Zach Rolfe murder trial postponed indefinitely after court grants stay

Police throughout Australia are carefully watching the murder trial of NT Police officer Zach Rolfe as the prosecution faces yet another delay, the police union says

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UPDATE 2.45PM: POLICE throughout Australia are carefully watching the murder trial of NT Police officer Zach Rolfe as the prosecution faces yet another delay, the police union says.

Speaking after the High Court stayed the trial on Monday, NT Police Association president Paul McCue said the NTPA would continue to support Rolfe as the case drew on.

“The delay in this trial, due to commence today, affects Constable Rolfe, his family, all police officers involved and the wider community, all who were hoping the trial commenced today,” he said.

“Police across the NT and Australia are waiting on this case intently given the circumstances and the NTPA will continue to provide support to Constable Rolfe and his family as he vigorously defends the charges.”

EARLIER: THE murder trial of NT Police officer Zach Rolfe has been postponed indefinitely after the High Court granted a last minute application to stay proceedings.

Prosecutors applied for the stay after seeking leave to appeal an NT Supreme Court decision allowing Rolfe to rely on a “good faith” immunity under the Police Administration Act.

Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in 2019.

In her decision, handed down just an hour before the jury was due to be impanelled, Justice Jacqueline Gleeson ordered the trial be put off until after the High Court had had a chance to review the lower court’s ruling.

Justice Gleeson said the Full Court’s reading of section 148B of the act “extends the scope of the respondent’s defences significantly beyond” a similar provision in the Criminal Code that requires the conduct of police to be “reasonable” for the immunity to apply.

Zach Rolfe arrives at the Supreme Court in Darwin with his legal team on Monday. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“On the Crown’s case, if the Full Court is correct, the respondent may avoid criminal liability without consideration as to whether the use of force comprising firing the second and third gunshots was reasonable in the circumstances,” she said.

Justice Gleeson said that would be “a significant departure from the common law and on its face, from the operation of s208E of the code”.

“In all of these circumstances and subject to the important principle against fragmentation of criminal trials, I am satisfied that the Crown has substantial prospects of obtaining a grant of special leave to appeal.”

Justice Gleeson said the case in question was “exceptional in that it concerns a charge of murder against a police officer arising out of the fatal shooting of a young Aboriginal man, ostensibly in the exercise of the officer’s duties”.

“The trial of a member of the police force whose functions included the protection of life, in connection with the death of the deceased, is a matter of the gravest community concern,” she said.

“The injustice of a possible acquittal of a police officer for murder of a young man in the context of the attempted execution of an arrest warrant, on the basis of an incorrect ruling on a question of law, is of a different order of magnitude from an acquittal on a charge of white collar crime, however egregious.”

Yuendumu community spokeswoman Samara Fernandez-Brown. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Speaking outside the Supreme Court in Darwin after the jury was discharged, Yuendumu community spokeswoman Samara Fernandez-Brown said she was pleased with the High Court’s ruling.

“We just want to say as a family and community, we’re very happy with the outcome and we’re just happy to let the judicial system play out,” she said.

The trial was formally stayed until after the High Court considers the case on September 10 but a new trial date is yet to be set, with both prosecution and defence keen to have it heard by the end of the year.

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