Australia: Mallard Inquiry opens this week

AFTER 12 years in jail, a mental breakdown and numerous appeals, the public hearings into the wrongful conviction of Andrew Mallard begin this week. In December 2005, when the Corruption and Crime Commission first announced the inquiry that begins on Tuesday, Andrew Mallard was still a prisoner in Casuarina Prision. Surrounded by murderers, rapists and thieves, his days were filled with drudgery and depression. A few months later, almost 12 years of incarceration ended -- but he was still the "prime suspect'' in the 1994 murder of Pamela Lawrence.

Just a few months after that, in April 2006, a police cold-case review found the palm-print of convicted murderer Simon Rochford among the old evidence. Within weeks Rochford was dead. A suicide note was found in his Albany jail cell.

Today, Mr Mallard is a full-time student in a university art course, accepted by the WA community as an innocent man. He has come a long way from the homeless 31-year-old who sat without a lawyer in a police interview room in 1994. "I was mentally vulnerable at the time, but I wasn't the psycho the police and prosecution made me out to be,'' he said this week. "I was suffering a mental breakdown at the time, but this is 13 years later: I'm a different person to what I was then. "I've matured and I'm well, though I certainly am emotionally scarred and the wounds are still fresh.''

A full-time student with a widening group of friends, Mr Mallard has accepted support and counselling as he edges closer to a "normal'' existence. He is still baffled by the extraordinary events that have dominated his adult life. And while he is philosophical about the way a terrible experience has taught him valuable lessons, he remains angry at the police and prosecutors involved in his case. He believes the public will be horrified by the details of how he was investigated, arrested, tried and kept in jail for killing a woman he'd never met.

"I still have a shadow of scepticism that hangs over me because of my experiences with the WA justice system, so I'm just hoping that the CCC does not let me down and really exposes everything that happened,'' he said. "I'd probably be more confident if it was totally outside WA, like the High Court was in Canberra. "I'm encouraged that the Attorney-General, Jim McGinty, has done the right thing by getting the commissioner (former judge John Dunford QC) and senior counsel (Jeremy Gormly SC) from New South Wales.''

On Tuesday morning, Mr Mallard plans to be working on his art, trying to block out the stresses of the CCC inquiry. Meanwhile, the eyes of Australia's legal community will be focused on a small, quiet hearing room in Perth. Mr Gormly SC will deliver his long-awaited opening address, outlining the scope of the hearings. The case is a long and complex one but the basic question is quite simple: Did an innocent man spend more than a decade in jail purely by mistake? Or was there unethical -- or even illegal -- conduct involved?


Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan and Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock QC have apologised to Mr Mallard, but maintain that he was simply the victim of human error and unfortunate circumstances. Mr O'Callaghan, who suspended the five investigating officers during the cold-case review, but later reinstated them, said he had seen no evidence of misconduct. And Mr Cock has said that the non-disclosure of evidence during the trial by his trusted deputy, Ken Bates, was an oversight. The DPP from that time, Supreme Court judge John McKechnie, has said he was unaware of the undisclosed evidence.

South Australian law professor Robert Moles, who has written several books on miscarriages of justice, said people around Australia would take great interest in the CCC hearings. "It's a case that has gripped the imagination of people around the country who saw what the High Court had to say in 2005,'' he said. "Imagine that three West Australian judges said nothing was wrong with the case and then five High Court judges said there was nothing right with it. "Thankfully, you have the CCC and let's hope they get stuck into this in the same way they've gotten stuck into some other matters recently. "We will be looking at this and hoping you get to the bottom of it, and then we might just learn about what happens in the rest of the country, too.''

Mr Mallard's sister Jacqui, who championed his case for more than a decade, hoped the inquiry would be the last chapter in her family's ordeal. "There is no doubt in our minds that people in public service have behaved badly in regard to the investigation and conviction of Andrew,'' she said. "Those responsible must face the consequences of their actions and , the police and prosecutors. We are expecting that the CCC inquiry will show who, what and how it came to be that Andrew came to be treated so unjustly. "We hope the CCC does not disappoint us with these expectations.''

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