AUSTRALIAN POLICE IN CAHOOTS WITH THE GUILTY GUY

A violent sex offender, recently named as a suspect in the Leanne Holland murder case, mingled freely with police at the bushland spot where the schoolgirl's body was found. In a startling new development to the long-running case, a source has come forward after seeing 1991 film of the crime scene replayed on Channel 7. The source said the film showed the man talking to detectives behind crime scene tape at Redbank Plains soon after police had found the Ipswich schoolgirl's bashed and partially naked body. Sources said the man – a police informant – was taken to the scene by detectives and also accompanied them to the Holland house in Goodna, where she was allegedly killed. The informant, now 52, also claimed later to have worked "undercover" for police on the case and helped secure the conviction of Graham Stafford.

Stafford, 42, was paroled in May after serving four months short of 15 years in jail for the sex slaying of his then-fiancee's sister. He has always strenuously denied killing Leanne, 12. His supporters, who are working on a legal petition to have Stafford pardoned, were shocked to discover the other man's involvement in the case. The man was in the same jail as Stafford after being convicted of rape and incest in 1996 and serving a full seven-year sentence.

The Sunday Mail revealed in April that the man was repeatedly given weekend leave from prison and was often seen in the company of plainclothes police. He was the same man named by two sisters last year as being linked to the Holland murder. They said their claims were never investigated by police. In the 2005 book Who Killed Leanne? by Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson, the sisters revealed: He had tortured them, leaving similar cigarette lighter burns as found on Leanne. He had photos of her corpse which he had either taken himself or had come from the official police file, and threatened the sisters that they would end up like Leanne if they talked.

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