Losing Their Grip - the case of Henry Keogh

Author: Dr Robert N Moles

Go to: Networked Knowledge - the Henry Keogh homepage
Go to: A state of Injustice: table of contents

Losing Their Grip - table of contents

Part One - Chapter One - Dramatis Personae

A whole range of people are involved in any criminal case, not just the accused and the victim. There are also their families and friends, the police, other investigators such as pathologists and scientists, and lawyers and judges.

Henry Keogh’s case has all of those, plus the Governor and politicians and government officials as well. Obviously, some individuals have played a more significant role in the case than others, and this chapter provides some background to them.

Henry Vincent Keogh has become widely known as the man who drowned his fiancée in the bath, just five weeks before they were due to be married. We were told that he did it to claim $1.15m insurance on her life. He is serving one of the longest prison sentences in South Australia -- and many people think that it is thoroughly deserved.

However, things were not always so. Before Friday, 18 March 1994, he was just another hard-working and fairly successful person in the commercial sector. He was in his late thirties and the father of three young girls. However, whilst his relationship with the girls was proceeding fairly well, his marriage had hit a fair bit of turbulence. He had moved out of the family home, and he had been living with Anna Cheney for a while.

Interestingly, whilst it was clear that Keogh was an item of interest to other women, his wife had not quite given up on him. She still felt that she was in the running for his affections to return to her.

Some may think it ironic that a person portrayed as one of the vilest and most callous murderers in South Australian criminal history has not, even to this day, ever been the subject of any allegations of violence, of any description, other than that for which he was convicted. Indeed, if he did have a problem, it seemed to be his inability to tell people things which he thought might be hurtful to them. So, he found it difficult to talk to his wife about the separation and the divorce. Sometimes he’d not turn up to some social arrangement, rather than tell people in advance that he would not be going. Then afterwards, he’d make up stories to explain his non-appearance. As time went by, the ‘little white lies’ became more frequent, to enable him to keep things on an even keel.

So what was it that people found interesting about him?

He is intelligent and quietly spoken, even after all of his years in the prison environment. He enjoys wit more than humour. Quick and deliberate play on words obviously amuses him. Behind the somewhat cheery exterior, however, is a capacity for serious and sustained engagement with important issues.

Having been denied access to the people and issues with which he was previously associated in his social and commercial life, he has become somewhat withdrawn within the prison community. He has, nevertheless, used his quiet intelligence to acquire the skills of a gifted artist, which he uses to produce works of a strained sensitivity. A child’s face, anguished and pained at some separation. The hands of a very old and a very young person, intertwined. He avoids much of the bonhomie and cheerful chatter of his cellmates, but cares enough for them to have become the cook who produces meals for ‘special dietary requirements’. He often helps other inmates with their writing and legal submissions.

In his previous life he had started to do dentistry at university, but gave it up in the early stages. He found himself working as a sales representative with various companies, including a pharmaceutical company. He gradually moved towards banking as a career. He joined the State Bank in 1988, first working in the area of financial planning and investment advice, in the bank’s fairly new Investment Services Unit. He advised a wide range of clients from self-funded retirees to those with redundancy payments to invest. It was a job which required some diplomacy, because the branches (where the customers were based) saw the Investment Unit as a competitor for the capital holdings of their customers, the funds of whom the branches had their eye on, to enable them to achieve their own targets. Also, in some respects, Keogh was seen as an outsider. He had not come up through the ranks of the bank from school or university as many others had done.

Some 12 months later, he was deployed to a new Private Banking Unit that was designed to target high net-worth clients of other banks, on either a referral or a cold-call basis. He was also charged with the responsibility not to lose the bank’s own well-heeled customers to the competition. His previous experience in sales and marketing helped him develop the role, which he thought he had accomplished quite well. Shortly after, the PBU was expanded and re-located, and he was appointed to manage it.

Subsequently, the poor commercial lending practices of the State Bank from the mid-1980s caught up with it and led to a Royal Commission. The resolution was a splitting of the bank’s business to try to retain the value of those sectors that had been operating profitably. However, the massive losses sustained by the bank, combined with the general economic downturn, new lending policies, branch closures and staff retrenchments (much of which it had in common with other Australian banks) was hardly conducive to a sense of well-being within the sector. The Private Banking Unit was swept away as part of the ongoing rationalisation and Keogh found himself on the redeployment list.

The board and management of the bank took the view that the way to engender customer loyalty, was to increase the customer’s involvement with the bank. So they embarked on an extensive program to cross-sell its products to its existing customers. This was not something that came easily to most bank-tellers, or their managers.

However, with Keogh being quite outgoing and with his background in sales and marketing, he was identified as one person within the bank who could be used to demonstrate the way forward. He was appointed to be the manager of a major branch, at Elizabeth City Centre, a large working class area in a major development to the north of Adelaide. In some ways this was an extraordinary appointment, because this was the second-largest branch in the bank. Keogh had virtually no experience of retail banking. However, he had already proven his ability to be adaptable to new challenges. No doubt, someone within the senior management of the bank thought that desperate times required some desperate measures.

Faced with a somewhat demoralised and wary staff, Keogh took on the role of coach and mentor. He would serve customers at the counter and interest them in the bank’s range of products. He dealt with loan and investment inquiries and conducted sales training with the staff. His idea was to lead by example. He, not infrequently, took staff with him when he went on sales calls to the numerous businesses within the branch’s catchment area. His sense of humour and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and ‘get out there’ appealed to staff and customers alike.

After less than a year in this new role, he was asked to take on the job of District Manager. This gave him responsibility for a group of nine of the bank’s branches. Keogh set about building his new sales force within the branch system. He devised mentoring and personal development plans for staff that he had identified as having potential and ambition. He set budgets and targets across the range of products and services at both the Branch and District levels. Having made quick progress himself, Keogh was willing to fast-track the training and promotion of others.

Not long after, he was promoted to the position of Head of Products and Customer Service. He had the responsibility for pricing, packaging and marketing of home loans, personal lending, credit cards, deposits and commercial loans. He had to take care of customer retention and satisfaction, which, in itself, would have been a daunting task at this particular stage in the bank’s development. He also had to consider customer acquisition, cross-selling and statistical analysis. Being sufficiently worldly-wise to realise that ‘what goes up, could well come down’, Keogh cast around for a more secure environment in which to work.

At that time in Adelaide, the stockbroking firm of Baker Young was seeking to set up a new financial planning and investment unit to complement their shares facility. Keogh was identified to them by a senior person in the banking sector as being a potential manager. He was approached, interviewed and appointed within a short space of time. He then had to recruit a team of financial planners and advisers. He set up and supervised their training and compliance with all of the various statutory requirements. He established their budgets and targets to implement the sales and marketing strategies. This time, though, it had to be done without the resources of the various departments within a large bank to support him.

He was only six weeks into this new role when his fiancée, Anna Cheney died.

Anna-Jane Cheney was a 29 year old lawyer. She was the only daughter of Adelaide haematologist Dr Kevin Cheney and Mrs Joanne Cheney. She had one brother, Marc.

She had worked for a while with a firm of solicitors, but she had given up that job because she was not happy about some of the things that went on there. She had a short time between jobs. She worked at the Crown Solicitor’s office for a while, before landing a job to which she thought she might be better suited.

She was appointed to a fairly senior position at the Law Society of South Australia. She had been employed there for just over a year, and according to her boss at the time, she had been doing a very competent job of it. At the time of her death she was working as the ‘Acting Manager for Professional Conduct’. It was a responsible and demanding job for someone of her age, and who had not had a great deal of experience in legal practice. Being in charge of Professional Conduct, she was responsible for ensuring that lawyers, who were suspected of not doing their job properly, were investigated; a job that was, no doubt, quite stressful at times.

Dr Colin Henry Manock was the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Anna-Jane’s body and determined the cause and manner of death. His background and history are of some relevance in the unfolding story of this case because it was he, as an expert, who first propounded the murder scenario. The issues of whether he was or was not an expert  and whether there was any real scientific evidence to support his claims that the death was a murder, and how it occurred, are issues which subsequently became significant in the re-investigation of the case, particularly in the hearings at the Medical Board in 2004.

Dr Manock came from England to the post of Director of Forensic Pathology in the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science (IMVS) Adelaide, in 1968.

He graduated from the Leeds Medical School with the degrees MB ChB (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) in 1962. Following that, he had several six-monthly medical officer placements involving clinical toxicology, cardiology, neurosurgery and obstetrics. In February 1964 he was appointed assistant lecturer in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Leeds University, and appointed to the permanent staff of the university as lecturer in October 1966.

In September 1971 he was admitted to the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia as a Fellow (FRCPA), without the normal five years of study and without having to complete any written examinations.

In the 1970s, the IMVS attempted to appoint a Senior Director of Forensic Pathology. Dr Manock sued for breach of contract, arguing that this was tantamount to a constructive dismissal of him, as he had been appointed as the head of the department. [1]] Dr Bonnin, the Director of the Institute, pointed out during the court proceedings that the IMVS had found itself in an awkward situation: they had a person (Dr Manock) in a specialist’s job, but without the necessary specialist qualifications. He said:

“We had to make other arrangements for the work, particularly the histopathology which he was unable to do certifying the cause of death because of his lack in histopathology …” [2]

The court upheld Dr Manock’s claim, and his position as the head of the department of forensic pathology was confirmed.” [3]

Dr Manock was involved in a number of high-profile cases. In late 1992, he conducted autopsies on three babies, all of whom he found to have died of bronchopneumonia. These cases were to become the subject of an inquest (known as the ‘Baby Deaths Inquiry’) in 1994-5 in which his diagnosis of this cause of death was shown to be incorrect. The Coroner was critical of Dr Manock’s procedures and approach, remarking in his Inquiry Findings that Dr Manock had ‘seen things that could not have been seen’ and that some of his answers to the Coroner’s questions had been ‘spurious’. [4]

Dr Manock retired from his position of Senior Director of Forensic Pathology at the Forensic Science Centre in 1995. This was just before he gave evidence at the second Keogh trial. In a career spanning some 30 years he claimed to have conducted over 9000 autopsies.

Dr Ross Alexander James was also a Forensic Pathologist at the Forensic Science Centre in Adelaide. He additionally held an appointment as Senior Clinical Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the University of Adelaide. He had graduated as MB BS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) in Adelaide in 1967 and trained for five years as a histopathologist. He conducted his first medico-legal postmortem examinations in 1969 and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 1974. He worked with, but independently of, Dr Manock, replacing him as Chief Forensic Pathologist in 1995. Dr James retired in 2002, having conducted some 6000 autopsies.

Dr James became involved in the Keogh case after the committal proceedings when the then Director of Public Prosecutions (Paul Rofe QC) asked him to review the case and check Dr Manock’s work. He reported on this in December 1994. Before the trial, he spent some time with defence counsel (Michael David QC) assisting him in the preparation of the defence case. [5]

Associate Professor Tony Thomas has been an anatomical pathologist for thirty years and a specialist for over twenty years. He is a Senior Specialist in Anatomical Pathology at Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide. He has been the Chief Examiner in Anatomical Pathology for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia.

He has performed coronial autopsies in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Since qualifying, in addition to diagnostic surgical pathology, his work has focussed on autopsy pathology, coronial pathology and cardiac pathology.

In 1994, he was asked by the Coroner of South Australia to assess the work of Dr Colin Manock in relation to the Baby Deaths Inquiry. After reviewing Dr Manock’s work in those cases, he formed the view that it had been inadequate and that it had led to erroneous conclusions. His report on the matter was submitted to the Coroner of South Australia in February 1995. The Coronial Findings were released two days after the verdict in the Keogh case. The Coroner severely criticised the work of Dr Manock and accepted, in their entirety, the criticisms of Dr Thomas. [6]

Paul Rofe QC was the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in South Australia at the time of Keogh’s trials. He personally conducted the prosecution at both trials and represented the prosecution at all of the appeals. He was a graduate of the Law School of the University of Adelaide and was known for his outspoken manner and for his involvement in football, both as a player and as a Commissioner. He worked as Counsel Assisting the Coroner earlier in his career. He joined the Crown Prosecutor’s office in 1977 as a prosecutor. He became a QC in 1991 and was appointed the State’s first DPP in July 1992. He prosecuted in a number of high profile murder cases.

In 1996 he publicly apologised following his conviction for drink-driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.178. He was fined and banned from driving for 15 months. He was reappointed for a further seven-year term as DPP in May 1999. Although he suffered a mild stroke later that year, and had to take leave, he was still able to continue as DPP.

Controversy erupted in February 2003 over revelations by Channel 7’s Today Tonight program that during office hours, he had visited a TAB betting shop, or bought ‘scratchies’ up to 17 times in one day. More controversy arose in July 2003 over his plea-bargaining in the case of Paul Nemer. This led to a confrontation with the Government in which he was directed by the Attorney-General to appeal the leniency of the sentence imposed upon Nemer for shooting a newspaper delivery man in 2002. The Solicitor-General, Mr Chris Kourakis QC, reviewed the matter at the request of the Government. In his report, issued in April 2004, the Solicitor-General found that some aspects of Mr Rofe’s handling of the conduct of the prosecution of Nemer were ‘inept’.

Mr Rofe resigned as DPP in May 2004 and he began working as a barrister in July 2004.[7]

Michael David QC is also a graduate of the Law School at Adelaide University. At the time of Keogh’s trials he was a well-known and experienced criminal barrister. He conducted the defence for Keogh at both trials and appeared for him at the first appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. He did not appear in the second appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, or in the application for special leave to appeal to the High Court. Shortly after the second Keogh trial he was appointed a Judge of the District Court of South Australia.

Kevin Borick QC is well known as a defence counsel. Also a graduate of the Adelaide University Law School, he has been President of the Australasian Criminal Law Association. He led the legal team that submitted the more recent Petitions to the Governor of South Australia on behalf of Henry Keogh. He has made extensive submissions to the Solicitor-General and to the Medical Board of South Australia with respect to the Keogh case. He is pursuing an application for judicial review of the Medical Board’s decision in the Supreme Court.

Chris Kourakis QC is the Solicitor-General for South Australia. He became involved in the Keogh case in November 2003 when he was asked by the Attorney-General to inquire into the issues raised in the petitions. The Premier publicly announced the Inquiry in April 2004. [7] The terms of reference have never been made public. Before becoming the Solicitor-General, Mr Kourakis was the President of the Law Society of South Australia and a prominent lawyer in both civil and criminal matters. In addition to completing the report into the plea-bargain cases involving Mr Rofe, Mr Kourakis represented the Crown in the appeals in the case of Paul Nemer.

Endnotes

[1] ‘Senior pathologist appeals over job’, The Advertiser, 23 March 1978.

[2] CH Manock v State of South Australia and the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science SA Supreme Court, 2355 of 1978, pp. 117-125.

[3] ‘Judge rules on status of forensic director’, The Advertiser, 8 June 1979.

[4] Finding of inquest into the deaths of Storm Don Ernie Deane, William Anthony Barnard, Joshua Clive Nottle by the Coroner for South Australia, Mr Wayne Chivell, 25 August 1995.

[5] Information derived from Transcript, Second Trial, p194, affidavit to the Medical Board of South Australia, 23 June 2004, and letter to Paul Rofe QC, 30 Oct 2001.

[6] Affidavit of Dr Thomas to the Medical Board, (see Chapter Ten).

[7] Sources: N Hunt, ‘Rofe can’t be sacked over his betting’, The Advertiser 19 February 2003, p. 9; M Kemp et al, ‘Public trial of a private man’, The Advertiser, 19 February 2003, p. 19; G Bildstein, ‘Atkinson stops short of delivering Rofe verdict’, The Advertiser 24 April 2004, p. 34; G Kelton, ‘Get on your bike, Mr DPP – Under pressure, Rofe resigns’, The Advertiser, 4 May 2004, p. 1; N Hunt, ‘Its now Mr Rofe – of the defence’, The Advertiser, 21 July 2004, p. 15; and Re: Request to advise on matter of Paul Nemer and associated issues, report to the Attorney-General, by Mr Chris Kourakis QC, Solicitor-General of South Australia, 7 April 2004.

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