Jason Roberts’ lawyer argues he should be acquitted over the Silk-Miller murders
Jason Roberts has been behind bars for 18 years over the murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller, but explosive new evidence may see the killer walk free.
Police & Courts
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A deliberate and criminal manipulation of evidence in the trial of convicted police killer Jason Roberts should see him walk free from prison without the need for a retrial, the Court of Appeal has heard.
On the first day of the “extraordinary” appeal of jailed double murderer, lawyers for Roberts’ argued Victoria Police’s breach of duty in fabricating and concealing evidence was so serious the only appropriate remedy was an immediate acquittal.
Roberts has served almost two decades of his life sentence for the shooting deaths of police officers Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller at Moorabbin in 1998.
He was convicted by a jury alongside notorious serial killer Bendali Debs in 2002 when Roberts was aged 22.
His appeal comes off the back of a damning corruption investigation which found police had manipulated key evidence in the case, in particular the falsification of a police statement made by officer Glenn Pullin, who was among a group of first responders to find the dying Sen Constable Miller.
Mr Pullin’s original statement, buried for 19-years until uncovered by the Herald Sun, was replaced by a new statement and backdated to the morning of the murders.
It contained evidence that corroborated other officers’ accounts that Sen Constable Miller had declared there were multiple gunmen.
But Mr Pullin’s original statement, made 10 months earlier, never mentioned any gunmen.
Barrister Peter Matthews, for Roberts, said the conduct by members of Victoria Police “entails police officers acting in breach of their sworn duty to the point, we submit, of being criminal activity, being perjury”.
Mr Pullin’s original statement was never disclosed at Roberts and Debs’ trial.
“The defence (at 2002 trial) was proceeding ignorant to a significant body of evidence,” Mr Matthews said.
“It is effectively as if there was not a trial that was had,” he said.
Court of Appeal Justice Robert Osborn said the nondisclosure was “systemic” and it was “difficult not to infer that someone in the homicide squad must have been aware of the backdating of Mr Pullin’s statement”.
Mr Matthews said the misconduct, discovered only after a “extraordinary sequence of events”, threatened the integrity of the entire criminal justice system.
“The conduct is so serious, and it’s taken such a long time to uncover it, that a stronger message needs to be sent,” Mr Matthews said.
Barrister Ben Ihle, for the Crown, argued the Court of Appeal’s focus should be on the effect the nondisclosure, not the cause of it.
“It is for other (courts) to determine any denunciation,” Mr Ihle said.
Mr Ihle said the fresh evidence regarding the dying declaration statement does not taint the entirety of that evidence, nor does it undermine the jury’s guilty verdict.
He argued Mr Pullin’s statement was “but only a fibre” of much larger body of prosecution evidence against Roberts.
Mr Ihle also submitted Roberts’ denials at trial of 10 armed robberies committed alongside Debs - which Roberts later confessed to - “bespoke lies, which were indicative at the time of a consciousness of guilt”.
The appeal continues.
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