Can journalists call someone a murderer? (Best of 2024) - podcast episode cover

Can journalists call someone a murderer? (Best of 2024)

Jan 05, 202517 min
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Episode description

This episode originally aired on July 31. It’s presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Stephanie Coombes, and edited by Josh Burton with assistance from Jasper Leak.

A defamation case sparked by the Shandee’s Story podcast poses the question: can journalists publish evidence that calls a court finding into doubt?

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinamiot. It's Monday, January sixth Australians will have to wait until twenty thirty for living standards to go back up. That's according to a fresh analysis of the government's midyear economic update, and one of the country's leading economists says a lack of bipartisanship on productivity is to blame. Orcus is coming, but Australian companies aren't prepared to take up the lucrative

contracts on offer as part of the Defense Pact. Just one company has received the globally recognized nuclear safety certification required to do the job. Those exclusive stories a live right now at The Australian dot com dot Au Australian's podcast. Shandy's Story was back in the spotlight last year after

Shandy Blackburn's ex boyfriend sued for defamation. He claimed his reputation was seriously harmed when National Chief correspondent Hedley Thomas reported a coroner's finding that he did kill Shandy in twenty thirteen. Perros has always denied any wrongdoing, and in August, a Queensland Supreme Court Judge dismissed the defamation action. This episode originally aired on July thirty one and explored a big question, is it okay for journalists to question a

jury's finding. It's hosted by The Australian's editorial director and the regular host of The Front, Claire Harvey.

Speaker 2

It's one of the most harrowing cases in Australian history.

Speaker 3

I just yelled out as anyone got a torch, Dingo's got my baby?

Speaker 4

The verdict in Missus Chamberlain's case guilty for mister Chamberlain guilty.

Speaker 5

Missus Chamberlain was then sentenced to life imprisonment.

Speaker 6

Today it has ended with the fourth coronial inquest finding that Azaria Chamberlain was killed by Dingo, as her parents had claimed. From the beginning.

Speaker 2

The story of Lindy Chamberlain and her husband Michael, whose nine week old baby Azaria died at Ularu in nineteen eighty. It's one of our greatest miscarriages of justice. A family's life ruined by a wrongful conviction. A jury found them guilty. Three decades later, a coroner, examining fresh evidence, said they were not guilty. This is Coroner Elizabeth Morris in twenty twelve.

Speaker 6

Please accept my sincere sympathy on the death of your special and loved daughter, insists her Azaria. I'm so sorry for your loss. Time does not remove the pain and sadness of the death of a child.

Speaker 2

The case of Aaria Chamberlain was invoked in the Queensland Supreme Court on Wednesday by Justice Peter Applegarth. He's hearing another case where a jury's decision went the opposite way to a coroner.

Speaker 7

The coroner found the Dingo did it? A Darwin jury finds Lyndy Chamberlain did it. The coroner was right.

Speaker 2

This is the matter of John Perros. He was acquitted by a jury in twenty nineteen of murdering his ex girlfriend Shandy Blackburn, but he was found by a coroner in twenty twenty to be the murderer. We're using a voice actor to bring you the judge's words as spoken in court.

Speaker 7

So don't we have something similar here that the jury acquitted the tone of episode thirteen is doing their duty. They should have acquitted on the evidence that was before them, but the coroner made these findings on additional evidence.

Speaker 2

The judge was questioning David Helvajian, a barrister representing John Perros in his defamation case sparked by The Australian's blockbuster investigative podcast Shandy's Story. Peros has always denied killing Shandy, just as Applegarth is asking this. Just like in the Chamberlain case, the jury in John Perros's case did not have the same evidence that the coroner was later able

to consider. The podcast pointed this out and even quoted Shandy's mother saying if she was on the jury, she would probably have acquitted Peros because the evidence just wasn't there. So the judge wants to know. Isn't the podcast allowed to point this out? Here's what David Helvajian, representing John Perros, told the court.

Speaker 5

My submission still stands that episode thirteen causes serious harm because of the removal of any doubt. It imputes murderer and tells the listener why they can be sure of murderer.

Speaker 2

This case is a big deal, not just for us at The Australian, but for journalism more generally. If a jury makes one finding and a coroner makes another, how are journalists supposed to report Shandy Blackburn was left to die in a gutter in the North Queensland tropical city of Mackay in February twenty thirteen. She had been stabbed more than twenty times as she walked home from work.

Her ex boyfriend John Perros was charged and acquitted of the murder, but a coroner who compelled Perros to give evidence, found he did stab Shandy to death. That would have been the end of it, because once acquitted, Peros could not be tried again without fresh evidence, until investigative journalist Headley Thomas came along with his twenty twenty one podcast for the Australian Shandy's Story. This is a moment from episode one of shanny Story.

Speaker 8

Shandy and John were sometimes in passionate all consuming love and at other times in deep, self doubting despair at their exhausting, abusive rows. The jealousies were toxic. John had made no secret of what he called his serious trust issues.

Speaker 2

In that first episode, Headley explored doubts over who really killed Shandy.

Speaker 8

I've interviewed Mackay friends of John Perros and talked to others at length off the record. They described John as gentle and caring, a tough fighter in the boxing ring, but a good natured soul and loyal to a fault, A bit intense in relationships, yes, but surely not a murderer.

Speaker 2

Peros is not complaining about the first twelve episodes of this podcast. He says episode thirteen defamed him by suggesting the jury got it wrong and he was in fact a murderer, and that's why his suing Nationwide News publisher of The Australian, Headley Thomas, and Shandy's sister, Shanna Blackburn.

The Australian's lawyers want the judge to listen to episodes one to twelve as well, because they say there's a huge amount of context and background that ensures the podcast is fair to Peros and allows the audience to make up its own mind. Peros's lawyers are arguing in court that most Australians were unaware of the coroner's finding that Peros was a murderer. They say because Shandy's story was wildly popular, sitting at the top of the podcast charts

for months, it caused serious harm to his reputation. A date has not yet been set for the full hearing of this trial. What's happening right now in the Queensland Supreme Court is a high stakes preliminary hearing where Dowd's obtained sc counsel for the defendants, that is, the Australian Headley and Shanna is attempting to have Peros's case thrown out before the case even begins. It all turns on

a notion called serious harm under defamation law. Perros has to demonstrate the publication he's complaining about Episode thirteen caused him serious harm, but Siptain says that can't possibly be the case.

Speaker 4

The coroner's finding is a true fact. Episode thirteen has said nothing more than the conclusion to which the coroner came he is a killer. The real cause of the harm to the plaintiff's reputation is because the coroner made a finding. Had it not been for that finding, this podcast may never have been made.

Speaker 2

Episode thirteen included emotional interviews with Shandy's mother and sister, and examinations of how the coroner had before him evidence that Dury never got to hear. For example, the coroner had access to CCTV of what he accepted was John Perros's car driving near the scene of Shandy's murder, and evidence about when John Perros's phone was turned on and off.

The coroner had access to John Perros's initial record of interview with police, and the coroner compelled Perros to give evidence, something Peros didn't want to do for fear of incriminating himself.

Speaker 4

To say of somebody that they are a murderer. It's been found that he's a murderer. To call him a murderer, or to say, yeah, I agree with that finding. What more harm does that do? How is its serious harm?

Speaker 2

Just as Peter Applegarth put this to Dowd's obtain, Episode thirteen presented all these facts, but it also endorsed the coroner's findings and suggested the jury got it wrong.

Speaker 7

It bolsters the coroner's finding to something that may be right, may be wrong, probably right, to something that is definitely right.

Speaker 4

They are true facts that there was evidence that was heard by the coroner that was not heard by the jury. Episode thirteen was a revelation of those facts were part of the finding and providing some explanation to the listeners, how could he have been acquitted? Well, it was made plain the coroner had evidence the jury didn't have.

Speaker 2

After the break exactly what episode thirteen said. Original investigative reporting is what we do at The Australian every day. In a world of misinformation and hot takes. You can invest in reliable, credible journalism for a lot less than the price of your morning coffee. Right now, it's a dollar a week for the first four weeks. Check us out at the Australian dot com dot ayu and we'll

be back after this break. In court on Tuesday, David Helvajian, the barrister representing John Perros, took the judge through the transcript of episode thirteen and explained why he believed it caused serious harm to his client. We'll play the lines from the episode with David Helvagian's commentary. We've used a voice actor to bring you David Helvagian's words. First, you'll hear the real audio from episode thirteen with Shanna Blackburn speaking to Headley Thomas.

Speaker 9

One matter of fact, it was him, how can you be so sure?

Speaker 5

And then we have these lines that I say directly go to this publication establishing that the acquittal was wrong.

Speaker 9

Because I've seen more evidence than what was presented at the trial. We know the evidence that was ruled out before the trial, we know the evidence that hasn't been seen and it's undeniable. When you have seen all that evidence together that there is any other person responsible for this.

Speaker 8

Then what you are saying is that he's got away with murder.

Speaker 9

I think it's a letdown in our justice system.

Speaker 5

Prior to episode thirteen. My submission is the most likely inference is people know the plaintiff is one of two suspects. They know about the coroner's findings. There's a question in their minds why there's a dichotomy between a jury acquittal within two hours versus a coroner's findings. Mister Perros is a suspect with mister William Daniel, and there's a big question mark as to who really committed the murder.

Speaker 2

Helvajian had earlier presented as evidence a few anonymous Reddit comments, including these one hundred percent he did just listen to this. Her ex absolutely did it.

Speaker 5

That kind of certainty is what episode thirteen provides, and that's where serious harm arises.

Speaker 2

In episode thirteen, heavily Thomas tells the audience John Perros's phone, which was rarely turned off, had been switched off on the nights before Shandy's murder. Headley spoke to Vicky Blackburn, Shandy's mother.

Speaker 8

Now, the jurors in John's murder trial didn't hear anything about John's mobile phone usage and that inactivity, but Vicky and Shanna and the cops knew it.

Speaker 3

He went to three nights he did the same thing. He turned his phone off at the same time. He tried that for three nights and got a successful.

Speaker 5

Vicki Blackburn, the victim's mother, insinuates that he got lucky that night. She was walking home from work the prior knight she got picked up by her boyfriend. The insinuation is he was stalking. Now that evidence wasn't before the jury, so it's another element that undercuts the acquittal.

Speaker 2

In my submission, David Helvagian read to the judge words in the episode from former detective Scott Furlong. We're discussing the fact that some of the evidence that was before the coroner had not been put to the jury. She has got Furlong talking to Headley in episode thirteen. Scott Furlong speaks first, So what.

Speaker 10

Would the baggyar's detective know about prosecuting a case or trust the process.

Speaker 11

I hear that at the same time as you've said, you're so disappointed because, in your view, you arrested the right person. So therefore the process you've trusted has freed the killer.

Speaker 10

Yeah, take that one to.

Speaker 3

Bed with you. It's hard to get your hair around.

Speaker 7

That, it is.

Speaker 10

But yeah, you feel you've let the family down, You feel you let the community down to have a not guilty verdict when you know in your heart of hearts that there's somebody that's responsible for her murder and you arrested that person and put them before the courts. We did our part.

Speaker 7

We caught the killer.

Speaker 2

In my opinion, Here's how David Helvagian described that in court on Tuesday.

Speaker 5

Now, if comments like that do not remove any doubt in the listener's mind, it actually gets worse in my respectful submission.

Speaker 2

Episode thirteen also featured someone who listeners to Shandy's story wouldn't know well, forensic scientist Kirsty Wright. She examined why the DNA samples from Shandy's crime scene and John Perros's car yielded no useful evidence for John's trial. Kirsty's work led to stunning revelations in the podcast that Queensland's entire

DNA processing system was deeply flawed. David Helvagian told the court it all added up to a strong insinuation in the episode that the coroner was right and the jury was wrong, and he said it was all made worse by the fact The Australian is a high quality publication.

Speaker 5

This is an investigative true crime podcast with experience, credibility, expertise. It's not a headline or a two column piece.

Speaker 2

Helvadjin also said episode thirteen presented itself as the final conclusion that Peros did it.

Speaker 5

Episode thirteen so leads to certainty that it causes serious harm. How can it otherwise when you have such a credible publication interviewing the investigative police officer, the mother of the victim, the sister of the victim, a DNA expert, a criminal lawyer who says it's bad evidence. Those will point in my respectful submission to the end of the story.

Speaker 1

You can read all the nation's at best news, sport, politics and business anytime at The Australian dot com dot au

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