Jason Roberts step closer to overturning convictions over Silk-Miller cop murders
After spending five years working on his freedom bid, Jason Roberts is one step closer to overturning his life sentence for the Silk-Miller police murders.
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Convicted cop killer Jason Roberts is a step closer to overturning his convictions over the Silk-Miller police murders.
Roberts is serving a life sentence for the murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin, on August 16, 1998.
But he has been fighting to have the convictions quashed claiming new alibi evidence could clear him of the killings.
Today the Court of Appeal granted Roberts leave to appeal.
An appeal hearing could take up to a month.
Roberts had lodged a petition for mercy in the hope the Attorney General would either recommend the governor grants a pardon, remit the sentence, or refer it back to the Court of Appeal.
However new appeal passed by state parliament meant Roberts could take his case directly to the Court of Appeal.
The application for leave to appeal was the first of its kind under the new legislation.
Handing down their decision today Justices Robert Osborn, Terry Forrest, and Lesley Taylor, said the grant of leave under the new appeal provisions was subject to strict preconditions intended to preclude unmeritorious repeat appeals.
The Court of Appeal must be satisfied that there is fresh and compelling evidence that should, in the interests of justice, be considered on appeal.
Evidence from an IBAC hearing into the murders is to be key to the appeal.
“There is no dispute that the IBAC evidence with respect to these matters is fresh and, in our view, it is compelling... In turn, we are satisfied that it is in the interests of justice that the applicant be granted leave to appeal,” the court said.
“The question is not whether a jury would inevitably acquit having regard to the fresh evidence, but whether it is of high probative value with respect to a central issue at the trial.”
The court said the fresh evidence disclosed lines of defence which were not apparent either at the time of trial or at the time of appeal.
Roberts has claimed he was not at the shooting scene on Cochranes Rd when the police officers were killed by Bandali Debs.
Roberts, the partner of Debs’ daughter Nicole at the time, claims Debs acted alone.
Lawyers for Roberts have spent more than five years working on his freedom bid.
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