Death of Corryn Rayney

Corryn Veronica Ann Rayney, née Da Silva, (born 1963) migrated to Australia with her Indian family in 1973 as refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda.^[1][2][3] Her death occurred on or about 7 August 2007, her body being discovered a week later in a clandestine grave in Kings Park, Perth, with no clearly established cause of death.^[4] Her husband Lloyd Rayney, a prominent barrister specialising in criminal prosecution, was charged with her murder but found not guilty after a trial before a judge only.^[5] The acquittal was unanimously upheld by a court of appeal in August 2013. The state's police commissioner and attorney general declined to acknowledge documented procedural mistakes, and refused to instigate a fresh search for the killers, leading to calls for a federal investigation into the matter.

The Rayneys had two daughters^[6] and resided in the Perth suburb of Como. At the time, Lloyd Rayney was involved in a Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry into the misconduct of police officers in a murder investigation.^[6] Corryn Rayney was employed as a registrar at the Supreme Court of Western Australia. She was last seen alive at 9.30 p.m. on 7 August 2007 at a bootscooting class.^[6][7] A week later, police discovered her abandoned car and followed a trail of oil from it to the grave in Kings Park.^[8]

Investigation and trial

Although Lloyd Rayney was controversially^[9][10] described by the chief police investigator Senior Sergeant Jack Lee as the "only suspect" at a police press conference in September 2007,^[11] he was not charged with the murder until December 2010, more than three years after the event.^[12][13]

An affidavit filed by the prosecutors indicated that the case was circumstantial.^[14] The prosecutor's opening address to the trial said that the state's case was circumstantial but the evidence of motive was compelling.^[15]

At the request of the defendant in October 2011,^[14] the trial was heard by a judge only, with no jury. The reasons for the application were suppressed at the time, but later published in March 2012.^[14] Lloyd Rayney wanted a trial without a jury, because he claimed that the extensive publicity would make a fair jury trial impossible to achieve. The decision to conduct the trial without a jury was a subject of debate in Australian legal circles.^[16][17]

Former Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Ross Martin was appointed as an Acting Justice of the Western Australia Supreme Court in February 2012 to preside over the trial;^[18] a judge from outside Western Australia was used to ensure impartiality, given that both the victim and accused had held senior legal positions.^[19]

The trial began on 16 July 2012,^[20] and ran until 19 October 2012 when final submissions were presented by prosecutor John Agius SC, QC ^[21] and defence counsel David Edwardson QC.^[22] On 1 November, Justice Martin acquitted Lloyd Rayney when he handed down a judgment of "not guilty", saying that the "case by the State is beset by improbabilities and uncertainties".^[5] The full reasons for the verdict were published, a requirement which would not have applied to a jury verdict.^[23]

The trial judge closely examined evidence on the conduct of Lloyd Rayney and reportedly described him as a barrister who had engaged in "disreputable conduct" by lying to a magistrate, swearing a false affidavit and arranging a phone tap, and "was prepared to engage in an unlawful activity which was the antithesis of the ethical conduct expected of a legal practitioner".^[24] However those comments, if accurately reported, were redacted from the final official judgment, leaving the conclusion: "(1594) The accused has engaged in discreditable conduct [REDACTED]. The evidence raises suspicion; in some instances quite strong suspicion. But discreditable conduct does not prove guilt, and suspicion, even strong suspicion, falls well short of proof beyond reasonable doubt."^[20]

Appeal dismissed

An appeal by prosecutors against the verdict was held in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in August 2013, before three judges brought in from other states.^[25] The judges unanimously dismissed the appeal, and upheld the trial judge's verdict.^{[26][27][28][29]} The office of the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, which ran the case, announced on 18 October 2013 that it would not be seeking a further appeal to the High Court.^{[30] [31]}

Aftermath

Mr Rayney indicated interest in whether there would be consequences for "police who the trial judge said gave misleading evidence, pressured a forensic pathologist to change his report, abused their position of authority and behaved reprehensibly".

An investigation by the Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission later cleared two police officers of "any serious misconduct" after their behaviour in threatening a female lawyer had been described as ranging from "inappropriate to reprehensible" by the trial judge. A second matter reviewed by the CCC related to "attempts by a third officer to encourage an independent pathologist involved in the case to change a report to better fit police evidence. That officer was found to have acted unreasonably."^[32]

There is an outstanding federal charge against Rayney of tapping his own residential telephone line. He is also likely to continue a multi-million-dollar defamation action against the state over his having been publicly named as "the prime and only suspect".^[30][31]

Calls for new investigation

In his judgment summary, Justice Martin noted that police and forensic evidence was consistent with a sexual attack on Mrs Rayney,^[33] while defence lawyers identified at least two possible criminals who "should have been investigated with as much rigour as Mr Rayney."^[34] In a prime-time TV presentation on 21 August 2014, Rayney himself, backed by senior lawyers and a forensic scientist, spoke out for the first time and called for independent investigators to re-examine the unsolved case.^[35] State Premier Colin Barnett did not see any need for a review but would await advice from his Attorney General.^[36]

As of 20 September 2014, neither Attorney General Michael Mischin nor Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan had indicated that a new investigation was being considered. Mischin reportedly dismissed the calls for a review as "infotainment that is one-sided".^[34] The documentary The Rayney Story, presented by Alison Fan and aired by TVW on 21 August 2014, was made by Artemis International and directed by Michael Muntz with government subsidies through Screen Australia, ScreenWest and Lotterywest. The same company and director produced the 2006 documentary Saving Andrew Mallard, which exposed a police-engineered miscarriage of justice.

A month after airing of the documentary, the arguments of Rayney's defence team were strongly endorsed by an editorial in the mass-circulation Sunday Times^[37] and lawyer Stuart Tipple, who had successfully exposed a historic and tragic miscarriage of justice suffered by Lindy Chamberlain in the 1980s. Tipple revealed that he had written to federal Attorney General George Brandis, seeking a review of the case and claiming it had "many disturbing similarities" to the Chamberlain case. These included "biased reporting, questionable police conduct, questionable forensic evidence and an unwillingness to accept errors".^[38]

On 27 September 2014, one of the state's most senior jurists and former governor, Malcolm McCusker, supported the calls for an independent review, and also a Corruption and Crime Commission investigation of "claims that police manufactured evidence to incriminate...Lloyd Rayney".^[39]

References

Further reading

• Etter, Barbara. "Analysis of the Rayney Case" at Council for Civil Liberties, Canberra, 4 November 2012. The writer is a former Assistant Commissioner of Police in WA and former Integrity Commissioner in Tasmania.

External links

• The State of Western Australia v Rayney Trial judgment summary, published by the Supreme Court of Western Australia 1 November 2012
• The State of Western Australia v Rayney Full judgment, 369pp., 1 November 2012
• Full trial judgment html version, 1 November 2012
• Timeline: Lloyd Rayney murder trial