Allison Baden-Clay’s family and friends have been given new hope that her killer husband’s murder conviction will be reinstated.
Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction was downgraded to manslaughter earlier this month, a decision that angered Allison’s family and friends and led to a mass rally in Brisbane’s King George Square.
But Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions looks set to lodge an appeal in the High Court of Australia that would seek to overturn the Queensland Court of Appeal decision.
The Court of Appeal ruled that it was not possible to determine beyond reasonable doubt that Gerard Baden-Clay had meant to kill his wife, and so found that his murder conviction must be overturned.
Instead, Baden-Clay remains in jail awaiting sentencing on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
His 15-years-to-life murder sentence no longer stands. The maximum penalty for manslaughter is also life imprisonment, but it is not yet known what the court will decide.
Watch Lisa Wilkinson’s passionate speech supporting Allison here:
The Courier Mail says Queensland’s top prosecutor, Michael Byrne, QC, has been personally working on an appeal to the High Court, and that he has now informed the Queensland Government that he would be ready to file the application when the court returns from its end of year break on January 4.
Although the decision to lodge an application is a significant one, the High Court does not have to hear the case.
To have a case heard in the court you have to apply for leave to appeal. The judges then decide which cases they are going to hear. There is no further appeal option if the court decides not to hear an application.
In the 2014-15 financial year the High Court heard only a small fraction of the applications that were presented. There were 428 applications for leave, but just 60 of them or 14 per cent were granted.
Still, Allison’s family and friends want to see the Court of Appeal decision challenged.
They say Baden-Clay deliberately killed his wife and deserves to be convicted of murder.
This is the next step down that long road to justice.
Top Comments
We were not in the court. We did not hear/see the evidence and get to judge its strength. The judge would have given the jury appropriate instructions and the jury returned the best consensus verdict of 12 people that it could.
The QLD DPP is welcome to appeal.
The public should mind its collective business. Speculation based on what mainstream media dishes up is plainly not fair.
Gerard Baden-Clay may seem like an opportunistic creep to you and me based on what we could glean from police statements and second-hand retelling of many filtered hours of court sitting days.
Sadly, it's not our place to be judge and jury.
Let process take its course.
We may not have been in the court but the jury were.
As for telling the public to mind their collective business may I remind you that bringing people to account for their law-breaking is the business of every one - moreover it's an obligation.
"The public should mind its collective business"
Clearly, we cannot trust the law to deliver justice for its victim, which is a concern for everyone. I don't think you need to pretend this case is any more complicated than the facts tell us. Allison is dead, her husband has admitted he killed her, but only after he failed to get away with it when he lied to the court the first time round. If there is any grounds for reasonable doubt here, I am wondering who on earth can prove these grounds, knowing what we know for sure (see above). It's just another inadequate outcome and you should also be questioning who the hell our legal system is protecting.
It is very much the public's business if a man convicted of killing his wife has his charges downgraded and his sentence reduced. The community need to know if some murderers have the money to get their court cases revisited and the accepted facts altered after conviction and others don't. We need to know if our legal system is willing to view murdering your wife as something that can be twisted and spin doctored into a lesser charge. We need those who dispense justice to actually show that women who die at their partners hands have some worth and that the system condemns the perpetrators, instead of the boys club slapping their wrists when they get caught.
"may I remind you that bringing people to account for their law-breaking is the business of every one"
I disagree with your principle here, what you are proposing is that others speculate and decide on what a crime is and the guilt or innocence of someone regardless of the laws and the charges they face, it is also known as being a vigilante which I cannot abide.
I know a lot about the case, but don't comment on it because I was not there, I was not part of the jury or judiciary, I did not hear the evidence or fully understand the laws and charges so anything I might add would only be a reflection of my personal views and ultimately is not relevant.
My duty and obligation as part of the collective public is to trust the current laws and hope they get it right instead of getting on social media and calling for pitchforks and fire based purely on what I personally feel is right decision.
We are so over regulated in this cuntry...All these rules and Reg are there to help the professional parasites get an income,,,,commonsense tells you she was murdered tocollect the insurance but insurance info was withheld from the Caught