Robert Farquharson to face retrial over death of three sons

A MAN serving three life sentences for killing his sons has had his conviction quashed and the Victorian Court of Appeal has ordered a retrial.

A VICTORIAN father will face a retrial late next year over the death of his three children after the court of appeal quashed his conviction for their murders.

Robert Donald William Farquharson is serving three life sentences for murdering his sons Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, after being found guilty of driving his car into a dam in a suburb outside Geelong on Father's Day, 2005.

But the 40-year-old appealed his conviction and sentence in June this year, arguing that key evidence used in his trial against him was flawed.

His barrister, Peter Morrissey, said during the appeal hearing that one of the greatest injustices was that police failed to acknowledge a key witness and Mr Farquharson's friend, Gregory King, faced potential criminal charges himself.

Mr King previously gave evidence at Mr Farquharson's criminal trial in 2007 that his friend had told him he would kill the children on Father's Day to torment his former wife.

Justices Marilyn Warren, Geoffrey Nettle and Robert Redlich this afternoon quashed his conviction, set aside his life sentence without parole and ordered a retrial to be heard in the second half of 2010.

They found there had been a number of errors in Mr Farquharson’s 2007 trial, including the prosecutors wrongly failed to disclose to the defence about criminal offences committed by Mr King.

They also found the trial judge failed to properly instruct the jury on how to consider parts of the evidence presented in the trial

"As a consequence of these errors, it was held that a miscarriage of justice had occurred in the trial of Mr Farquharson and that his convictions should be quashed," they wrote in their summary judgement.

The boys' grandfather Bob Gambino said after the decision was handed down that there was little the family could do.

"It is just out of our hands, it is the judges' decision,'' Mr Gambino said outside court.

"That is about all I have to say.''

Mr Farquharson will apply for bail on Monday and the court indicated they would be inclined to grant it pending his appeal.