Accused police killer Jason Roberts found not guilty of two murder charges

In a profound blow to Victoria Police, Jason Roberts has walked free from 22 years in jail after a jury found he had been wrongly convicted over the murders of two policemen.

Jason Roberts leaves the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday after being found not guilty of the 1998 murders of two police officers. Picture: David Caird

A man who was once one of Australia’s most reviled police killers walked free on Monday after 22 years in jail when a jury found he had been wrongly convicted of his part in the murders of two Victorian officers investigating armed robberies in suburban Melbourne.

In a profound blow to Victoria Police, Jason Roberts, now 41, wandered into the Melbourne gloom at 11.45am after a Supreme Court jury cleared him of the murders of Rodney Miller and Gary Silk.

Mr Roberts, who was just 17 when accused of helping repeat murderer and armed robber Bandali Debs gun down the two officer in a quiet street in southeastern Melbourne, wore a dark business suit to court and left as a free man with a stern face.

With his hair now receding, Mr Roberts is likely to be in line for a massive compensation payout but first must face court later this year over his involvement in a series of armed robberies.

Having been wrongfully convicted, according to the Supreme Court, Mr Roberts left the city, eyes pinned, in a red ute, bound for his new life, after police were accused of inappropriately handling witness testimony.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said the verdict to free Mr Roberts had been “very disappointing”.

“They were murdered, we mourn them still. We do every day,” he said.

He was joined by former police chief Neil Comrie, who also stridently backed investigators, despite the retrial being triggered amid doubts over the way the investigation was conducted.

The Court of Appeal ruled in 2020 that police misconduct undermined Mr Roberts’s 2002 trial after Victoria’s anti-corruption commission investigated allegations one policeman’s statement was backdated and presented as an original.

Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission uncovered that one of the statements prepared by a senior constable was made months and not hours after the shooting.

The statement failed to explain that the senior constable was not listening carefully to Constable Miller’s so-called dying declarations.

Rodney Miller and Gary Silk were gunned down in 1998.

“We are satisfied that a substantial miscarriage of justice has occurred,” the Court of Appeal said at the time.

“This is a case in which impropriety and unfairness permeated and affected the trial to an extent that it ceased to be a fair trial according to law.”

Mr Roberts claimed to have been in bed with Debs’s daughter at the time of the murders.

The court’s decision has stunned the officers’ families and former colleagues.

In a joint statement, the families said they were devastated by Mr Roberts’s acquittal, claiming the police officers deserved a better outcome.

“A number of lives changed when Gary and Rod were murdered, and many lives will never be the same, including the first responders and the detectives involved in the case – all of whom have shown great courage, determination and grace as they pursued justice,” they said.

“What cannot be changed is that two young Victoria Police officers – Gary Silk and Rod Miller – who were loved by their families and friends, were callously murdered on 16 August 1998.

“Their loss continues to leave a huge hole in our lives.‘’

Mr Roberts was accused of killing Mr Silk, 34, and Mr Miller, 35, in 1998 in Melbourne’s southeast following a series of armed robberies.

He admitted to the robberies but denied killing either of the police officer and alleged the father of his then girlfriend was solely responsible.

Mr Roberts claimed he was at the Fountain Gate family home of his girlfriend, Nicole Debs, the night of August 16 when Sergeant Silk and Senior Constable Miller were ¬executed after they stopped a distinctive blue Hyundai car, which was owned by Mr Roberts’s girlfriend.

The police were staking out the Silky Emperor Restaurant on Cochranes Road, Moorabbin, which they believed would be targeted in the armed robberies.

In 2002 Debs was jailed for life, never to be released, and Mr Roberts was sentenced to a 35-year non-parole period.

An appeal by Debs and Mr Roberts was dismissed in 2005.

Between August 2016 and November 2019 Mr Roberts petitioned the then attorney-general three times, seeking to have his case referred to the Court of Appeal.

He was granted a retrial in 2020 following an anti-corruption investigation by the state’s watchdog, which reported police fabricated evidence Senior Constable Miller gave when he was fatally wounded.

Sitting in the public gallery waiting for the verdict after the three-month trial were members of Sergeant Silk’s and Senior Constable Miller’s families, along with members of Victoria Police.

Asked if they found Mr Roberts guilty or not guilty on charge 11, the murder of Gary Silk, the jury forewoman said: “Not guilty.”

At that first verdict, someone in the gallery sighed: “Oh f..k.”

On charge 12, the murder of Rod Miller, the jury’s forewoman also said the jury found Mr Roberts not guilty.

Freed for the first time in more than two decades, Mr Roberts shied away from the media chaos that awaited him on Lonsdale St.

Earlier, Justice Stephen Kaye had commended the jury on its dedication to the case, which spanned three months this year and heard from 91 witnesses – including Mr Roberts and Debs – and examined more than 200 exhibits.

“I have been in law for a long time. This case has been the hardest one I have seen for a jury,” he said.

Justice Kaye also acknowledged the families of the murdered policemen, describing their deaths as “immense tragedies”.

Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt was dismayed.

“Today’s decision is one that brings enduring grief and sadness, and that will be enveloping the policing community and our policing families today,” he told media outside the court.

“It’s certainly one that we didn’t expect today. That sadness is going to be deeply felt.

“Losing not one but two of our members at work some 24 years ago is the worst thing you could ever imagine.”

During the trial, Mr Roberts’s lawyers said their client had a simple defence for the murders: He was not there.

Mr Roberts testified that Debs tried to entice him into committing an armed robbery at the Silky Emperor Chinese Restaurant, but he reportedly refused.

Debs, who also has been convicted of killing two sex workers in separate crimes, testified at the 2022 trial that Mr Roberts was with him when the executions occurred.

On Monday Mr Roberts was bailed to appear in court again in September over the armed robbery charges. The Herald Sun reported he arrived home in the southeastern suburbs at 2.40pm on Monday.