Leith Ratten
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Leith Ratten is a convicted murderer from Echuca, Australia whose case ignited controversy and national interest in the 1970s.
[edit] Background
On May 7, 1970 members of the Victoria Police stationed in Echuca responded to an emergency call at a home in Mitchell Street. They found a heavily-pregnant woman, Beverley Ratten, lying dead in the kitchen from shotgun wounds to the torso. Her upset husband, Leith Ratten, was removed for questioning.
During interview Ratten claimed to be cleaning a double-barrelled shotgun in the kitchen when it fired, hitting his wife under the left armpit while she was completing housework. Ratten could not explain how the gun discharged or how it came to be loaded. Subsequent investigations revealed that Ratten was having an affair with Jennifer Kemp, the wife of a family friend, and had spoken to her on the morning of the shooting. He had also applied for a twelve-month posting to a base in Antarctica.
[edit] Trial and appeals
Ratten was committed to trial for murder and the hearing took place in August, 1970 in the nearby town of Shepparton, Victoria. Despite the assertions of Ratten's defence counsel that the shooting was accidental and evidence against him was circumstantial, the jury found Ratten guilty and he was sentenced to death. This was later commuted to 25 years' prison.
Following the case, Ratten's lawyers undertook four separate appeals on various grounds, one of which involved the exhumation of Beverley Ratten's body in 1973. All four appeals were dismissed. Despite the failure of his appeals there was considerable doubt about Ratten's conviction, many believing he was found guilty for the questionable morality of his marital infidelity rather than concrete evidence. His case was widely discussed among the legal fraternity while his cause was taken up by many notable lawyers and politicians, such as Don Chipp.
Ratten served his sentence, was a model prisoner and was eventually released in the late 1980s. He currently works as a surveyor in Queensland. A book about Ratten's case, The Web of Circumstance, was written by Tom Molomby in the 1980s.
