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Legal Assessment Task Bowraville Murders – Part A (Details of Murders, Examine main evidence) From September 1990 to February 1991 three children went missing in the small town of Bowraville in New South Wales. The first person to go missing was a 16-year old girl by the name of Colleen Walker, she was last seen alive at a party in a section of the town known as “The Mission” throughout the community. On Wednesday, September 13 1990. She was seen walking back from the party around one side of the house, Jay Hart was seen walking in the same direction on the other side of the house. Colleen’s body has never been recovered and she has been “presumed dead”. The only traces of Colleen that have been found are articles of clothing that were weighed down by rocks fished out of the Nambucca River. The second disappearance was 4-year-old Evelyn Greenup on October 4th 1990. Evelyn disappeared following a party at her grandmother’s house. As with the previous disappearance, Jay Hart was also present at the party and was one of the last people to leave. Later that night after the party when everybody was asleep Evelyn’s grandmother claimed to have heard a scream coming from Evelyn’s room which was silenced by a thump. The next day Evelyn’s mother woke up with her pants and underwear pulled down to her knees and Evelyn had vanished from her bed. Evelyn’s body was later found near Congarinni Road, barely buried on the side of the road. Most of the remains were purely skeletal but there it was noted that there was an injury to the skull that was “consistent with a forceful penetration by a sharp instrument.”

The third child to go missing was 16-year old Clinton Speedy-Duroux who went missing the morning after a party at The Mission. Clinton was seen staying at a yellow caravan with his girlfriend on the 1st of February 1991. The caravan belonged to Jay Hart who was also present at the party on the 31st of January. Hart invited Clinton and his girlfriend to sleep at his caravan after his party and in the morning when Clinton’s girlfriend woke up, Clinton was gone. On the 18th of February Clinton’s body was found near Congarinni Road with trauma to the head, similar to what was found at Evelyn’s body. Further inspection of Clinton’s body uncovered a pillowcase which could be traced back to Jay Hart’s caravan.

Jay Hart is the prime suspect of the murders as he was present at all three parties the night before the children went missing, he was seen trying to flirt with Colleen, Clinton stayed at his caravan before he went missing, the two discovered bodies were found in almost the same place and similar injuries have been found on each body. Jay Hart only has one alibi for the murder of Clinton, the morning that Clinton was reported missing Jay was reportedly getting picked up by a friend at around 6:00 am and according to Jay, Clinton had already left the caravan. Jay believed his friend was late to his house so he began to drive himself to work when he saw his friend pull up to his caravan and so Jay returned and sent his friend to work and Jay stayed back at his caravan “for a cup of tea or coffee”. This is an important note because Jay had told the court in 2016 that he didn’t want to be late for work that morning but regardless of this he still decided to stay at his caravan. There are no other alibis that say Jay didn’t do it besides Jay himself. Friends, family and neighbours all say that Jay isn’t the kind of person to commit the crimes. According to these people, he is a nice person and a great father as well as a polite neighbour.

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Bowraville Murders – Part B (Effectiveness of Criminal Justice System in Balancing rights of victim, offenders and society) The criminal justice system has been somewhat effective in balancing the rights of the victims, offenders and society. In the investigation process, the rights of the victims have not been upheld as they were mocked by police at the time and had to face great amounts of prejudice in the initial stages of the investigation. The rights of the suspect during the investigation have been mostly upheld as he had his right to remain silent and the right to privacy were mostly upheld throughout this ordeal. Although the campaigning for change is still ongoing, most of the made legislation couldn’t help much in this case given how old the case is. In the initial stages of the investigation, the victim’s families did not have their rights upheld by the courts and by the police. When the families spoke to the police about each of the disappearances the police didn’t launch any search parties or investigations into any of the children. Instead, the police had just assumed that the children had “gone walkabout”. Investigations only began when the body of Clinton Speedy-Duroux turned up and eventually the discovery of Evelyn Greenup’s skeletal remains. The investigation was botched from the very beginning as it was difficult to get enough forensic evidence to pin Jay at any of the two discovered crime scenes. This soon became a problem during the trials as the two cases were heard at different trials and much of the evidence was circumstantial. In 2006 there was an attempt at a retrial except for this time there was an appeal to hear both cases in the one trial. Since there wasn’t any new evidence and all the evidence was based on witnesses who may or may not have seen certain key events, Jay was once again Acquitted. Jay Hart had his rights upheld throughout the entire ordeal in both the investigation and the trialling process. He had his right to remain silent, right to privacy and the right to innocent until proven guilty. During the trialling, Jay could remain quiet when asked certain questions. When there was an attempt to hear both cases in the one trial, even though there were many correlations which could prove that it was one person, the court still ruled that all the evidence was not enough. Any new attempt to retrial now is almost impossible even as there has been no “fresh and compelling” evidence and until Colleen Walker’s body is found there is the possibility that the killer may never be found. Jay Hart himself also isn’t entirely opposed to hearing a joint retrial although he says that “it’s only a small part of me”. Due to the age of the case and when the murders took place, most of the legislation that has been made to make accusations easier have been useless as they were made after the murders and the acquittals. The Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 sets out the guidelines for police conduct and what they can and can’t do. This would have helped the families in 1990 when Colleen went missing as the police would have had to do something instead of asking questions such as “is she really yours?” and mocking the families. The Evidence Act 1995 would have also helped during the trialling to get a conviction if it wasn’t made a year after the trial against Jay for the murder of Clinton took place. Unfortunately, when Jay was accused of Evelyn’s murder, a lot of the memories of what happened were very vague and was not enough to get a conviction. A conviction in the 2006 trial was also difficult to obtain as the burden of proof lay on the prosecution and when there is an old case with circumstantial evidence, it becomes harder to prove Jay is guilty as time goes on. The Criminal Justice System hasn’t been very effective in balancing the rights of the victims and more specifically their families back in the early stages of the investigation as there was no legislation which could help them get any form of a conviction. There was also nothing they could do to stop the prejudice they faced during the investigation when they were mocked and dismissed. The families did

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try and sue the police which came out successful but most of the money that they received was then spent on legal fees. The Criminal Justice System was also ineffective in balancing Jay’s rights in the modern-day as his name is now published in almost any media article. There have even been articles which have published the town in which he lives in and his right to privacy has been breached greatly. Although the breaches of his right to privacy can also be credited to him being innocent in the eyes of the law but guilty to society.

Bibliography 1. Mitchell, G. (2017). Colleen Walker disappeared as “strangers” arrived in Bowraville, court told. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/colleen-walker-disappeared-as-strangersarrived-in-bowraville-court-told-20171204-gzygkn.html 2. www.abc.net.au. (2006). Child murder trial hears more evidence. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-02-09/child-murder-trial-hears-more-evidenc e/795272 3. Wallace, N. (2006). Accused spoke of killing girl, court told. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/accused-spoke-of-killing-girl-court-told-20060 207-gdmx5a.html 4. Jamelle Wells (2019). NSW Government loses last-ditch effort over Bowraville murders. ABC News. [online] 22 Mar. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-22/bowraville-murders-case-suffers-highcourt-setback/10928478 5. Dan Box (2016). Bowraville. The Australian. Available on Spotify 6. Chris Bullock (1997). The Ghosts of Bowraville. [online] ABC Radio National. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170101001011/http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/co

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