Jason Roberts case: Prosecution of Bandali Debs’s family has ‘gaps’ and ‘may fail’, tribunal told

A phone-tapping investigation targeting the daughter of serial killer Bandali Debs may fail because it’s “flawed”, a tribunal has been told.

The police investigation into family members of serial killer Bandali Debs has significant gaps “which may mean that some or all of the charges will fail to be proved,” a tribunal has heard.

Debs is serving life without parole for four murders, including those of police officers Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in 1998.

At a retrial earlier this year, Debs’ accomplice in a string of armed robberies, Jason Roberts, was acquitted of taking part in the police murders.

On Monday, he was sentenced to six years and six months’ jail for his role in the stick-ups, which he has already served.

Police officers fabricated evidence against him at his original trial.

Serial killer Bandali Debs will never be released from prison.

Bandali Debs’ daughter Nicole‘s phone was being tapped by police.

Mr Roberts’ former partner, Nicole Debs — the daughter of Bandali Debs — was set to give crucial alibi evidence for him at his retrial, but pulled out at the eleventh hour.

Ms Debs, who now goes by a different surname, told police in 2013 she was with Mr Roberts at the time her father shot and killed Sergeant Silk and Senior Constable Miller.

Following Mr Roberts’ acquittal, the Herald Sun revealed investigators tapped Ms Debs’ phone, intercepted her text messages and subjected her to physical surveillance in the lead-up to his re-trial.

The reasons for the major police operation against Ms Debs have never been publicly revealed or justified, but led to Financial Crime Squad detectives charging her, her partner John La Rocca, her sister, Joanne Mizzo and a doctor, Dr Irene Lepustin, with low-level dishonesty offences.

Jason Roberts leaves the Supreme Court a free man. Picture: Tony Gough

The charges stem from allegations Dr Lepustin, Ms Mizzo, Ms Debs and Mr La Rocca conspired to produce false medical certificates so Ms Debs and Mr La Rocca could take sick leave they were not entitled to.

The medical regulator, AHPRA, immediately suspended Ms Mizzo’s registration in mid-June, just weeks before her sister was due to give evidence on behalf of Mr Roberts.

Ms Mizzo’s lawyers argued the immediate suspension was heavy-handed, and was the kind of action usually reserved for medicos facing “markedly more serious” allegations, such as sexual misconduct and serious assault.

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal member Reynah Tang last week upheld Ms Mizzo’s challenge of AHPRA’s decision to immediately suspend her.

Jason Roberts with his then girlfriend, Nicole Debs.

Mr Tang said there were “some gaps in that evidence (against Ms Mizzo) which may mean that some or all of the charges would fail to be proved beyond reasonable doubt”.

Ms Mizzo’s barrister, Jason Stoller, argued the criminal and regulatory cases against his client were flawed because there was “no direct evidence that Ms Mizzo knew (even it were true, which is denied) that either recipient of the medical certificates was not truly unwell”.

Ms Mizzo, Ms Debs, Ms La Rocca, and Dr Lepustin are all set to contest the criminal charges against them at a Melbourne Magistrates’ Court hearing in February next year.