Amazing case: State Supreme court judges seen as so biased that a man declared not guilty by Australia's highest court refuses to go before them to get his freedom!

Perth man Andrew Mallard has protested his innocence over a brutal murder and called for a Corruption and Crime Commission hearing into his case. Writing from Casuarina Prison on Friday, Mallard said he was overjoyed by a High Court decision this week to quash his conviction for the 1994 murder of Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence, 45. But he told the Sunday Times he would not apply for bail, as his lawyers suggested, because he did not trust the Supreme Court to be fair.

"I was elated and relieved when I heard that the High Court had quashed my conviction," he wrote in a letter to his sister Jacqui. "I feel that the end of this traumatic ordeal will soon be over and I will walk out of prison an innocent and free man. "If my bail application were to be heard by a High Court judge, I would be then making a bail application immediately, but I will not willingly go back before a West Australian judge who will only support the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. "I do not trust the WA Supreme Court judges."

Five justices of the High Court unanimously criticised the Supreme Court's 2003 rejection of Mallard's appeal, which was based on evidence not disclosed at his 1995 trial.

Report here



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