Justice Denied

by John Suter Linton

  To police, this was not a trivial domestic dispute: the ropes and the petrol smacked of malice and revenge. And Kiraly was the only person likely to have lit the fire—there were only two people present in the house, and Mrs Carter had no motive to torch her own home. Kiraly’s admissions leading up to the fire became damning circumstantial evidence of planning and premeditation.

  The four-page record of interview was read aloud by the independent interpreter and signed by Kiraly and Detective Sergeant Schloeffel, who handed Kiraly a copy, which he was able to give to his solicitor. The signed interview did him no favours, but that was not the fault of the police. His conduct had been completely out of character.

  * * *

  The trial was listed for the District Court of New South Wales, a little over eighteen months after the fire, in January 1975. Hearing the matter was Judge Muir, a senior judge who had a reputation for being wise and even handed, always preserving the balance. Jozef Kiraly faced two charges, arson and assault. The arson charge was for setting fire to the house; the charge of assault came from tying up Mrs Carter’s hands and feet prior to lighting the fire.

  Mr Kiraly was not a wealthy man and, as such, received my services through the grant of legal aid to private solicitors. From a legal point of view, Kiraly’s defence presented formidable difficulties. The obvious obstacles to an acquittal were the mere presence in the bedroom of the petrol and the rope. These items were totally inconsistent with desire and tenderness, but consistent with force and hostility. The Crown relied upon them as proof of the jealousy of a jilted lover. They didn’t agree with Kiraly’s explanation that tying Mrs Carter’s hands and feet was a prelude to a pre-dawn episode of consensual bondage. The details of any sadomasochistic behaviour between the grand and buxom Mrs Carter and the diminutive and humble Mr Kiraly would have tested the jury’s imagination. Whisky, red wine and sex would have been avant-garde, but bondage and discipline would have been an unknown pastime on the Northern Beaches in the seventies.

  The Crown had taken the trouble to brief Mr JK O’Reilly, a senior barrister at the private bar, himself destined for judicial office. His presentation of the Crown case was extremely persuasive. He made pointed reference to the availability of ropes in the bedroom, adding the use of petrol negated any explanation of impulse and pointed to premeditation. Mr O’Reilly relied upon, as the Crown was fully entitled to do, the strong circumstantial evidence of guilt against Kiraly.

  Mrs Carter presented herself well as the key prosecution witness. She was impressive and dignified, and it was obvious the misfortune that befell her that day was not of her making. Her only crime, if you could call it so, was having had an affair with my client. It was, however, he that let her down and not the other way around. With Kiraly’s statement, all the circumstantial evidence, and now Mrs Carter’s testimony, I had a difficult job ahead of me.

  Under cross-examination, Mrs Carter readily agreed with me that she and Kiraly had formed a relationship which she enjoyed. Kiraly described her as his girlfriend and Mrs Carter had no problem with that. She also liked a drink, with the clock not governing the hour of commencement of consumption. Brandy or whisky were her favourite additions to tea. Nor did it impair their ‘enjoyable sexual relationship’. The 5 am partaking of scotch or brandy, or on Kiraly’s part, red wine, gave the expression ‘early opener’ a new dimension.

  After the Crown rested, it was my turn. My reference to Lady Chatterley in my address to the jury was very much an unintended throwaway line in outlining the accused’s defence. My emphasis was on the important fact that the bedroom indiscretions were adult and consensual. To state the obvious, they bore little resemblance to the plot of the DH Lawrence novel other than the two participants were the lady of the house and her gardener.

  The Sydney afternoon tabloids, however, latched on to the description and gave front-page prominence to the trial. Not because of any legal significance, but for its salacious romantic overtones. Even the conservative Sydney Morning Herald prominently carried accounts of the lovers’ trial in detail.

  Mr Kiraly was no Errol Flynn, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig. Nor was he a tall man. His appearance exemplified modest mediocrity, certainly not the profile of a dashing, violent lover. The lady of the house, Mrs Prudence Lydia Washington Carter, had perhaps been a shade indiscreet in embarking upon this affair, but hardly deserving of the public censure and massive public embarrassment which followed. She was a respected local lady and deservedly so. As I told the jury more than once, and with a distinct lack of originality, the District Court of New South Wales was not a court of morals.

  My argument lay in my client’s legal responsibility while under the influence. In those days, self-induced intoxication, through alcohol and/or drugs, could diminish legal responsibility completely. It could also reduce the length of any gaol sentence depending upon the degree of impairment, not increase it. Kiraly’s excessive consumption of alcohol, producing a deadly cocktail when mixed with the sleeping pills, was a crucial factor on the issue of intent. The undeniable fact was Kiraly had consumed so much, in the form of drugs and alcohol, he was found unconscious, lying on his back, and was taken to hospital close to death. Could he have been in control or conscious of his actions?

  Kiraly had the option of either giving a dock statement, without having to undergo a cross-examination, or facing interrogation in the witness box. He elected to go into the witness box; there was nothing to lose. We hoped his responding to the Crown’s case under cross-examination might help the jury understand Kiraly’s situation at the time of the fire and have sympathy for him. If not, his testimony might at least create an element of doubt.

  O’Reilly’s skilful cross-examination of Kiraly swept away all the drama beloved of a paperback novelist of love and liquor. He focussed devastatingly on his admissions contained in the record of interview. As O’Reilly unsympathetically pointed out, these were Kiraly’s own words translated by a reputable, official interpreter.

  The mere description of Kiraly as a gardener did not do him justice. There was more to him than that. In the witness box, facing the examination and cross-examination, Kiraly handled himself well. There was something about him you couldn’t help but like; he was a very charming and likeable person. He told of meeting Mrs Carter, who picked him up in her car at the Newport Hotel. He described the couple’s drinking habits, which were a shade unconventional, particularly first thing in the morning. He also told the jury that, on the day of the fire, he remembered nothing more than tying Mrs Carter up and pouring the petrol. This was honest and truthful, but hardly helpful to his cause. Kiraly’s record of interview with the police was explanatory, but not exculpatory. However damaging Kiraly’s responses were to his case, the manner in which he answered had you believing he was telling the truth. He really had no memory, and he didn’t accept he had started the fire.

  Where a person of good character is accused of a serious crime, they are entitled to have that fact placed before the jury. Kiraly was facing life imprisonment. Seldom have I been able to call more impressive character evidence than in this case. First up was Navy Commander Ronald Ware, a marine surveyor and industry executive, who had known Mr Kiraly for sixteen years. He was eloquent in his praise of Kiraly’s honesty, dedication to charity and community spirit. Commander Ware had raised bail for Kiraly on his arrest. A family friend, Dr Stephen Koraknay, the mathematics master at the exclusive Knox Grammar School, had also known Kiraly for sixteen years and gave evidence.

  Other solid family and surf club friends of longstanding joined the extraordinary line-up of character witnesses. The final witness was solicitor Mr Peter Montgomery of Newport, who had known Kiraly since the age of seven, describing him as ‘like a grandfather’ and ‘embarrassingly generous’. Even the police, when asked by me in front of the jury, spoke well of him from a character point of view.

  With such prominent community support it was pleasing Mr Montgomery and his friends were content for a public defend
er to act for Kiraly.

  * * *

  All the evidence had been given. In Mr O’Reilly’s closing address to the jury, his admonition not to be deflected from their duty by sympathy was firm. He told them their duty was to rely on the evidence, not newspaper headlines. There had certainly been a lot of those.

  Judge Muir’s summing up disappointed me. It focussed squarely on the admissions Jozef Kiraly had made to the police and not denied by him, and the tying up of Mrs Carter, and the rope burns and abrasions she had suffered. Judge Muir told the jury the Crown was fully entitled to rely upon the signed record of interview, which were Kiraly’s own words translated by the official interpreter requested by him. The judge added that any doubt about whether the police had treated him fairly or not was laid to rest by the fact neither Kiraly nor his barrister had made the slightest criticism of the police conduct in the case.

  On the other hand, the judge did emphasise the importance of Kiraly’s good character and the impressive evidence called to support it. He reminded the jury of the alcohol consumption by both, and the resultant confusion in the house on the day of the fire.

  When the jury retired to consider their verdict, Mr O’Reilly told me he thought the judge’s summary of the defence case was overly favourable to the defence. I guess both sides feeling the other side fared better is perhaps the hallmark of the perfect summing up.

  The verdicts were returned after an incredibly brief retirement of thirty-five minutes. At the end of the day, this jury was not deflected from its duty. There were two counts in the indictment arising out of events in the bedroom. The jury acquitted on the first count of arson, a result that left me and my client stunned, but convicted on the second, which was common assault. As the jury foreman gave the verdicts, it was put to Judge Muir that the jury gave ‘a strong recommendation for leniency’ in sentencing Kiraly for common assault.

  Against the odds, against a strong circumstantial case, against an almost full admission to the charge, Kiraly came out a winner. Kiraly was released by Judge Muir on a good behaviour bond. The judge said he did so after taking into consideration the jury’s mercy recommendation and Kiraly’s previous good character. Judge Muir was not bound by the jury’s recommendation, but he did take it into account.

  The trial had a sad and unhappy postscript. The fire caused a great deal of damage. Gossip forced Mrs Carter to move away from the mansion with sea views and the large manicured garden. She told the Daily Mirror, ‘I certainly know who my friends are after this case … I was actually the injured party, but I have been made to feel I am on trial.’ She was accurately described in the same tabloid as ‘a handsome grey haired widow’.

  The Daily Mirror devoted almost its entire front page of 30 January 1975 to the verdict. The headline read, LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER FREED. ‘HAPPY’ SAYS THE GARDENER … ‘UNHAPPY’ SAYS THE WIDOW.

  The Mirror went on to report, ‘Outside the court, Mrs Carter denied she was a Lady Chatterley but agreed she had an affair with Kiraly. “I’m very unhappy” she said. “I’ll never see him again. It’s been a terrible and embarrassing experience for me.”

  ‘Kiraly said, “I am happy with the result. If I had gone to jail I would never have come out alive. I am too old.”’

  The last word rested with Mrs Carter who told the Mirror, ‘My only crime was that I was found out.’

  Plainly, Mrs Carter had committed no crime and, as she claimed, was very much the injured party.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Mrs Dawson Makes the News

  Sometimes children say remarkable or insightful things, thus the phrase ‘out of the mouth of babes’. In 1973, a seven-year-old child stood in front of her class and spoke three simple, yet unexpected, words. Those words would set in motion a homicide investigation and the words themselves would become the centrepiece of a legal argument over what was said, and how police interpreted those words. The difference would mean everything.

  * * *

  The story begins one late autumn evening on 27 May 1973. Lance and Colleen Dawson were at home in their farmer’s cottage at Graman, a small town near Inverell in the New England district, northwest New South Wales. Their two children, seven-year-old Mary and five-year-old Tommy—not their real names—were in bed. The Dawsons were playing cards with neighbours, Marie Kennedy and her husband, and a friend, Albert Henry McInnes.

  About 10.30 pm the Kennedys left to go home and, soon afterwards, so did Mr McInnes. Discreetly, Mrs Dawson left the house to rendezvous with McInnes at his car. Lance Dawson was too busy drinking to notice, or so she thought.

  The romance of that chilly autumn evening was shattered when Lance Dawson, well affected by alcohol, found the amorous couple in the car. To use the formal Latin description, he had caught flagrante delicto his de facto wife and McInnes. Lance Dawson made no secret of his disappointment and a scuffle developed. The lover abruptly left, advising Colleen Dawson to accompany her de facto husband home, which she did.

  The Dawsons were battlers. Lance Dawson was the overseer on a local property called Burmah. Colleen Dawson’s home duties were running the household and looking after Lance and their two children. On the night of the tragedy, Lance and Colleen Dawson had returned to their home after the discovery of her infidelity in sullen silence. The children were sound asleep in bed.

  A bitter argument ensued. Lance Dawson produced his rifle. A shot was fired. Lance Dawson slumped to the floor in a pool of blood with a bullet wound to the head. He was still holding the gun.

  Distraught, Colleen Dawson rang their neighbours for help. They converged on the Dawson home. Lights went on all over the little village as word of the tragedy rapidly spread. Soon the ambulance and the police arrived from nearby Inverell with sirens wailing and coloured lights flashing.

  But it was all too late. Lance Dawson was dead.

  When the ambulance arrived, Colleen Dawson was distressed and crying. Those present could understand little of what she was saying. She kept asking, ‘Where is Lance?’ She was in denial. She was hysterical. It had happened before her very eyes.

  Police attending the scene observed that Mrs Dawson appeared to be genuinely upset and was not involved in the death. She was in such a state, even the news her de facto husband was dead was kept from her by the police. They eventually took her to Inverell Hospital.

  Life on the land is isolating and, sadly, it’s not uncommon for police in country towns to get called out to shootings. The weapon was a .22 calibre rifle. On rural properties they are commonplace. The ready availability of the rifle was in no way suspicious.

  In the 1970s, Inverell was considered a big town of ten thousand people, with experienced detectives stationed there, including Detective Sergeant Alan Brown, who attended the Dawson home and later interviewed Colleen Dawson. She told Detective Brown her de facto had shot himself—in a word, suicide. That was the on-the-spot assessment of experienced police too.

  The final word, though, would come from the government medical officer (GMO), Dr HGD Cookson, a respected local GP, who conducted a post-mortem examination. The doctor’s verdict on the cause of death? Suicide. Case closed. Life goes on.

  Lance Dawson’s body was released for burial and taken across the border to be put to rest in his hometown of Texas, Queensland. At the funeral the harsh reality set in. Despite the affair, Collen Dawson loved Lance. Now he was dead. Only in her early thirties, she was a widow and a single mum. She was not only poor but unemployed and the family was homeless: the farmer’s cottage went with Lance Dawson’s job. There was no sentiment in rural employment. Anyhow, there was nothing to keep the family in Graman any more.

  Eventually, Colleen Dawson would move herself and the children to Texas but, until then, the children continued attending the Inverell local school. It wasn’t long after the funeral when young Mary, having returned from Texas, was invited by her teacher to address her classmates with any interesting news she may like to share. The school encouraged children to
share small events from their lives to practice public speaking and overcome shyness. Mary dutifully stood still, hands by her side, and announced, ‘Mummy shot Daddy’.

  It didn’t take long before the entire school and most of the district had heard the story. The one-minute speech at primary school had suddenly put Mrs Dawson in the frame for murder. Soon, town gossip led to the extraordinary step of New South Wales Police requesting the exhumation of Lance Dawson’s remains.

  Except in the case of suspected poisonings, exhumation of a body buried in a cemetery after a funeral is an extremely rare event. This was a police initiative based solely on garbled children’s schoolroom gossip. There was no fresh evidence. There was no basis to suspect the first autopsy was wrong. Had Mrs Dawson been an affluent individual, and had she been advised by the police of their intention, she would have certainly sought to have the family’s privacy and dignity preserved by a court injunction. But she was a recently bereaved single mother with no income. Lance Dawson had died from a gunshot wound and the finger of blame was now pointed at one person, Mrs Dawson. Fixing her with culpability depended upon, first of all, discrediting the official autopsy.

  The Inverell doctor who had carried out the post-mortem had himself died, which precluded asking him to reconsider his opinion. He had not been a government employee, but a respected local general practitioner contracted to perform government autopsies and other official duties. He would not have been the only professional involved if there had been what are so often euphemistically called ‘suspicious circumstances’.