In 1991 and 1992 Ivan was living at the house in Guildford. He supported Carolynne’s claims about his attendance at the gathering on Boxing Day 1991. He said that around 9 a.m. he had taken his mother to the Rookwood Cemetery to visit his father’s grave. The graves of his sister, his uncle and some other relatives were also at the cemetery. Ivan said they returned to Guildford between ten and eleven o’clock that morning and that he stayed for the rest of the day. He agreed that photographs had been taken of family members that day and these had been presented at the trial, but none showed him being there. After Ivan suggested that the police may have withheld any pictures of him, the prosecution pointed to what it said were lies Ivan had told in various parts of his evidence and argued that his claims to have been at the gathering should not be believed.
Walter gave evidence in support of Ivan’s alibi, but the prosecution claimed that he too had been caught out telling lies and argued that his alibi evidence should not be accepted. (When Walter’s evidence was detrimental to Ivan, the defence had also accused him of lying.)
Significantly, Ivan’s mother was not called to give evidence, despite her name appearing on the notice of alibi prepared by the defence. Ivan’s lawyer conceded that, without explanation, one would certainly have been entitled to wonder about her absence.
Nor did the defence call another of Ivan’s strongest supporters, his sister Shirley, to back up Ivan’s alibi. Shirley had already featured in the trial in connection with the disposal of a gun owned by Ivan, and in connection with a Benetton top owned by Caroline Clarke. Noting Shirley’s failure to give alibi evidence, Tedeschi remarked acidly, ‘This is the Shirley Soire who has been good enough to bring witnesses to court, like her brother Walter . . . She was good enough to bring them to court, but not good enough to come through those double doors, go to the witness box and take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
Under cross-examination by Tedeschi, Ivan was asked about a .45 calibre pistol that had been retrieved from the backyard of the Eagle Vale house shortly after his arrest and disposed of by Wally and Shirley. Ivan said he’d had the pistol since 1991 and that after moving into the house, ‘I made up a little compartment and I used to keep it in the backyard . . . It was weatherproof and I buried it in the backyard near the downpipe, the drainpipe.’ As well as the pistol, Ivan used to keep a pair of ammunition magazines in the bucket. While he was in custody he had spoken to both Shirley and Wally—they were visiting him together—and asked them to get rid of it.
When Tedeschi put it to Ivan that at the time he asked Shirley and Wally to get rid of the gun, he was aware that the police were anxious ‘to get their hands on any firearms of yours at all’, Ivan replied, ‘I imagine they would. I thought they had them all.’ Later, he said, ‘They never asked me about a pistol.’ Shirley later told him, ‘It’s taken care of.’
Evidence about the recovery and disposal of the pistol had originally been given at the trial by Walter after Justice Hunt directed that Walter could not be charged in relation to any testimony he gave about the pistol that incriminated him. (After the trial Shirley was summonsed on a charge of ‘possessing an unlicensed pistol’. On 19 December 1996 she pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined $1000.)
Chalinder Hughes, Ivan’s girlfriend at the time of his arrest, gave evidence about the Benetton top Ivan had photographed her wearing. (The two photographs, dated 1992 on the back, had been found by police in an album on the coffee table when they searched the house at Eagle Vale.) Hughes said she had taken the top one day from a bundle of ironing in the house and put it on because the day was cool. Ivan had not yet moved from Guildford to the house in Eagle Vale, and the clear inference from Hughes’s evidence was that the top belonged to Shirley. Ivan said he had no memory of Hughes wearing the top, although he agreed that he had photographed her wearing it, using an Olympus Trip S camera given to him by Shirley. Ivan said he had never seen the top around the house and had no idea how Hughes came to be wearing it.
Ivan and his defence team refused to accept that the Benetton top worn by Hughes belonged to Caroline Clarke. Where it came from and what happened to it—the top was never found—are two of the unsolved mysteries of Ivan’s trial. Years later, Shirley claimed that the Benetton top was hers and that she didn’t know why she hadn’t been called to give evidence about it.
The Olympus Trip S camera Ivan claimed to have been given by Shirley, and found in the kitchen of the Eagle Vale house, was a type sold only in the United Kingdom. Though the defence did not formally admit that the camera was Caroline Clarke’s, it did not challenge the prosecution’s claim that it was Caroline’s.
At the trial, Paul Onions reiterated evidence he had given in his 1994 statement: his abductor had told him his name was Bill; he worked for the RTA at Liverpool; he lived at Liverpool; he was going to visit friends in Canberra; he was on four weeks’ holiday; his parents were Yugoslav and he was divorced. When arrested, Ivan had denied ever using the name Bill, but he later admitted to having used the name in 1990, the year Onions was abducted. He admitted to having worked for the RTA; to having lived at Guildford, not far from Liverpool; that his parents were Yugoslav; and that he was divorced.
Onions’ description of his abductor—6 feet tall, solid build, with a dark complexion, black hair and a moustache like Merv Hughes, aged in his mid-thirties and wearing sunglasses—generally fitted Ivan, although Ivan was 5 feet 6 inches tall, not 6 feet.
The moustache took up a lot of the court’s time, with Ivan denying having a Merv Hughes–type moustache in 1990. The jury was shown a photograph taken in 1990 of Ivan with a moustache and one of Merv Hughes taken in 1989. Ivan’s lawyer conceded that Ivan did have a moustache, but argued it could not be described as a ‘Merv Hughes’ moustache, referring to it instead as a ‘drooping Mexican type moustache’. In his final address to the jury, defence barrister Terry Martin conceded that Ivan’s evidence that he did not have a moustache in 1990 was a deliberate lie, but maintained the moustache Ivan had was not the one described by Onions.
In opening the prosecution case Tedeschi had told the jury: ‘The Crown says it does not have to prove in this case whether or not the accused acted alone in the course of these killings. The Crown says either the accused did it himself, did the acts himself, or alternatively, the acts were done by him with others in a joint enterprise in which he was responsible for the acts of those others.’ Fourteen weeks later, in his closing address, Tedeschi suggested the jury may well come to the conclusion that one person alone had committed all eight offences; it did not follow (he went on) that if they acquitted Ivan of the abduction for advantage of Onions, then there was a reasonable possibility that some person other than Ivan had committed the seven murders. Tedeschi also warned the jury against being sidetracked by defence suggestions that ‘someone’ had planted much of the backpackers’ property on Ivan at various homes owned by members of the Milat family and at Eagle Vale, and that Richard and Wally might have been involved in the murders and the abduction of Onions.
As predicted by Tedeschi, Martin told the jury, in what he described as a ‘fundamental submission’, that: ‘There can be absolutely no doubt that whoever committed all eight offences must be within the Milat family or very, very closely associated with it. Blind Freddie can see that. There can be absolutely no doubt . . . the question is, who is it within the Milat family? Who has committed these eight offences?’ Martin’s argument gelled with Ivan’s claim that property belonging to the murdered backpackers had been planted on him by the real murderer, who was either a member of his family (presumably Richard and/or Wally) or a very close associate of the family.
On Thursday 18 July Justice Hunt began his summing up, noting the work both Tedeschi and Martin had put into their final addresses. The next morning proceedings were interrupted when, in the absence of the jury and Ivan, Justice Hunt told both the prosecution and defence that one of the jurors had advised he ‘was telephoned
this morning just before he left to come to court. A male voice said, “Look out, if you find” and the juror thinks the word “my” was almost half out, “him guilty, you’re dead”.’ After a long discussion, Martin applied for the entire jury to be discharged, saying:
Of particular concern in this case is the nature of the threat that has been made and the concern that the other members of the jury may have received similar threats, and I realise there is no evidence of that but it would be a very dangerous course to ask them. The threat itself was very serious and immediately causes prejudice against the accused. In this case it is compounded because the very nature of the defence argument is that a member of the accused’s family has planted evidence against him.
After further discussions, Justice Hunt discharged the juror before he had had contact with other jurors, thereby avoiding the need to abort the trial.
Justice Hunt took five days to complete his summing up. For the first time the jury was told that, because of the intense media attention, they would be locked up at the end of the summing-up to complete their deliberations.
There was plenty for them to consider, including more than 300 exhibits that were delivered to the jury room.
On Saturday morning, 27 July, after deliberating for three days, the jury returned its verdict. Ivan was guilty of the murder of James Harold Gibson; Simone Loretta Schmidl; Anja Susanne Habschied; Gabor Kurt Neugebauer; Joanne Lesley Walters and Caroline Jane Clarke, and the abduction for advantage of Paul Thomas Onions. Justice Hunt asked Ivan if he had anything to say, to which Ivan replied, ‘I’m not guilty of it.’ Asked if he wanted to say anything else, Ivan replied, ‘No, that’s all I can say.’
My friend and colleague Rod Lynch, who had sat through the whole trial, was one of several people who commented that they had rarely, if ever, seen such emotion in a courtroom as when the guilty verdict was read out. To the bereaved parents and relatives of the victims, many of whom had flown from Europe to see this moment, it must have felt as if justice had been a long time coming.
All that remained was for Justice Hunt to sentence Ivan. His Honour observed:
The case against the prisoner at the conclusion of the evidence and the addresses was, in my view, an overwhelming one. Although his legal representatives displayed tactical ability of a high order, and conducted his defence in a skilful and responsible manner, in my view the jury’s verdicts were, in the end, inevitable. I agree entirely with those verdicts. Any other, in my view, would have flown in the face of reality.
He went on to commend the ‘police and the associated Government agencies for the extensive and painstaking detection work involved in bringing this case to trial. It was a massive task, and the results of it have been extraordinarily impressive. All involved in that investigation deserve the thanks of the community for their efforts.’
His Honour indicated that he did not propose to list the injuries suffered by any one of the victims, as he did ‘not wish to cause further distress to the families of the victims who have had to endure hearing the evidence itself . . . Their understandable distress was evident, and it is unnecessary that it should be repeated. In any event, I frankly do not want to go through that ordeal again myself.’ He did, however, observe that each of the victims was between nineteen and 22 years old, and ‘at the threshold of their lives, with everything to look forward to—travel, career, happiness, love, family, and even old age’. He continued:
[I]t is clear that they were subjected to behaviour which, for callous indifference to suffering and complete disregard of humanity, is almost beyond belief. They would obviously have been absolutely terrified, and death is unlikely to have been swiftly applied. It is perhaps possible to imagine a worse case, but these murders must unhesitatingly be labelled as falling within the worst class of case . . . [E]ach of the victims was attacked savagely and cruelly, with force which was unusual and vastly more than was necessary to cause death, and for some form of psychological gratification . . . In my view it is inevitable that the prisoner was not alone in that criminal enterprise.
It was not a case, he said, where the prospects of rehabilitation needed to be considered.
[T]hese truly horrible crimes of murder demand sentences which operate by way of retribution, or (as it is sometimes described) by the taking of vengeance for the injury which was done by the prisoner in committing them. Not only must the community be satisfied that the criminal is given his just deserts, it is important that those whom the victims have left behind also feel that justice has been done.
With these words Justice Hunt sentenced Ivan Milat to penal servitude for the term of his natural life for each of the seven murders, and to six years’ penal servitude for the abduction and detaining for advantage of Paul Onions.
13
PAUL GORDON
As we have seen, Detective Paul Gordon was dismissed from the task force after the publication of an article in The Sun-Herald under the headline ‘Police breakthrough in Belanglo case’. Written by Martin Warneminde, the story appeared on 28 May 1994, after Ivan had been arrested but before he was charged with the murder of the seven backpackers. Gordon’s attempts to claim credit for solving the backpacker murder case and his criticisms of the task force and its management went on for several years and received wide media coverage. This book would not be complete without the full story of Paul Gordon’s role in the backpacker case.
Warneminde’s article came at a critical time in the investigation. Its publication jeopardised both the investigation and the prosecution of Ivan for the backpacker murders and the attempted abduction of Paul Onions. By publicly responding to the story we risked aggravating the damage.
News spread quickly of my decision to remove Gordon from the task force the morning after the story appeared. That day I received phone calls from two journalists, both very supportive of Gordon, pushing for his reinstatement to the task force.
I had to justify dismissing Gordon to the police command, but in giving my reasons I knew that whatever I put in writing could end up in court and might be used by Ivan’s lawyers to challenge the integrity of the investigation. I told Police Headquarters:
Detective Gordon was spoken with Sunday morning and was less than forthcoming about his knowledge of the article . . . This was not the first time Gordon has given cause for concern. He had been previously counselled by Detective Inspector Lynch over management issues . . . Another issue is the extent and nature of the information that flowed back to Ivan Milat following Gordon’s inquiries at the RTA, where Milat worked, and the potential loss of evidence this has caused . . . I regard the Gordon issues as being issues of competence. I do not consider he has the level of competence, understanding and communication required of a relatively senior detective on a major investigation.
Warneminde’s article had been the last straw. In the days leading up to the raids on Ivan’s property, I had seriously considered removing Gordon from any front-line role in the search of Ivan’s house and subsequent interviews because of my lack of confidence in him. I decided against it because of the disruption it was likely to create within the task force, and because I was worried Gordon would respond in ways that could severely harm the investigation. Instead, I reminded Steve Leach, an officer in whom I had a lot of confidence, that he had full authority over operational decisions connected with the raid and the interview with Ivan. I trusted Leach’s judgement over what role Gordon should play in the operation, but I had not counted on Gordon’s leaking of confidential information to The Sun-Herald. This was an indiscretion by Gordon that was too great to overlook. He had to go.
After leaving Task Force Air, Gordon worked for just over a year as a detective at Annandale Police Station. In July 1995 he resigned from the police, and moved to Queensland.
By now the case was before the courts, and further comment on the activities of Task Force Air by the media was largely restricted to the reporting of court proceedings. But Gordon was determined to have his say, and thre
e months into Ivan’s Supreme Court trial he spoke with Helen Dalley of Channel 9’s Sunday program. Neither Dalley nor Sunday producer Peter Hiscock had been covering the trial. Gordon was interviewed for the program and helped with the research.
The day after Gordon’s phone conversation with the detective, Ivan was convicted. The program went to air on Sunday 28 July 1996. It accepted Gordon’s version of events and largely followed Warneminde’s story from two years earlier. The main difference was in the Sunday program’s aggressive attack on Task Force Air, and on me in particular.
Sunday claimed that a ‘key member of Task Force Air, former Detective Senior Constable Paul Gordon, did most of the investigative work into the Milat family that finally led to Ivan’s arrest. He and his partner’s leg work cracked the case.’ Alongside the story of Paul Gordon’s diligent sleuthing, Sunday claimed to reveal ‘a parallel tale of where the investigation fell short, a story of mistakes made and valuable opportunities lost to nail the killer or killers earlier’. Gordon claimed there were ‘flaws in [the investigation], opportunities were lost. We did have some vital leads in the first weeks on the Milat family name that were either overlooked or not acted on, and they should have been acted on . . . it was a long way from being a fine textbook case of a well-executed investigation. In fact it was one of the worst I’ve ever worked on.’
He cited the case of Alex Milat as an example: ‘Within a couple of days [of Alex making his statement] they hypnotised Alex . . . It is usually only used as a last resort. Because having hypnotised him, a potentially good witness was burned and wouldn’t have stood up in court.’
Gordon went on: ‘The first thing I did when I started in the New Year was [check the] criminal histories on Richard and Alex because of the strange leads we had on them . . . I did, but I have to admit only what was on computer. I didn’t check back on microfilm, which held any earlier pre-computer records . . . I was making . . . a report on the Milat brothers to give to Clive Small . . . I thought I just better check Ivan’s [criminal history] again, and realised I hadn’t checked the microfilm record for him.’ It was only when he phoned the Criminal Records Branch, Gordon said, that he learnt of the 1971 rape charge against Ivan, ‘So it rang a few bells with me.’ On his return to the task force office, Gordon said he ‘showed it [Ivan’s rape charge record] to Clive Small and in my enthusiasm I named Ivan as our main man’. Gordon claimed that when handing me his report on Ivan, ‘Clive said something like go and find out why it couldn’t have been him.’
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