Ms Roseanne Catt
| About this Item |
Subjects | Crime; Law Courts; Prisons and Prisoners; Assault; Evidence |
Speakers | Breen The Hon Peter |
Business | Matter of Public Importance, Motion |
Page: 22194
The Hon. PETER BREEN [11.09 a.m.]: I move:
That this House:
(a) notes with grave concern the suffering and humiliation experienced by Roseanne Catt as a result of false convictions on the following charges:
(i) maliciously wounding her husband Barry Catt on 2 May 1988,
(ii) committing perjury at Taree Local Court on 3 July 1989,
(iii) attempting to cause Barry Catt to take a noxious thing with intent to injure him between May and July 1989,
(iv) soliciting James Morris to murder Barry Catt on 28 July 1989,
(v) soliciting Vernon Taylor to murder Barry Catt between 15 July and 16 August 1989,
(vi) possessing an unlicensed pistol on 24 August 1989,
(b) notes that on 17 August 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal acquitted Roseanne Catt or quashed her convictions for each of these charges,
(c) notes that the Attorney General granted Roseanne Catt an appeal on 24 July 2001,
(d) notes that on 27 October 2004 the Court of Criminal Appeal reserved its decision and adjourned for 10 months only because the Crown threatened a retrial if the convictions were quashed,
(e) calls on the Government to offer a public apology to Roseanne Catt for the suffering and humiliation she has endured for the past 17 years,
(f) calls on the Government to make an ex-gratia payment to Roseanne Catt,
(g) calls on the Attorney General to instigate an investigation into allegations of conspiracy, perjury and contempt of Court by Barry Catt, Adrian Newell and former Sergeant Peter Thomas, in relation to their evidence in the matter of Regina V Roseanne Catt, and
(h) calls on the Attorney General to instigate an investigation into allegations that Barry Catt and Adrian Newell fraudulently obtained victims compensation funds, which could not have been obtained but for their role in securing the false convictions of Roseanne Catt.
(i)
The motion calls on the House to note with grave concern the suffering and humiliation experienced by Roseanne Catt as a result of her false conviction on a number of charges, which are listed in the motion. Five of those charges have been quashed and she was acquitted on two other charges. The motion also seeks from the Attorney General an ex-gratia payment to Roseanne Catt for the suffering that she has endured.
In 1991 Roseanne Catt was convicted of poisoning her husband, conspiring to murder him, bashing him with a 5.5-kilogram rock and stabbing him with a knife. Roseanne served 10 years of a 12-year sentence before she was released after new evidence came to light that proved she was framed by a rogue detective, Peter Thomas, and her former husband, Barry Catt. In 2004 a judicial inquiry ordered by the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal supported what Roseanne had been saying all along: she was the victim of a malicious conspiracy. Addressing the jury in the case against Roseanne, the trial judge said:
Either, according to the Crown case, Roseanne Catt is an evil, manipulative woman, or, on the other hand, she is the victim of a monstrous conspiracy.
After 10 years in gaol, Roseanne has been able to prove that the jury got it wrong and she was indeed the victim of a monstrous conspiracy. The architect of that conspiracy was former detective Peter Thomas, who moonlighted as an investigator for insurance companies. Mr Thomas received a substantial fee for negating insurance claims. Roseanne Catt appeared on Detective Thomas's radar when her shop at Taree burned down. Detective Thomas falsely accused Roseanne of causing the fire. He charged her with arson and the case was no-billed. Roseanne then complained to internal security about Detective Thomas. As a result, Thomas was transferred and demoted. That was when Roseanne's troubles really began, culminating in her false imprisonment for 10 years on the trumped-up charges listed in the motion before the House.
On the day before he arrested Roseanne, Peter Thomas interviewed Marie Whalan, and her evidence—which is set out in Roseanne's book, Ten Years—exemplifies how justice was perverted in this case. Roseanne's book reveals the terrible perversion of the justice system that this case represents. Three weeks ago Sister Claudette Palmer came to my office and we prepared a petition for Roseanne. In the rush to prepare it we included a provision seeking an ex-gratia payment from the Attorney General. In the circumstances, I am not able to lodge the petition in the normal way but I seek the leave of the House to table 1,850 petitions that have been collected in the past three weeks.
Leave granted.
Documents tabled.
Some honourable members have raised concerns about an outstanding matter in the Taree court concerning Barry Catt. I put on record that that matter does not relate to Roseanne Catt but to another woman who has received a verdict in the lower court. There is an appeal pending, which I understand is listed in the Taree court for tomorrow. Nothing in what I have said today will in any way prejudice those proceedings, which have no connection with Roseanne Catt.
There is no system in place in Australia for testing unsatisfactory verdicts. In the United Kingdom the Criminal Cases Review Commission has discovered in the five years that it has been established about 160 unsafe convictions—people who were wrongly convicted on false evidence or on misguided or mistaken evidence. In the United States of America in excess of 150 people who had been in gaol—many of them on death row—were found to be innocent. Processes in place in the United States—there are various innocence projects, for example—offer means of testing unsafe convictions. We do not have the benefit of such systems in New South Wales, or in Australia as a whole. The only attempt we have made to establish such a process was the Innocence Panel, which got up and fell down in a quickstep in 2004. This case demonstrates the unsatisfactory nature of the current judicial system when it comes to testing false convictions. I ask honourable members to consider the issues involved very carefully so that when the matter comes before the House again we can have a substantial and informed debate about this important injustice.
Debate adjourned on motion by the Hon. Peter Breen.