Police take Nicole Debs document fight to Supreme Court
Victoria Police is taking a case to the Supreme Court for review after financial fraud charges were laid against the ex-girlfriend of wrongly convicted police killer Jason Roberts.
Police & Courts
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Victoria Police is taking a minor fraud case to the Supreme Court for a review after a magistrate ordered the force to hand over a tranche of documents to an accused.
The document fight relates to financial fraud charges laid against Nicole Debs, the former girlfriend of wrongly convicted police killer Jason Roberts.
Roberts was acquitted of the 1998 murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in July last year.
Debs, who now goes by another name, was Roberts’ alibi witness.
But a year before the retrial of Roberts, police reinvestigating the Silk-Miller murders obtained a warrant to bug Ms Debs’ mobile phone in relation to statements she made to police in 1998 and in 2013.
Investigators who were surveilling Ms Debs captured her allegedly committing an unrelated financial crime.
Police allege Ms Debs obtained a “false medical certificate” in order to keep being paid by her workplace while she completed a volunteer placement elsewhere.
The payments totalled $1664.12.
Fraud squad detectives raided Ms Debs in September 2021 and charged her the following month.
Other related charges were laid against her partner, sister and a doctor.
Ms Debs subsequently did not give evidence at the Supreme Court retrial of Roberts.
But magistrate Brett Sonnet granted a subpoena request from Ms Debs’ legal team, ordering police to hand over wide-ranging documents relating to the Silk-Miller investigation to the defence.
Victoria Police, however, claim it’s irrelevant.
A special mention hearing on Monday was adjourned while police fight the release of the material.
Ms Debs’ lawyers have previously questioned the veracity of the police warrant to conduct surveillance on her.
The Supreme Court review will be heard before the case resumes in the Magistrates’ Court later this year.
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