Murder at Myall Creek

One of the most shocking murder trials in Australia's legal history, and the tribulations of the man who conducted it ‘A deeply moving account of a massacre that is a stain on our nation’s soul – and the prosecutor who brought the perpetrators to justice’. Peter FitzSimons In 1838, eleven convicts and former convicts were put on trial for the brutal murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at Myall Creek in New South Wales. The trial created an enormous amount of controversy because it was almost unknown for Europeans to be charged with the murder of Aborigines. It would become the most serious trial of mass murder in Australia’s history. The trial’s prosecutor was the Attorney General of New South Wales, John Hubert Plunkett. It proved to be Plunkett’s greatest test, as it pitted his forensic brilliance and his belief in equality before the law against the combined forces of the free...