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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
Chapter Five - The Media Coverage
It is a principle of common law systems that the courts are open to the public. This means that as a general rule, any member of the public can sit in on any criminal court proceedings, unless the judge or magistrate rules otherwise. Special provisions normally apply to sex offences, or matters involving young offenders.
As an extension of the principle, the media are allowed to report most court proceedings provided that what they say is a fair and accurate account of what happens in court. At this stage, commentary or opinion should be avoided in order not to prejudice a fair trial. However, it is not surprising that a person accused of murder, will be portrayed by the prosecution, and thus by the media, as a fairly dreadful sort of a person.
In the initial stages of this case, the media portrayed the death as a murder, without the use of the customary additional words such as ‘alleged’ or ‘possible’. Keogh’s defence at his trial was to be that this was most likely a death which had resulted from an accident. Therefore, to have the media state that the death was a ‘murder’, and for the deceased to be referred to as a ‘victim’, could have been prejudicial.
It appears that this was not challenged by the defence and so the references continued.
As the first trial opened, the headline read, ‘Murder victim’s life insured for $1m.’ [1] There is a subtle, but important difference between a reference to a ‘murder trial’ (which this was) and one that simply states that the deceased was a ‘murder victim’ (which was one of the issues which the jury had to determine). If, for example, the jury had accepted Keogh’s explanation that his fiancée’s death was an accident, then that would have meant that there was no ‘murder victim’, because there was no murder.
If counsel had raised the matter with the court, or with the editors of the newspaper, then no doubt such references would not have continued. As a result, it is quite possible that the media had an unfortunate influence on the climate which prevailed at the time and almost resolved one of the matters which should have been more of an open issue in the minds of the jury. [2]
On 28 February 1995 The Advertiser quoted Dr Manock’s evidence that he had found three faint bruises on the outer side of Ms Cheney’s left ankle, and a small bruise on the inner ankle. It said he told the court:
“I placed my left hand behind the lower leg and found I could put my fingers against the bruises so it was possible they were caused by a grip... a right hand grip.” [3]
Shortly afterwards it was the turn of the Sunday Mail to reinforce the murder scenario in the minds of its readers. It said that two women, (identities suppressed) detailed their meetings with Keogh on Valentine’s Day, ‘a month before Miss Cheney’s murder’. [4]
As we have seen, just as the first trial was drawing to a close, The Advertiser printed the feature article, ‘A Tale of Treachery.’ [5] Apparently, the article was only to be published if the jury had returned with a guilty verdict by the time it was cleared for publication. It seems that there had been some slip-up, and the article went to print before the jury had returned with a verdict. The article contained substantial comment about Keogh, which would have been appropriate if the jury had returned with a guilty verdict. As it was, they were unable to reach a verdict, and so the article went beyond the permissible rules about a fair and accurate report without comment.
That weekend, the Sunday Mail reported in two articles that the trial had ended with a hung jury. [6]] It said that Justice Duggan was asked to consider dismissing the jury over the media reporting of the trial, referring to the 11 March article. It said that the defence and prosecution counsel had branded some of the media reports on the trial as having been, ‘unprofessional’.
Another interesting aspect of the media coverage was the extent to which the newspapers over the next six months revealed how much Keogh’s trials overlapped with the Coroner’s hearing of the Baby Deaths Inquiry. These involved the cases in which Dr Manock’s procedures and expertise had been called into question. His diagnosis of the cause of death in those cases had been vigorously challenged. The extensive reporting of these matters meant that many people in Adelaide would have been aware of the close scrutiny being given to Dr Manock’s skill and competence at the Inquiry. Yet none of this was used in the cross-examination of Dr Manock during Keogh’s trial.
The first trial had finished at the beginning of March. The second trial was not due to start until August 1995. In May, The Advertiser reported on the ongoing Coronial Inquiry into the baby deaths. It said that there was a homicide theory in the deaths and that baby Joshua Nottle had a broken spine, broken collarbones and 15 broken ribs when he died. [7] Dr Manock had said that the death had been caused by bronchopneumonia. In the following days, it was alleged that the baby’s death could have resulted from suffocation, or that the father may have hurt the baby. [8]
By the end of July, The Advertiser reported that the Keogh trial had been brought forward. It was to resume in the first week of August. [9] Over the next few weeks, the public were given the story of the evidence one more time. However, on this occasion, the outcome was to be different. By 24 August 1995 The Advertiser announced, ‘Fiancé found guilty of Cheney murder. Keogh the killer awaits his fate.’ It said that a jury of 5 women and 7 men took just five and a half hours to reach their unanimous verdict after a trial of 12 days.
Two days after the verdict, the Baby Deaths Inquiry was back in the news. The Coroner, who had finished his Findings into the deaths, whilst the Keogh trial was under way, had released his report. His Findings in relation to the conduct of Dr Manock were scathing. The Advertiser reported through a number of articles that the Coroner had said that Dr Colin Manock was found to have ‘closed-off’ police investigative leads into the babies’ deaths, and that ‘serious crimes may have gone unpunished’ because of the inadequate autopsies performed by him. [10]
That weekend, the Sunday Mail did its usual summing up on the Keogh case. It said that much of the evidence at the second trial was repetitious and that there was little new evidence, and that the evidence as a result of an agreement between prosecution and defence counsel had been ‘streamlined’. [11]
It said that, ‘as is the case with any murder trial, forensic evidence played a large role.’ The Crown had called on Dr Manock who had demonstrated how the deceased sustained the bruises. He had said the bruises to the lower leg were consistent with a grip, and that the bruises to the head and neck had happened close to the time of death.
The Advertiser of 16 February 1996 reported:
“Justice Duggan sentenced Keogh, a financial adviser, to 25 years jail for deliberately drowning his fiancee, Anna-Jane Cheney, 29, in the bath of their Magill home on March 18, 1994.”
The report said that, in passing one of the highest sentences handed down in South Australia, Justice Duggan described Keogh’s crime as ranking with ‘the most serious of murders’, with greed the principle motive. [12] It said that Keogh’s statement that he never intended to claim on them was ‘transparently false’. Justice Duggan also found that Keogh ‘deliberately misled’ Miss Cheney’s father, police and some friends about his knowledge of the policies, after the death.
‘The full extent of the insurance cover was not disclosed until you realised it was inevitable that the full facts would come out in the course of the investigation’, Justice Duggan said. ‘When the facts are considered in this light, they reveal an elaborate and coldly-planned scheme to kill Miss Cheney and profit from her death at a time when she was deeply in love with you and excitedly preparing to marry you.’ It was impossible to describe the suffering of the Cheney family, the judge said. ‘Dr Cheney’s (confidential) statement in particular contained a sad and graphic description of the devastating effect of the loss of his daughter and its aftermath’.
The article reported that Keogh showed no emotion as he listened to the verdict. Miss Cheney’s distressed parents did not attend court, but her older brother, Marc and his wife Susan, Anna’s best friend, sat with a small group in the public gallery. Susan and others in her party wept openly as Justice Duggan handed down the sentence. They spent some time comforting each other outside the courtroom before leaving without comment. Keogh’s younger brother David, who had been at almost every court hearing since the arrest, was the only member of Keogh’s family present.
Another Advertiser article on that day ran with the headline, ‘Lifers with the longest sentences’. It pointed out that only a few people in South Australia had received longer sentences than Keogh.
It wasn’t until March 1996 that the Advertiser reported that the article it had published towards the conclusion of the first Keogh trial had been found to be a contempt of court. [13] There had also been a number of proceedings against various other media outlets.
In December 1996, the Coronial Finding in the Baby Deaths Inquiry was the subject of a Petition from Keogh to the Governor, Sir Eric Neale. The Petition was rejected by the Governor on the advice of the Attorney-General. Mr Sykes said that an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court would be pursued.
In March 1997, it was announced that the Cheney family was suing the State Government and Keogh under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act. [14] Anna’s parents, her brother Marc and his wife Susan, had all been diagnosed as suffering from a major depressive disorder complicating severe bereavement reaction. They wanted compensation for psychological treatment and Marc was suing for loss of income. Dr Cheney was also seeking reimbursement for the cost of his daughter’s funeral.
In May 1997, Keogh’s application to re-open his appeal was rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
During the hearing of that application, Keogh’s new lawyer had been taken to task. The Advertiser reported that Mr Michael Sykes had been accused of trying to allege a ‘joint conspiracy’ in the trial process. [15] It said that the Director of Public Prosecution, Mr Paul Rofe QC, had made the accusation during submissions to the Court of Criminal Appeal, about whether Keogh should be granted leave to reopen his appeal against his conviction. It said that there was new evidence centred on the evidence of pathologist Dr Manock who testified at the trial that the bruises on Miss Cheney’s body were consistent with deliberate drowning. Mr Sykes said that whilst one arm of the State (the DPP) was putting Dr Manock forward as a competent forensic pathologist, another arm of the State (the Crown Solicitor’s Office) was assisting the Coroner in an Inquiry which revealed Dr Manock’s ‘complete disregard for orthodox pathology procedures.’
Justice Mullighan in the Court of Criminal Appeal said, ‘You are saying there is something improper on the part of the prosecution authority putting this man forward as an expert when they knew he wasn’t? They didn’t know anything of the sort, did they?’ Mr Rofe accused Mr Sykes of coming ‘awfully close to alleging joint conspiracy’ in the trial process by ‘trying to raise the possibility of some suggestion of fraud.’
Later, in May 1997, the Advertiser said that convicted murderer Henry Keogh would take his case to the High Court after a bid to reopen his appeal had been rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeal. [16] He claimed his lawyer (Michael David QC) in his original appeal had ignored the Coroner’s Finding handed down three days after the trial, which slammed the practices of Dr Manock. Mr Sykes told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the Finding, which criticised Dr Manock’s work in relation to the deaths of three infants, brought into question his testimony at Keogh’s trials. However, in its unanimous decision, the Court of Criminal Appeal agreed with the assertion made by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Paul Rofe QC, that the application to reopen the appeal was ‘incompetent’ and that the pathology evidence was not the only evidence used to convict Keogh in the second trial.
In November 1997, The Advertiser announced that $45,000 had been paid to Anna Cheney’s family in criminal injuries compensation. [17] It was paid to her parents, Kevin and Joanne, and her brother Marc and his wife Susan. While the Cheney family and the Crown consented to the amount to be paid, it was still well below the amount of $50,000 per person. The Executive Director of Victim Support Services, Michael Dawson, said that payments in recent years had been less than in previous years. The payments ranged from $9,370 for Susan Cheney to $12,631 for Kevin Cheney. The article said that because Keogh was in jail and his assets were unknown, the money would be paid by the State.
It was nearly two years later in January 1999 that The Advertiser reported that Keogh had written to the State Governor, Sir Eric Neal, pleading to be pardoned from the life prison sentence. [18] It said that the move came as the Attorney-General’s department considered a request for a Coronial Inquest into Ms Cheney’s death, based on fresh allegations by a lawyer (Mrs Valerie Armfield) that Ms Cheney’s body should not have been cremated on 30 March 1994, five weeks before Keogh’s arrest.
By April 2000, it was reported that the estate of murdered lawyer Anna Jane Cheney was suing five insurance companies in an attempt to recover more than $1m in life insurance. [19] It was said that court documents revealed that Anna’s father had succeeded in cutting Keogh from her will. The article also said that whilst Keogh had been seeking a pardon, claiming he had forensic evidence to prove Miss Cheney was not murdered, the Premier, John Olsen, and Attorney-General, Trevor Griffin, had written to say that due process had been followed and that the conviction would stand.
The Advertiser article said that the policies and the extent of Anna’s knowledge of them were key elements of the trial. It went on to say that Keogh, who wrote the policies when he was an insurance agent, admitted forging his fiancée’s signature on the documents. He claimed Miss Cheney was aware of this and the cover was taken out as part of a scheme of which she was also aware, to ensure that his agencies remained viable. It said the prosecution had not disputed that Anna had been aware of some of the insurance and there was evidence she told several people, including her brother, her life was insured for $400,000. But the prosecution, it said, had claimed that Anna was not aware that Keogh would receive more than $1m if she died. Apparently, the Public Trustee, acting as the administrator of Anna’s estate, was seeking to recover all or part of the life insurance, according to documents which were reported to have been lodged with the District Court.
The article also reported that in the statement of claim it was alleged that the five insurance companies, through their agent Keogh, had represented to Anna Cheney around 1993 that the insurance policies on her life worth $400,000 had been arranged. It is alleged that the policies, ‘were valid and enforceable and arranged by Keogh in good faith’, and that Anna believed this to be true.
This is interesting because the prosecution’s argument at Keogh’s trial was that Keogh knew that the policies were not genuine and, more importantly, that Anna did not know about some of the policies.
The article reported that if it had not been for Keogh’s representations (according to the application filed in court), Anna would have obtained life insurance independently of him to the value of $400,000 payable to her estate. The estate’s administrator was seeking an order for this amount or the total $1.125m in life insurance, in addition to damages, interests and costs. It said that if the policies were found to be void because of Keogh’s actions, then the administrator was still seeking some of the life insurance proceeds claiming that Keogh’s representations were false, misleading and deceptive. Anna had named Keogh as the sole executor and trustee of her will. The will did not mention the policies. She left $30,000 to her father and the rest to Keogh. Following Keogh’s arrest, her father successfully took action in the Supreme Court to disqualify Keogh.
Endnotes
[1] Sylvia Kriven,’Murder victim’s life “insured for $1 million”. Fiance had secret sex life, court told’, The Advertiser, 22 February 1995.
[2] Sylvia Kriven, “Killed for money” remark shocked police’, The Advertiser, 24 February 1995.
[3] Sylvia Kriven, ‘Court told bruises fit deliberate drowning’, The Advertiser, 28 February 1995.
[4] Shane Maguire, ‘Court told of lawyer’s death weeks before her wedding day,’ Sunday Mail, 5 March 1995.
[5] Sylvia Kriven, ‘Feature – A tale of treachery’, The Advertiser, 11 March 1995.
[6] Peter Haran, ‘Deadlocked – Hung jury means new Keogh trial’; Robert Mayne, ‘The Anna-Jane Cheney murder trial – A matter of life and death’; Shane Maguire, ‘The Ann-Jane Cheney murder trial – An answer to all those questions’; Sunday Mail, 12 March 1995.
[7] Sylvia Kriven, ‘Homicide theory in baby deaths’, The Advertiser, 30 May 1995.
>[8] Sylvia Kriven, ‘Baby may have been suffocated’, The Advertiser, 31 May 1995.
Sylvia Kriven ‘Father may have hurt dead baby, inquest told’, The Advertiser, 1 June 1995,
[9] ‘Keogh trial brought forward’, The Advertiser, 29 July 1995.
[10] The Advertiser 26 August 1995 contained four articles with the following headings, ‘Joshua Nottle – 7 broken ribs, 2 broken collarbones, and a spinal fracture.’ ‘Firearms expert who pioneered work of SA unit.’ ‘Forensic Expert Under Fire.’ ‘Dr Terry Donald welcomed the Coroner’s Findings.’
[11] ‘After Trial Déjà vu – a verdict at last’, Sunday Mail, 27 August 1995.
[12] Sylvia Kriven, ‘Greed a killer’s downfall’, The Advertiser,16 February 1996.
[13] Michelle Weidenhofer, ‘Paper admits to contempt of court’, The Advertiser 1 March 1996.
[14] Heidi Lambert, ‘Family sues over lawyer’s murder’, The Advertiser, 13 March 1997.
[15] Karen Michelmore, ‘DPP condemns Keogh lawyer’, The Advertiser, 7 May 1997.
[16] Fiona Clark, ‘Keogh to take appeal bid to High Court’, The Advertiser, 14 May 1997.
[17] Fiona Clark, ‘$45,000 payout for family of murder victim’, The Advertiser, 8 November 1997.
[18] Anna Cock, ‘Pleas to Governor over body in bath case; Killer begs for pardon’, The Advertiser, 16 January 1999.
[19] Sam Weir, ‘Former fiancé cut from will in body-in-bath murder case’, and ‘Anna-Jane’s estate seeks $1m payout’, The Advertiser, 8 April 2000.
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