Queensland man seeks compensation after being wrongly convicted of robbery

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Terry Irving spent 1,671 days in prison, more than four and a half years, until his conviction on robbery charges was overturned. Earlier this month, the supreme court of Queensland awarded the 70-year-old Indigenous man over 100,000 dollars in damages for malicious prosecution, equivalent to just eight days of his incarceration.

Transcript

00:00Back in March 1993, there was a bank robbery in Cairns, in North Queensland, and Terry

00:09Irving was at the pub and he saw an acquaintance who asked him if he could borrow his car,

00:17and it was returned to him later that afternoon.

00:20And it's clear that that car was used in the bank robbery.

00:25So shortly thereafter, Terry was charged with being an accessory to the crime for providing

00:29his car to the bank robber, and he was taken into custody.

00:34But then after about eight days, Terry was actually charged with the bank robbery itself.

00:40And the charge of being an accessory to the crime was dropped.

00:44Now Terry went on to be found guilty of the bank robbery, and he was sentenced to eight

00:49years in jail.

00:51But after four years, the High Court of Australia quashed that conviction and he was released.

00:56So Chief Justice of the High Court at the time, Brennan said he had, quote, the gravest misgivings

01:02about the circumstances of the case, and that it was, quote, a very disturbing situation.

01:08So clearly, and even the prosecution by the time it got to the High Court agreed that both

01:12the trial and the investigation had been very unfair to Terry Irving.

01:18So more than 30 years later, why did the Supreme Court of Queensland award Terry Irving $130,000

01:25in damages for malicious prosecution?

01:28And what period of detention does that compensation cover?

01:31Well, Ros, the malicious prosecution relates to that earlier dropped charge of being an accessory

01:40to the crime.

01:41And the courts in Queensland had found that the police officer, Helen Mary Finkst, never

01:48at any point had a genuine belief that he was an accessory to the crime.

01:54The court found that she used this accessory charge strategically.

02:01What she wanted to do was to use it to get him into custody and then use it the time while

02:07he was in custody to build a case against him for the actual robbery.

02:12He was awarded $130,000 for the eight days he stayed in custody before he was actually charged

02:21with the robbery.

02:22The courts have separately found that the actual robbery charge was, while flawed, not brought

02:31to the very highest bar of being a malicious prosecution.

02:35So he can't get any compensation for the subsequent four years he stayed in jail, even though he would

02:42argue that the flaws in both charges are intimately connected and totally intertwined.

02:48So instead, his only option is to ask the government of Queensland for what's known as an ex-gratia

02:55payment for the miscarriage of justice that he experienced.

02:59And he's repeatedly asked for that over the last 30 years and he's been repeatedly denied

03:06that kind of ex-gratia payment by the Queensland government.

03:09And what is the process for obtaining ex-gratia compensation after a miscarriage of justice of

03:14this kind, Damien?

03:16Well, Ros, it's totally in the hands of the state or territory attorney general.

03:22They can receive the request and they can grant it or not grant it, and they don't have to

03:27give any reasons why.

03:29So we really don't know why he has been denied an ex-gratia payment this last 30 years.

03:35His lawyers say the malicious prosecution, the way he was charged with being an accessory to

03:41the bank robbery, that is deeply intertwined, inextricably linked to the subsequent armed

03:50robbery trial.

03:51And all the flaws in the investigation and in the trial, they can't be separated out.

03:58So he should be entitled to an ex-gratia payment because there was a profound miscarriage of justice.

04:05And they're now saying, look, now that we have this finding by the court of a malicious prosecution,

04:13the Queensland government should go back and revisit its decision not to give him an ex-gratia

04:19payment.

04:20More on the Law Report at 5.30pm on RN Eastern tonight or anytime on ABC Listen app.

04:25Damon, thank you.

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