Time Served !

In January 1989 a media " breaking news " item told Australia that an Assistant Commissioner of the Federal Police had been murdered.   Colin Winchester had parked his car in the driveway of his Canberra home when an assassin fired a shot from the darkness that hit him in the head.

Initially, it was rumoured that this was a " Mafia hit ".  Winchester had been heavily involved in the investigation of Marijuana crops being grown in the Murrumbidgee area of Griffith and this was developing into a lurid tale of corruption and crime that involved payoffs to local police, huge profits enabling gangsters to build " grass castles " and a ruthless suppression of locals seeking to turn the spotlight on this festering sore.

The investigation showed interest in David Eastman, a former Treasury official who had been petitioning Colin Winchester as he tried to regain employment in Treasury.  He had been dismissed for an irregularity and needed a reference from the police to gain reinstatement, and Winchester had consistently refused this request.

Eventually, the police laid murder charges against Eastman and he was sent to trial.  It was claimed that he had a personal vendetta running against this Assistant Commissioner and this was supported by forensic evidence.   Eastman was found guilty and given a life sentence for the murder.

After serving twenty years in prison Eastman launched a successful appeal and his conviction was quashed  in 2014.  The court decided that there was a fundamental error in the forensic analysis and that this seventy year old man should face a retrial.   Eastman launched a further appeal, seeking a stay of proceedings and dismissal of another trial - and that has been denied.

It is hard to see how a new trial twenty-seven years after the event can possibly hope to reach a fair conclusion.  Many of the witnesses who appeared at that earlier trial are either now dead or will have an impaired memory of events. Eastman's assets have been disposed of and he will probably have to rely on a lawyer appointed by the court to run his defence and because this case involves a police killing the full resource's of the police will swing behind the prosecution.  It is a fact of life that the death of a policeman on duty is taken as an assault against the integrity and safety of police generally - and results in what is really a police vendetta to ensure there is a conviction.   Many claim that was the motif behind that earlier charge and conviction.

It also raises the question of new thinking on penalties that apply in murder cases.  There was a time within living memory when hanging was still an outcome and when that was abolished it was replaced by a life sentence.  Today, even a life sentence may be reduced to an earlier release if the prisoner is of good behaviour and shows clear signs of reform.   In most cases, a term of twenty years is considered " time served ".

There is obviously a financial motif in insisting on a new trial.  Having a conviction quashed opens the door for a compensation claim for those twenty years served behind bars.  What the court has upheld is really a " wrongful conviction " and unless that is served by a new conviction the murder of Colin Winchester will go into the " unsolved " file - and Eastman may be entitled to a multi million payout.

Vendettas can have a place on either side of the law !