
Mr Rapke was the prosecutor in the trial of Roberts and co-accused Bandali Debs for the shootings of officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller in Moorabbin on August 16, 1998.
Roberts has claimed that he was not at the shooting scene on Cochranes Rd, and that Debs acted alone.
Justice Forrest flagged a potential conflict of interest if the court granted police leave to join the proceeding and Mr Rapke continued to act on behalf of the Chief Commissioner because of his involvement in the original trial.
“We would be troubled if there were avoidable distractions,” he said.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is holding its own investigation into evidence produced by the taskforce that investigated Debs and Roberts.
Roberts’s case was referred to the Supreme Court by then attorney-general Martin Pakula in August, following a review by retired Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague.
Depending on the outcome of the Supreme Court hearing on the credibility of the new alibi evidence, Roberts’s case may return to newly appointed Attorney-General Jill Hennessy for a decision on whether to refer it to the Court of Appeal.
Roberts is currently serving a life sentence.