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Former prisoner Jason Roberts is launching a lawsuit against the state of Victoria that could result in a multimillion-dollar payout over its prosecution of him for the murders of two police officers.
Roberts walked free from jail after 22 years when a retrial last year acquitted him over the 1998 murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in Moorabbin.
Jason Roberts, pictured in September last year, was acquitted at a retrial over the Silk-Miller murders.Credit: Eddie Jim
The case represents an Australian record for incarceration following a wrongful conviction.
Roberts, 43, will file a Supreme Court writ seeking damages for economic loss, psychiatric injury, unlawful police conduct and medical and legal expenses.
The 32-page statement of claim alleges there was falsification, replacement, destruction and non-disclosure of evidence by numerous officers involved in prosecuting the case.
It claims up to 10 officers, including senior police, were aware of unlawful practices in building the case against Roberts and that multiple officers said false or dishonest things to conceal it.
Sergeant Gary Silk (left) and Senior Constable Rodney Miller.
Roberts was prosecuted alongside serial killer Bandali Debs – the father of Roberts’ then-girlfriend – in 2002. Both men were found guilty of the murders and jailed for life.
But the original 2002 trial was found by the Court of Appeal to have been poisoned “to its root” after revelations that the evidence around the words the dying Miller said were manipulated to imply there were two offenders, not just one.
In 2020, the Court of Appeal deemed Roberts’ trial a miscarriage of justice, quashed his convictions and ordered a retrial.
Roberts is suing over 5627 of the 8001 days he spent in prison.
The claim deducts his 6½-year sentence over a series of armed robberies he committed with Debs in 1998, to which he pleaded guilty.
Although no figure has been stated in damages sought, Roberts is likely to demand a multimillion-dollar settlement.
In a similar case in Western Australia, Andrew Mallard, who was wrongfully convicted of a 1994 murder of a Perth woman, was awarded $3.25 million for the 12 years he spent in jail.
Robinson Gill principal lawyer Jeremy King, who is representing Roberts, said the 24-year saga warranted forensic analysis.
Bandali Debs (right), pictured in 2002, is serving life in jail.Credit: Simon Schluter
“I think it’s important to recognise that this case is far from over,” King said.
“This case is going to mean that everything police did will be carefully and critically scrutinised.
“We are going to put them under a spotlight and make sure that they are held accountable for what happened to Jason.”
Roberts’ acquittal shocked Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, a friend of Silk, who described the outcome of the 2022 retrial as “disappointing”.
The court documents list 24 potential witnesses, all current or former police officers, including Paul Sheridan, the head of the taskforce established to investigate the murders, and his second in command, Graeme Collins; detective George Buchhorn and Glenn Pullin, one of the first officers on the scene.
The statement of claim alleges a new police statement was made concerning Miller’s dying words, months after the original and made in the hours after the Cochranes Road ambush on August 16, 1998.
It alleges multiple police statements were replaced before the 2002 trial and the originals were never found.
The Age does not suggest the allegations made in the writ are true, only that they have been made.
Roberts claims he is entitled to aggravated and exemplary damages because of the wrongful conduct of police.
“The ongoing wrongful conduct of members of Victoria Police worsened and prolonged the plaintiff’s suffering,” the court documents claim.
“The misconduct of multiple Victoria Police members is demonstrative of a systemic and contumelious disregard for the plaintiff and his rights to a fair trial and are deserving of the court’s disapprobation and condign punishment.”
The scene on Cochranes Road, Moorabbin, after the shootings on August 16, 1998.Credit: Wayne Hawkins
Police conduct surrounding the transcribing of bugged recordings of Debs and Roberts from about October 1999 to mid-2000, when the pair were arrested, is also cited in the writ.
These recordings were initially transcribed by civilians employed by Victoria Police and then checked and amended by taskforce investigators.
Jason Roberts during his 2002 trial.Credit: Joe Armao
Roberts’ writ alleges police gave evidence in the initial court hearings that they destroyed all original transcripts. But it emerged before the 2022 retrial that not all the original transcripts, including handwritten amendments, were shredded.
Also under scrutiny is a controversial tactic the Lorimer taskforce used to provoke public conversation while police tapped Debs and Roberts’ phones.
Lorimer released a digital image to the media, known as a “facefit”, and Sheridan described the image as “the younger of the two killers”.
The public were asked to help identify the man and were told the image was “the best clue we have in the case”. The image was, in fact, manipulated from Roberts’ driver’s licence, which the writ alleges was designed to “publicly implicate” him in the murders.
Roberts’ interaction with police on July 25, 2000 will form a contentious part of any legal battle.
He has long claimed he was tortured in the back of a van by members of the Special Operations Group after they bundled him into an unmarked van from a worksite in Melbourne’s north-east.
Roberts claims that inside the van, he was hog-tied, had his pants pulled down and was struck to the head with the butt of a rifle. The writ claims he was also sexually assaulted with a gun by officers in black balaclavas and they “pulled and hit his genitals”.
Roberts was questioned and released by taskforce investigators only to be arrested again on August 15, 2000 and charged with murdering Silk and Miller.
The writ also cites police for allegedly failing to disclose before his retrial the “Clayton Report”, an internal Victoria Police probe by Inspector David Clayton into the conduct of officers linked to the Lorimer taskforce investigation.
That investigation followed a years-long probe by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) into the practices used by the Lorimer taskforce in taking statements. The IBAC investigation included public hearings in 2019.
Victoria Police is yet to reveal any sanctions emanating from the “Clayton report”, which was submitted in early 2022.
Victoria Police declined to comment.
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