Miscarriages Of Justice: Andrew Mallard By Evelyn Trew

Miscarriages of Justice: Andrew Mallard By: Evelyn Trew.

“A miscarriage of justice is a failure of a court or judicial system to come to a just conclusion, especially one that results in a person being convicted of a crime of which they are not guilty.” - Oxford Dictionary

The rule of law states that no one is above the law, including those who make and enforce it. While Australia’s legal system seeks to uphold the principle of the rule of law, it is not perfect and sometimes injustices occur. These injustices are called miscarriages of justice, and are often caused by several breaches to the rule of law. Generally a miscarriage of justice is caused by a misidentification by an eyewitness, media pressure for an early conviction, the temptation

Mallard's innocence. In an interview Mr. Mallard said that the murderer would have “washed his clothes in the salt water of the Swan River to remove all traces of blood’’ the forensic chemist conducted a test on Mr. Mallards clothes to see if they had been washed in salt water. When the results concluded that the clothes had not been Mr. Lynch reported this, but at the request of detectives omitted all references to the tests, as these results would help Mr. Mallard. This is one example of how the Rule of law was broken, as by omitting crucial evidence from the courts Mr. Mallard was not receiving a fair and prompt trial. Another example of a fundamental misconduct by the police and prosecution was omitting the results of the wound replication test. In this test, a pig’s head was struck with weapons to try and replicate the wounds found on Mrs. Lawrence’s body. It was concluded the wrench, the weapon Mr. Mallard had stated was responsible for the murder of Pamela Lawrence, or any other possible weapon found in her jewellery shop could not have been responsible for those wounds. This was again stated by the forensic team, but at the request of the police, not shown to the defence. This changed the outcome of the trial, as the prosecutions case relied on the drawing of the wrench, so if the defence found out the wrench was not the weapon the prosecution wouldn’t have had a case. Again breaching

After Quigley threatened to make a speech to parliament, the attorney general of Western Australia made a deal for the DPP to hand over all evidence on the case, including the originally withheld information. Included in the information Quigley obtained were the copies of the forensic reports proving the evidence the prosecution used to convict Mr. Mallard was false. Quigley now had possession of the results from the saltwater tests, the pig’s head tests, Katherine Barsden’s statements and drawings, he had everything. In light of this new evidence an appeal was made, and after a painstaking twelve years of incarceration Andrew Mallard's conviction was quashed, and there was a re-trial. June 2003 saw the re-trial begin, the original conviction was quickly quashed as the crucial evidence the case was built on was no longer admissible. The case was re-opened and a cold case review began. New digital technologies match a palm print found at the scene by Simon Rochford. Rochford is serving a life sentence for the murder of his girlfriend. Whom he murdered in the July of 1994, just six weeks after Pamela Lawrene was murdered. Further investigation revealed Mrs. Lawrence, and Rochford’s girlfriend had identical wounds, and the same blue paint fragments that were found in Mrs. Lawrence’s wounds were found in both Rochford’s girlfriend’s wounds and Rochford’s bag. Just days after Rochford