Wednesday 14 March 2007 - Legislative Council

[This version of the document has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles
Underlining where it occurs is for editorial emphasis]

If you wish to comment on this matter, you can email to "dennis.hood@parliament.sa.gov.au" or write to "Dennis Hood, Family First, c/o Parliament House, North Tce, Adelaide 5000"

Matters of Interest

NETWORKED KNOWLEDGE

The Hon DGE HOOD

In 2003, Dr Robert Moles gave up his university employment as a legal academic so that he could focus full-time on the investigation of alleged serious miscarriages of justice in South Australia. His team of volunteers works under the name of Networked Knowledge, which is entirely funded by Dr Moles personally. Networked Knowledge works to assist lawyers working on miscarriages of justice and to publish materials that might be of interest to them and to the wider public in general. Members may have noted the Networked Knowledge truck parked very promi­nently outside Parliament House today.

In October 2004, the team published its first book, entitled A State of Injustice. As its name implies, it focuses on a range of South Australian cases where it was suggested that the legal system had failed the particular individuals involved. A State of Injustice deals in some way with the Henry Keogh case. It also deals with the appalling forensic fiasco involved in the conviction of Michael Penney. The details of some of the more disgraceful plea bargaining cases are set out, including the astonishing findings that are contained in the Solicitor-General's report on this matter. Since the publica­tion of these cases in October 2004, there has been no official response, despite its attracting the interest of John Singleton, who launched the book, and Alan Jones in Sydney, who wrote to the Premier about these matters.

Since then, the Networked Knowledge team has published a further book, Losing Their Grip: The Case of Henry Keogh, which was published in January last year. The series of allegations set out about the Keogh case involves the claim that state forensic pathologist, Dr Manock, was not properly qualified and that he had made a series of very basic errors in his work on this and many other cases. He had never checked the medical history of the deceased. I repeat: he had never checked the medical history of the deceased. The scientific principle he used to establish the cause of death had never been published and therefore could not amount to expert knowledge. The scientific finding that showed what was thought to be a bruise was not actually a bruise and was not disclosed.

Crucial evidence in the case has never been disclosed to Mr Keogh or to his lawyers. This includes the so-called `expert report', which the Solicitor-General said he had received from an unnamed source and which he claimed was sufficient to enable him to reject the significant number of affidavits Keogh's lawyers had sent to Mr Kourakis QC. The DPP, for his part, said in a filmed interview that he had never heard of the Police Forensic Procedures Manual. At the present time, there have been extensive proceedings over four years before the Medical Board and three recent cases in the Supreme Court of South Australia in relation to the Keogh case. If justice is to be delivered efficiently and effectively, the underlying cause of these problems may have to be addressed by a transparent inquiry into the work of Dr Manock and the Forensic Science Centre in Adelaide

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