Disgraced murder cop Glen McNamara loses High Court bid to blame co-accused Roger Rogerson

Glen McNamara has lost an appeal against his conviction for the murder of a drug dealer, after arguing the jury should have heard threats against him by Roger Rogerson.

Roger Rogerson, Jamie Gao and Glen McNamara.

Disgraced former detective Glen McNamara has lost a High Court challenge to overturn his conviction for the murder of drug dealer Jamie Gao, after arguing the jury should have heard threats made against him by co-accused, Roger Rogerson.

On Wednesday the court dismissed an appeal by McNamara, 64, who, along with Rogerson, 82, was convicted by a jury in 2016 and jailed for life for the murder of Gao in May 2014.

The two notoriously corrupt former police officers lured Gao to a rental storage unit in Padstow in Sydney’s south, planning to steal methamphetamine with a street value of up to $19m from the unsuspecting student.

Instead, either Rogerson or McNamara – each blamed the other for pulling the trigger – shot Gao twice in the chest at close range. The pair then stole the drugs they had promised to buy from him. They attempted to cover their tracks by dumping the 20-year-old’s body at sea, but six days later a fisherman discovered the corpse, wrapped in a blue tarpaulin, floating off Cronulla Beach.

Jamie Gao, 20, was murdered in 2014.

After a 10-day trial in 2016, Justice Geoffrey Bellew sentenced Rogerson and McNamara to life in prison, observing: “The joint criminal enterprise to which each offender was a party was extensive in its planning, brutal in its execution and callous in its aftermath”.

In 2021, three Court of Appeal judges upheld the trial verdicts and sentences imposed, saying it was “open to the sentencing judge to impose a life sentence for what was a cold-blooded execution.”

However, McNamara appealed to the High Court claiming he should have been able to tell the jury what Rogerson had allegedly told him about having participated in “several killings in the past”, which he claimed had caused him to help Rogerson to dispose of the body out of fear.

McNamara was not permitted to tell the jury that Rogerson had told him he shot former police officer Mick Drury, murdered “Mr Rent-a-kill” Chris Flannery, shot dead petty drug dealer Warren Lanfranchi and was involved in the murder of sex worker Sallie-Anne Huckstepp.

Former detective Roger Rogerson is led to a prison van in 2016. Picture: AAP

McNamara was also prohibited from recounting his claim that Rogerson threatened him with the words: “I did Drury, I’ll do you too.”

The evidence was excluded because the trial judge ruled – and the Court of Appeal agreed – that it would have been unfair to Rogerson.

The judges ruled that, under the Evidence Act, the probative value of the claims was “substantially outweighed by the danger the evidence might be unfairly prejudicial to a party”, namely, Rogerson.

McNamara’s lawyers argued that a “party” referred only to the accused (McNamara) and the Crown, not to a co-accused jointly charged (Rogerson).

On Wednesday, the High Court rejected the argument, ruling that a “party” did include a co-accused and dismissing the appeal.