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WHO
KILLED
LEANNE? An
investigation into A murder AND MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE by Graeme
Crowley
AND
Paul WilsonPreface
A JUSTICE
SYSTEM BETRAYED
Lindy Chamberlain, Kelvin Condren, Alexander McLeod-Lindsay and Edward Splatt are just some Australians who have suffered gross miscarriages of justice as a result of being convicted of crimes they did not commit. In each of these cases, subsequent investigation has shown that both police and forensic experts made major mistakes resulting in the conviction of an innocent person. Some forensic experts and police investigators are fond of saying that their techniques are now so sophisticated that it is all but impossible for similar miscarriages of justice to arise. Forensic science is increasingly seen as the panacea for solving what the media continue to portray as an upsurge in violent crime. Advances in DNA profiling, new blood typing techniques, sophisticated ballistics analysis and other scientific methods of criminal investigation appear to have given police an edge in the battle against crime. But despite these advances, forensic mistakes continue and innocent people are convicted by a justice system that stacks the odds against them. Despite the significant advances made by forensic science there are at least two reasons for the persistence of major miscarriages of justice in Australia. The case of Graham Stafford dramatically illustrates both of these reasons. The first relates to our adversarial legal system. Inherited from Britain, the system is designed, at least in theory, to seek out the truth. In the modern world, however, lawyers tend to fight each other and point-score. In the process, they use forensic science and forensic ‘experts’ to gain ascendancy over the other side, rather than to impartially pursue justice. Sadly, the jury system as it exists today is more a matter of salesmanship than a quest for the truth, as it can be a case of the most eloquent lawyer wins. The
second reason focuses on how the police and prosecution mount a case against a
suspect. Natural justice is supposed to ensure that a suspect receives a fair
trial and all evidence, for and against the suspect, is presented to the court.
It is our view that the adversarial system gives police enormous discretion over
what evidence is followed up or ignored and which suspect is eventually
interrogated, detained and charged. Unlike the system of justice in most
European nations, where independent oversight is provided by a judge or
non-police official, Australia’s adversarial procedures allow the police to
cull the evidence they collect. Unless the defence is able to pour enormous
resources into their own investigation, the jury will have no idea that what is
presented to them by police and prosecution is potentially distorted. The worst
case scenario is where evidence has been illegally obtained or fabricated.
However the evidence does not have to fall into this category to give a
misleading impression to a jury. The
Stafford case exemplifies some flaws in police and legal procedures and
this is one of the main reasons why this book was written. We believe that the
conviction of Graham Stafford for the murder of Leanne Sarah Holland is a
significant miscarriage of justice in the Australian judicial system. And it
becomes an even more appalling miscarriage of justice when it is obvious that
the criminal justice system and forensic science appear to have learned very
little from the mistakes made in the Chamberlain and other cases involving
convictions of innocent people based almost entirely on forensic evidence. Paul
Wilson, a criminologist, has written a great deal on wrongful convictions in
murder cases. He became involved because he believes this case, more than any
other in recent years, shows how easily such travesties can come about, and how
difficult it is to correct such mistakes. Graeme Crowley, a former police
officer who served in the Queensland force for twelve years, spent many years
investigating the facts surrounding the murder of Leanne Holland and the police
case against Graham Stafford. He too, is convinced that the criminal justice
system has failed utterly in this case. Both are drawn to the inescapable
conclusion that a violent sexual killer remains unpunished for this crime. The
brief facts of the case are as follows: Leanne Sarah Holland, twelve years of
age, went missing on or about Monday 23 September 1991, from her home at 70A
Alice Street in Goodna, an outer western suburb of Brisbane. Her body was found
three days later, ten kilometres away, dumped on a bush track at Redbank Plains.
She had been viciously battered to death. It is possible that she was sexually
interfered with and tortured. She had been apparently burned in a number of
places, perhaps with a cigarette, and marks may have been carved into her skin
after she died. It was a horrendous crime and all the more brutal given the
child’s age. Graham Stuart Stafford, the live-in boyfriend of Melissa Holland,
was arrested for Leanne’s murder on Saturday 28 September 1991, five days
after her apparent disappearance. To this day, Stafford remains a prisoner in a
Queensland gaol, serving a life sentence for a crime he maintains he did not
commit and was not connected with. The
police alleged Stafford had murdered Leanne sometime between 8.00am and 4.00pm
on Monday 23 September in the house at Alice Street. It is further alleged that
he secreted the body in the boot of his car before dumping it at Redbank Plains
early on the morning of Wednesday 26 September. Although there were no
eyewitnesses, no confession and no motive, he had opportunity and there was
forensic and circumstantial evidence connecting him to the crime. Tyre marks,
his bloodstained car at the crime scene, inconsistencies in his police
statement, and a maggot all formed part of the Crown case. The defence case was
straightforward. Stafford was not involved in the disappearance or the death of
Leanne. Graham claimed Leanne left the house where they lived together early on
the Monday morning and was never seen again. Crowley
first became involved in late 1992 when he was a licensed private inquiry agent
operating in the Brisbane area. Stafford’s parents, Eric and Jean, came to him
by way of a referral from a firm of solicitors for whom Crowley had undertaken
some work. They told Crowley that they knew within their hearts that their son
was innocent, for he had continually assured them he had nothing to do with the
crime and they unshakably believed him. Jean said that when Graham was arrested
they did not know all the details of the allegations against him. On the day of
his arrest they telephoned a solicitor who was a friend of a friend. The lawyer
strongly suggested that Graham be told to tell the truth and, if he did this,
‘everything would be all right’. That was the advice the parents passed onto
Graham but given the outcome of the trial they regret very much giving him such
naïve advice. In
1992, the Stafford family also decided to approach criminologist Paul Wilson. Dr
Wilson had a public profile as a criminologist who was known to speak out on
issues relating to miscarriages of justice. Wilson had been vocal in the media
about the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain and that of Kelvin Condren.
In that Queensland case, Condren, an Aboriginal man, was subsequently found to
be innocent of a murder for which he had been imprisoned. Wilson was also known
to be critical of the Queensland police generally and, in particular, of the
methods they used to solve some crimes. He spent many hours analysing the
transcripts of the trial and spoke to the Stafford family in some detail. His
partner, Robyn Lincoln, herself a criminologist, assisted him in these tasks and
both of them came to the same conclusion. They believed the death of Leanne
Holland and the media publicity it generated provoked a hasty police
investigation with a view to obtaining a quick arrest. As a result,
investigation procedures were not followed, leading to weak forensic and
circumstantial evidence being collected that wrongly convicted an innocent man. At
this stage Wilson and Crowley had not met, though Wilson was aware of some
newspaper articles that linked the private detective to the Stafford family’s
search for justice. Crowley spent some time going through hundreds of pages of
trial transcripts and making other preliminary inquiries. At the end of this
period he was sure that the evidence implicating Stafford in this murder was
overwhelming. He wanted to go straight to the prison and tell Stafford to
confess to his parents and put the family out of their collective misery.
Crowley believed Jean and Eric to be wonderful people, deserving of the truth,
whatever it might be. They may not have liked what Crowley was about to tell
them, he thought, but at least they would be able to get on with their lives. Within
a short time however, he made further inquiries and became intrigued by the
irregularities and inconsistencies in the police case. By the time the small
amount of money that Eric and Jean Stafford had provided for investigations was
spent, the detective was sure that he had found serious and significant
discrepancies in many areas of the police investigation. He has never taken on
unpaid work before. The likelihood of getting further monies in this
investigation looked remote. However, he was unsettled by the case and decided
to pursue it at his own expense. He believed in a ‘fair go’ and to his mind,
Graham Stafford had not received this. As
he worked through the material relating to the case he found the evidence
against Stafford to be almost entirely circumstantial and of a questionable
forensic nature. On the face of it, the Crown had a strong case but the evidence
had never been thoroughly tested, even in a courtroom. There had been little or
no cross-examination of the witnesses; the forensic evidence lacked credibility;
and, at least in Crowley’s (and later Wilson’s) eyes, the personality
profile of the killer simply did not fit Stafford’s character or history. Crowley’s
tenacity lost him friends in the police service. He was perceived by some as a
‘bleeding heart’ and rumours circulated about him and his relationship with
the Stafford family. One such blatant lie was that the family home had been
transferred into Crowley’s name to pay his fees. Some months later, Graeme
Crowley the investigator met Graham Stafford the convicted murderer. The young
man continued to deny any involvement in Leanne’s death. He did not speculate
on what Leanne may have done that day or what the police said happened. He
simply told Crowley that he did not kill Leanne and had no idea who had. He
repeated his claim that Leanne had walked out of the house early on the Monday
morning to go to the local shops; he never saw her again. Early
in 1993 Crowley approached detectives in Brisbane’s western suburbs who were
involved in another murder investigation at that time. He wanted to explore any
connection between that murder and the killing of Leanne. He expressed concern
that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and explained his suspicions
of a possible link between the two murders. Instead of receiving a favourable
reception, Crowley was rewarded for his efforts by being the subject of a
complaint of interfering in an ongoing police investigation. The complaint came
to nothing but Crowley was concerned, suspicious and angered by the
over-reaction of the police, making him wonder about the real agenda behind
their actions. This attempt to derail his inquiries, however, had the opposite
effect because Crowley became even more determined to press on with his scrutiny
of Leanne’s murder. This is the story of a police investigation conducted hurriedly and no doubt under extreme pressure to produce a positive result. It is a story of evidence being introduced which had the effect of implicating Stafford as the killer. It is also the story of evidence that existed at the time of his trial that would show beyond reasonable doubt that Stafford did not and could not have killed his girlfriend’s young sister. We at no stage suggest that such evidence was introduced by unprofessional or unethical police officers and forensic scientists. We believe all police officers and forensic scientists were professional and ethical during the investigation of this case and in their evidence given in court. But they are also human, and as in so many miscarriages of justice, mistakes and omissions can occur and certain opinions given may be subject to different interpretations. In the interest of clearing Graham Stafford’s name, we point to different conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from the scientific and forensic evidence. Beyond this,
it is also the story of other innocent victims of our criminal justice system.
Leanne Sarah Holland is one victim. Her family members are others, having to
deal with the loss of a loved one on a daily basis. The Stafford family has also lost a loved one; for while Graham is
alive, he is serving a life sentence in gaol and is stigmatised as a vicious
killer. His family has to endure the pain and shame of their son’s
incarceration. Broader still, it is fair to say that truth and justice are also
victims in this case. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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