grave miscarriages of justice<\/a> to occur in the lucky country. <\/p>\nSitting down with Jubelin, Mercer explores just a few of the cases that have stayed with him through his research.<\/p>\n
Harry Blackburn: Trial by media<\/p>\n
When former NSW superintendent Harry Blackburn was arrested and branded a serial rapist in 1989, an entire city was in a state of outrage. A spate of attacks across Sydney\u2019s south had been attributed to the ex-police officer, based on what turned out to be questionable identifying testimony. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne day, the media\u2019s called up to police headquarters,\u201d Mercer recalls. \u201cThis is an off the record briefing. This is a big deal. A big story is brewing, and we\u2019re then briefed in great detail about how the New South Wales Police have been reinvestigating a series of historical rapes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reporters were told the assaults had been committed by the same man. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were stunned to hear that the person who was alleged to have done this is Harry Blackburn, the former superintendent,\u201d Mercer explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s even more stunning because at this stage, Harry\u2019s not been arrested. He\u2019s actually at work, oblivious to what\u2019s about to happen. The media\u2019s given all the details, so the radio, TV, newspapers are all set to go when Harry gets arrested about an hour or so later.\u201d<\/p>\n
While reporting for Four Corners in 1989, Mercer initially assumed Harry Blackburn was guilty. That is, until a source phoned him to reveal Blackburn had the wrong blood group to be the attacker.<\/p>\n
Later, when Mercer interviewed one of the sexual assault victims off-camera, she insisted her attacker was much younger than Blackburn, and revealed that when she told detectives this they deliberately excluded her statement from the brief. <\/p>\n
Harry Blackburn was completely exonerated and never went to trial or jail.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mallard \u2013 Withheld evidence<\/p>\n
When eccentric 31-year-old artist Andrew Mallard was interrogated in unrecorded interviews about the bludgeoning killing of Perth jewellery shop owner Pamela Lawrence in 1994, it seemed at first that police had their man. <\/p>\n
Mallard, who was battling severe mental illness, speculated in the third person about what \u201can evil man\u201d might have done, which detectives quickly framed as a confession. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe goes to trial, he\u2019s convicted, and he\u2019s sent to jail,\u201d explains Mercer. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. No, nothing to see here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the trial, the prosecutor says \u2013 \u2018cause police had some difficulty establishing what the murder weapon was \u2013 that Pamela Lawrence sustained these terrible injuries to her head,\u201d recalls Mercer. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut they couldn\u2019t quite figure out what sort of weapon had caused it, and they finally settled on the fact that it was a wrench. The prosecutor mentions this 80 times during the trial, that it\u2019s a wrench.\u201d<\/p>\n
In reality, police testing on a pig\u2019s head months earlier had proved a wrench could not have caused the injuries, Mercer explains.<\/p>\n
Mallard went on to serve 12 years of his sentence, until the High Court of Australia quashed his conviction in 2005. Eventually a forensic review matched an unidentified palm print and paint flecks from the crime scene to Simon Rochford, a convicted killer who died in his cell shortly after being publicly named the prime suspect in 2006.<\/p>\n
Farah Jama: Catastrophic DNA contamination <\/p>\n
When 18-year-old Somalian refugee Farah Jama was arrested on suspicion of drugging and raping a 48-year-old woman in a Melbourne nightclub, there was only one thing tying him to the crime.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t captured inside the nightclub \u2013 which was for patrons over 28 \u2013 no one in the nightclub recalled seeing him at all, and the survivor herself had no memory of ever having seen or spoken to him. <\/p>\n
Yet the DNA swab taken from her at the hospital came back as a match. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens in court is that the prosecution says DNA is essentially infallible,\u201d explains Mercer. <\/p>\n
\u201c[They said] it is 800 billion times more likely to have come from the young man than anyone else. I don\u2019t understand how you can reach that number, but that\u2019s what\u2019s presented, and if you\u2019re the member of the jury, that\u2019s gotta be convincing. You\u2019ve gotta say it\u2019s him.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it turned out, in a deeply uncanny coincidence, a woman who had engaged in consensual sex with Jama had presented at the same hospital for a reason unrelated to the case. <\/p>\n
Cross-contamination had occurred, and it was revealed \u2013 after spending 16 months in prison \u2013 that Jama was in fact innocent. <\/p>\n
\u201cDNA is not infallible,\u201d Mercer explains. \u201cThere was no other corroboration. That was the sole evidence, and it was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the outside, Australia\u2019s justice system creates a sense of order and safety that many who have 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