* * *
Bazil and Freda Thorne were very distressed at Bradley’s dock statement in which he denied responsibility for the kidnapping and death of their son. They were only too aware of the holes in his version, and they felt that it was unfair that he was able to advance it without being questioned, while all the other witnesses had been through rigorous cross-examinations to test their accounts. They were particularly concerned at Bradley’s assuredness during his dock statement, thinking that it might sway some of the jurors to have a reasonable doubt about his guilt. Bazil and Freda stared repeatedly at the jurors to see if they could divine what they were thinking about Bradley’s denials, but none of them would give anything away by their body language. Perhaps that was because Mr Justice Clancy had told the jurors they were judges of the facts.
When Bradley went into the witness box after his statement, Bazil and Freda were shocked, because Knight QC had confided that it was his expectation that the accused would make a dock statement, so as not to be cross-examined. Knight elaborated that very few accused got into the witness box and he lamented not being able to exercise his cross-examination skills more often. As Bazil and Freda listened to Bradley’s evidence-in-chief in answer to questions from Vizzard QC, they wondered what the defence counsel had up his sleeve, and they were taken by surprise when he suddenly sat down after a few desultory questions. Within a few minutes of Knight QC beginning, they could see why he was the Senior Crown Prosecutor of New South Wales. This was a man with the precision of a skilled surgeon wielding a scalpel. He had a command of the exchange and a penetrating force to his questions that was quite intimidating, even for an observer. It was not only that he was overtly aggressive in manner – it was also that one could palpably feel the penetrating impact of the logic inherent in his questions.
After Bradley had finished giving evidence, Bazil and Freda asked to have a few brief words with Knight, and he willingly gave them his attention. Even though the cross-examination had gone well for the prosecution, they were worried that Bradley might have pulled the wool over the eyes of some of the jurors with his pathetic denials. They knew that the verdict had to be unanimous, and they feared he might be able to thwart justice with a hung jury. They did not want to have to bear another trial, where they would have to give evidence again. However, Bill Knight reassured them that in his opinion – based on decades of experience in criminal trials – the jury were highly unlikely to be fooled by Bradley’s denials. Despite this, Bazil and Freda spent the rest of the trial worrying that Bradley’s glibness might gain him a hung jury or an acquittal, in which case justice for their son would be delayed or even denied.
* * *
A Crown Prosecutor is not meant to have any emotional investment in whether or not a conviction results from a trial. So long as the prosecutor has presented the evidence in the best light and has competently analysed and presented the evidence in both opening and closing addresses, the verdict is a matter for the jury. Whatever the final outcome, justice is done! This attitude of enviable objectivity and professionalism is one for which every conscientious Crown Prosecutor strives, however the reality is that the criminal justice system in Australia – based on the British system – operates in an adversarial environment in which the two sides are represented by opposing counsel, so that most prosecutors take pride in the quality of their work and see a proper conviction as tangible evidence of it. In some cases, of course, the proper verdict is an acquittal, and a Crown Prosecutor can take equal pride that justice has been done in such circumstances. The Crown Prosecutor represents the community, which has a justifiable interest in seeing the conviction of the guilty and the acquittal of the innocent. The whole system proceeds on the basis that it is better to have ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted. The Crown Prosecutor is not in court to achieve a conviction at all costs. Rather, he or she is there to see that justice is done.
Despite his awareness of the proper role of a Crown Prosecutor, Bill Knight was so utterly convinced of Stephen Bradley’s guilt that he firmly believed that an acquittal would be a travesty of justice – not just for Graeme Thorne and his family, but also for the community at large. He was quietly confident that Bradley’s performance in the dock and the witness box had failed to make a dent in the vast body of evidence against him. While Bradley may have succeeded in not making any obvious mistakes or admissions, he had been ineffective at convincing anyone in the courtroom of his innocence – except his own counsel. Of particular note, his language errors in the witness box when pressed during cross-examination were quite similar to those in the disputed confessions. In light of how confidently Bradley had withstood the onslaught during Knight’s cross-examination, Bradley’s assertion that he had succumbed so readily to the police threats was unconvincing. The reasons he advanced for selling Clontarf and suddenly leaving Australia were unimpressive. His story about the picnic rug having vanished from his home was convenient and contrived. He completely failed to account for the vast bulk of scientific evidence against him, and he had not convinced anyone that Freda and Bazil Thorne’s identification of him was mistaken. Overall, Bill Knight was pleased with his cross-examination of Bradley and maintained his confidence that justice would be done.
* * *
Vizzard next called Paul Weinberg, who supported his stepfather’s alibi, claiming to have helped Stephen to put labels on furniture before seeing him leave the Clontarf house at 8.30 on the morning of 7 July. If true, this would preclude Bradley having been at Bondi at the time of the kidnapping. Paul also said that the family had had a rug similar to the one in court, but it was torn and had disappeared around Christmas 1959. In cross-examination, Paul inadvertently told Knight that the rug was not at Clontarf when the family was packing up to go to Surfers Paradise because it was kept in the Customline. He admitted in cross-examination that he had not had any reason to think back to the events of 7 July until he was asked about them in London in February 1961 – seven months later. Paul Weinberg gave the clear impression that he was trying to tell the truth, but there were severe doubts about the accuracy and reliability of his recollections.
Great excitement was evident in the courtroom when Vizzard next called Magda Bradley.
* * *
By the time Magda Bradley came to give evidence, she had a fair idea that her husband faced an almost irresistible case against him. Although she was not permitted to enter the court before giving her evidence, she had read the newspaper summaries of the evidence given by the Crown witnesses, so she knew there was a mountain of evidence against him and that there were weaknesses in his planned response. She was also only too aware of public opinion, fanned by the newspapers, that she had known beforehand what Stephen was planning and perhaps had even given him encouragement. While she acknowledged to herself that the evidence against Stephen was all one way, she still refused to accept that the man she had loved and lived with so successfully for years was capable of committing such an atrocious crime. She decided that he was entitled to her absolute loyalty and support in attempting to beat the charge at this trial, but that if he was convicted she would then put distance between them and create a new life for herself. But first, she had to give evidence to bolster his slim chances of an acquittal.
The odds were so heavily stacked against Stephen that Magda felt justified stretching the truth to give him some hope of an acquittal. Surely the police had engaged in similar massaging of the evidence in stitching together such a strong case, so she believed she was just slightly redressing the imbalance. She had no qualms about doing this, because she firmly believed that Stephen was innocent, despite the weight of the evidence against him, so she was only attempting to avoid an injustice being perpetrated against him.
* * *
Magda Bradley’s arrival in court caused a loud murmur from the public gallery. Her appearance was described as follows:
She entered wearing a black tailored suit and a black, turban style hat. Bradl
ey smiled at her as she entered the witness box.15
Fred Vizzard QC began his examination-in-chief of Magda Bradley by asking about her experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp in the Second World War. She showed the court the camp number tattooed on her left arm, and told everyone that both her parents had died in the camp and that her left eye had been injured in the year she had spent there. She gave evidence that the picnic rug in which Graeme Thorne’s body had been wrapped was similar to the one Jacob Fogel had given her, but much more worn and faded. When shown the scarf from around Graeme Thorne’s neck, she denied that her husband had owned one like it. She provided an innocent explanation for why she and Stephen had argued the night before she left for Surfers Paradise, explaining that after furiously working at packing up all their belongings on that day, she had become fed up and angry with Stephen because it was all so rushed and they had nowhere to live after their return from Queensland. She maintained that it had been her spontaneous decision to let Stephen finish the packing on his own, while she and the children flew to Queensland. At her insistence, Stephen had rung the airline to make a booking, but he could not get seats before mid-morning the next day. She attempted to explain why she had called a taxi to go to the airport on the morning they flew to Coolangatta, rather than waiting for Stephen to return home, stating that she was still angry with him from the argument the night before, and that she knew when he returned from the hardware store he would have to wait for the removalists.
She told the court that Stephen had informed her that the police had visited him at his workplace, telling her that the enquiry related to the registration of the Customline. In an attempt to explain her initial booking of ship passages only for herself and Paul, she said that it had originally been her idea to go to England to see if she could sell her songs and stories, thinking that Stephen and the other two children would stay in Australia until she had achieved a measure of success. However, when they discussed it further, they both did not want to be apart, so they decided to all go overseas together. It then became their hope to get some treatment for Ross while they were in England, and this eventually became a major reason for their trip.
Magda Bradley’s cross-examination by Bill Knight QC took place on the seventh day of the trial. When the court doors were opened that morning, dozens of women rushed for seats, and several, caught in the crush, had to be helped by court officers. The public gallery was even more crowded than on previous days and the court officers had to force their way through spectators standing at a side door to allow witnesses to enter the court. The Senior Crown Prosecutor squarely put to Magda that when she left Sydney for Surfers Paradise it was because she had had advance warning of what her husband was planning to do. He suggested:
I put it to you that you wanted to leave that night [6 July] because you did not want to be in Sydney when your husband did something the following morning. You wanted to be in Surfers Paradise the following morning?
And this:
I put it to you that you knew your husband could not drive you to the terminal because you knew he was somewhere in the Bondi area at the time?
Magda denied both of these suggestions. She asserted that it was a mere coincidence that the very day after police had interviewed her husband at work she had booked a passage for herself and one of the children to go to England. She explained why she and Stephen had lied to people about where they were going, insisting that she knew that her ex-husband Gregor Weinberg would disagree with Paul going abroad. She admitted that she had written him a misleading letter, which was posted in Melbourne.
* * *
Magda Bradley had been dreading giving evidence in court. She knew that there was an undercurrent of hatred against her in the community that had been encouraged by the newspapers, and she anticipated that the atmosphere in the courtroom would be hostile towards her. When she entered the courtroom, she was surprised by the looks she got from the public gallery, where both men and women were clearly interested in her appearance. She was sure that she had not disappointed them! As she walked past the dock to go to the witness box, she threw a glance at Stephen, who lovingly smiled back at her. Her evidence-in-chief proceeded smoothly, as she had carefully gone over the questions beforehand with Vizzard QC in his chambers, so there were no surprises. When the time came for the cross-examination by Knight QC, she was surprised by his aggressive attitude, and looked to the judge to rein him in, but nothing happened. At this stage, she felt overwhelming antagonism from the courtroom, and she found it hard to focus on the questions, as though her brain had gone to mush. From time to time, she looked across at Stephen, hoping to gain strength from a friendly face, but he was quite aloof and poker-faced. No doubt Vizzard had told him not to interact with her in front of the jury. Towards the end of the ordeal, Knight put some monstrous allegations to her, as though she were the one on trial. What could she say except to deny them? When it was over, she felt that she had done her best for Stephen, although she recognised that it hadn’t amounted to much, compared to the weight of the evidence against him. If she had given him some hope that he might be acquitted and thereby lightened his burden, then it was worth having made the long trip from England.
* * *
Vizzard’s next witness was Dr Alexander Fraser from the Division of Animal Genetics at the CSIRO, who gave evidence about the dog hairs that had played a prominent part in the Crown case. Dr Fraser claimed that although the hairs were similar to those of the Bradleys’ Pekinese, they were not sufficiently unique to be able to say that they were the same. This evidence was identical to the position that had been taken by the Crown’s dog hair expert, Dr Cramp, prompting Justice Clancy to say to Mr Vizzard at the conclusion of this evidence:
There is no mystery about it, Mr Vizzard. He is saying what Dr Cramp said.
Before closing his case, Fred Vizzard QC tendered copies of the Sydney Daily Mirror newspaper from 11 October, which contained the offending photographs of Stephen and Magda Bradley.16 The relevance of this was to explain the unreliability of the line-ups that had been held six weeks later on 21 November, by demonstrating that the witnesses who claimed to have identified Stephen Bradley had previously seen his photograph in the newspaper, thereby rendering their identification unreliable.
The evidence having concluded, what now remained was for Vizzard and then Knight to give their closing addresses, and then for Justice Clancy to sum up to the jury. The traditional wisdom at the time was that the Crown Prosecutor had a distinct advantage in the order of addresses, because his was the last word that the jury heard from the opposing parties, and they would therefore be more likely to remember it and be influenced by it.17
Fred Vizzard commenced his six-hour closing address by asserting that no man had ever come before a court in a more prejudicial atmosphere than Stephen Leslie Bradley, thereby making it very difficult for justice to be done.18 He claimed that the identification witnesses were of no value because of the earlier publication of Bradley’s photograph in the newspaper. He told the jury that it was no exaggeration to say that more miscarriages of justice had occurred through misidentification than from any other cause. He valiantly tried to account for the scientific evidence, labelling it as purely circumstantial and suggesting that some people would overestimate its value. At times he was rebuked by Mr Justice Clancy for misstating the scientific evidence. Vizzard made particular mention of the fact that there had been no pink mortar on the rug, which would be inexplicable if Graeme Thorne’s body had been wrapped in it and placed under Stephen Bradley’s Clontarf house. He attempted to deal with the seeds from two types of cypress tree by reminding the jury that witnesses had agreed that garden clippings had been dumped on the allotment where the body had been found. He suggested that the Bradleys had very good reasons for not disclosing their travel plans or their real reasons for leaving the country, and he stressed that the Bradleys had obtained their passports a long time before Bazil Thorne had won his lottery prize. He cr
iticised the Crown Prosecutor for inconsistency in conceding that Magda Bradley was not implicated in the plot, but then suggesting to her that she knew in advance about her husband’s plan. Pounding the Bar table, Vizzard submitted that Bradley had been induced to sign his confession because of fear that his wife would be arrested in London, and he advanced the view that it would have made no sense for Bradley to complain about the threats to his solicitor shortly afterwards, because that would have resulted in his wife being dragged back to Australia. He attempted to deal with the identification of Stephen Bradley as the man who had called at the Thornes’ home three weeks before the kidnapping by advancing a rather unconvincing argument that the jury could not be certain that the person who took Graeme Thorne was the same person who had called at their home. In a particularly lame submission, he suggested:
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