Bid to air explicit evidence in court

Prosecutors want to include evidence about pornography during the upcoming trial of Bradley Robert Edwards.

Bradley Robert Edwards is charged with the murders of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon.

Prosecutors in the Claremont ­serial killings case have revealed they want to include evidence about “extreme” bondage and discipline pornography during the upcoming trial of Bradley Robert ­Edwards.

Mr Edwards, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders of three women in 1996 and 1997, ­appeared at a pre-trial hearing in the West Australian Supreme Court in Perth yesterday.

In a dramatic opening, the hearing was disrupted as soon as Mr Edwards entered the dock when a woman in the upstairs public gallery screamed at him: “You’re a dog, Edwards. Evil. Satan. Burn in hell.”

Security guards removed her.

The court has previously been told police found certain material on Mr Edwards’s computer after they arrested the long-time ­Telstra technician and Little Athletics volunteer at his suburban Perth home in December 2016.

Bradley Robert Edwards, left, was a little athletics volunteer.

Crown prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo SC told judge Stephen Hall yesterday that he should view some material, a pornographic film and a movie called Forced Entry, to determine whether it was admissible in the case, rather than simply relying on a written description of it.

“Having viewed the film … there’s no words in our submissions that are capable of describing what you see in that,” she said.

Ms Barbagallo, WA deputy ­Director of Public Prosecutions, said the material was “not beige or vanilla … we are talking about pornography that is ­extreme”.

“Your Honour is being invited to make a determination on the admissibility of the material without having seen it. You’re being asked to do it blind.”

Defence counsel Paul Yovich SC said it would be “superfluous” for the judge to view the material because a written description had already been provided.

Justice Hall, who will oversee the judge-only trial, due to start on July 22, said he would view the material before the hearing ­resumed on Monday.

He said he was capable of disregarding the material at trial if he ruled it to be inadmissable.

Ms Barbagallo also told Justice Hall he should examine Mr ­Edwards’s six-hour interview with police, a “prison call” and about 20 witness statements.

The prosecution is seeking to allow propensity evidence to be used at the trial. Such evidence is not ­directly related to the alleged crimes in a particular case but can be used to establish that there is a certain way in which a person ­habitually acts.

Other propensity evidence referred to yesterday included “the Huntingdale prowler”, “women’s clothing”, “Hollywood hospital” and a “Telstra living witness”.

No explanation was given for these.

Mr Edwards, 50, is charged with the murders of Jane Rimmer, 23, Ciara Glennon, 27, and Sarah ­Spiers, 18, and the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl at Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995 and an alleged sexual assault on an 18-year-old woman at her home in 1998. All three murder victims dis­appeared late at night from the Perth suburb of Claremont.

The bodies of Rimmer, a childcare worker, and Glennon, a lawyer, were discovered in bushland weeks after they were killed, but the body of Spiers, a secretary, has never been found.

The nine-month trial of Mr Edwards will be the culmination of Australia’s longest-running and most expensive murder ­investigation. Mr Edwards was remanded in custody at Perth’s Hakea Prison, where he has been held since his arrest.

The hearing next week is ­expected to last for three days.