A few weeks ago David Eastman was released from prison after his conviction for the 1989 murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester was quashed. The fallout will last for years and has already started which has made a lot of people very nervous to say the least. There are police, former police, judges and prosecutors who have a lot to answer for. And now with Eastman’s conviction quashed they will start to be brought to account and they know it.
Obviously it is sad that an innocent person has spent 19 years in jail but he has kept striving for justice and I see that as positive and a good news story. A lot of people who follow this website have had their own denial of justice in one form or another and those people should sit back and watch David Eastman for motivation. He has never given up for 19 years, although I suppose he had no choice given he was in jail, but even so he has had it tougher than most and kept going.
The real positive is that the true culprits in Mr Eastman’s set-up will be brought to account and at least one of them has already been identified. That being Michael Adams, the prosecutor at the murder trial in 1995. I have had recent dealings with Michael Adams in his capacity as a NSW Supreme Court judge which puts me in a position to be able to give an educated opinion on Mr Adams and what he is like.
Background (For a detailed background click here)
Colin Winchester who was Assistant Commissioner in the Australian Federal Police was murdered in 1989. In 1995 David Eastman was tried and convicted of the murder. The reliability of the conviction was always doubtful in many people’s minds. There have been numerous appeals, reviews and attempted reviews of the case. The latest review called the “Eastman Enquiry” started last year and Justice Brian Martin who headed the enquiry handed down his findings in May 2014. It said there had been “a substantial miscarriage of justice” and Eastman “did not receive a fair trial” and the conviction should be quashed.
Eastman’s release
On the 22nd of August 2014 the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial. David Eastman was released on bail and is waiting for a decision on whether or not a new trial will take place or not. The chances of a retrial going ahead are not great as numerous witnesses have passed away which means a retrial is neither feasible nor fair. But the final decision on a retrial rests with the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions.
There are still plenty of people who think Eastman is guilty but also a lot of people who were around at the time and involved in the investigation that think he is innocent or who have major doubts about his guilt.
“The Australian Federal Police should not be let “anywhere near” an investigation of fresh evidence casting renewed suspicion on the Calabrian Mafia for the assassination of Colin Winchester, according to a retired judge with extensive knowledge of the case.” (Click here to read more)
Justice Rares – The everywhere man
As a side note Justice Rares, about whose dodginess this website has written about many times, was one of the ACT Supreme Court judges who freed Eastman. The judges really had no choice as Eastman’s conviction was a massive injustice and everyone knew it.
Justice Rares is also a judge of the Federal Court of Australia and is hearing the defamation case that Justice Michael Adams initiated against Fairfax Media regarding their reporting on the David Eastman matter.
Two current NSW Supreme Court cases affected by Eastman’s release – Confessed corrupt judge, Justice Michael Adams (Click here for the background of Justice Adams)
The first case is the Justice Adams defamation case against Fairfax Media which has been stop and start since last year when he initiated the case. It seems to be going forward now but it is extremely dangerous for Adams as he will get caught out for acting corruptly in the Eastman trial. I wrote the below a couple of months ago:
“The proceedings relate to allegations that Michael Adams acted corruptly when he was the prosecutor in the David Eastman trial. It was alleged in the Fairfax Media owned Canberra Times that Mr Adams withheld evidence at the trial and misled the High Court regarding the evidence etc. Some of what was said in the Canberra times:”
“There are modern criticisms of the conviction going to issues of propriety by prosecutors and police. For example, the court was not told the major forensic witness had been dismissed for professional failings from the Victorian Police forensic unit, nor that he had significantly altered critical testimony between inquest and trial. Counsel for the DPP misled the High Court on whether Carruthers had seen material raising the question of fitness to plead. There are complaints of police misbehaviour, not least in efforts, admitted by police, to harass Eastman so he would explode, and, they hoped, make damning admissions.” (Click here to read the May 2012 article)
“When Waterford talks about the prosecutors and DPP above he is talking about Michael Adams as he was in charge of the prosecution and that is why Adams is suing for defamation. “
The second case is the defamation case that Kerry Stokes initiated against me. A couple of months ago Justice Adams issued orders making me take down a number of posts and videos on the instructions of Kerry Stokes. There was no justification for it and Justice Adams has so far failed to publish written reasons for his orders. Why Adams won’t publish reasons is quite obvious. It will have to be a very dodgy judgement and he knows I will publish another post showing what a corrupt judgement it is.
Michael Adams is a very worried man and he does not need more obvious evidence of his corrupt conduct. But his failure to publish his reasons will hold up the defamation case to some degree or another. (Stokes and me are back in court on October 15th by the way).
Adams also knows full well that his actions in the Eastman matter will come under further close scrutiny whether that be by the police as they search for the real killer and/or also by David Eastman and his lawyers.
Other likely investigations and court cases to come from Eastman’s release
For starters there will be another police investigation for sure. At least into the Mafia and the possibility that they killed Colin Winchester.
There might also be a police investigation into Michael Adams and others for using dodgy evidence and withholding evidence to get a conviction against David Eastman. The corrupt conduct by Michael Adams was raised at the Eastman Enquiry by Justice Brian Martin and by the Canberra Times.
Other likely court cases are Eastman suing for compensation and maybe suing Michael Adams personally given the evidence of corruption against Adams.
By the time this case is finished it will end up exposing the Australian judiciary and law enforcement agencies and their failures at the highest level, which is long overdue and has to be a good thing for the country.
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Categories: Justice Michael Adams
In the case of David Eastman it appears that DPP Counsel misled the High Court and he spent 19 years in jail unnecessarily. In WA the recent Lloyd Rainey acquittal in Perth is another classic case of insufficient evidence being provided by DPP yet they let the case run for months in the Supreme Court for a nil result.
The cost that was borne by taxpayers in this case ending in acquittal was horrendous without the personal cost to Rainey.
It is very obvious that the system of policing is functioning on, Suspicion to deny judicial rights of the national community in general. Another police disaster and supported by government science laboratory was the Lindy Chamberlin case that comes to mind in an instance. There are many many many others to my recollection, having worked in the legal industry forty-five years.
M Cartwright JP Cd
I suggest you read a very good book by Chester Porter QC “Conviction of the Innocent”; he was the bloke who got Lindy Chamberlain acquited; brilliant QC, friend of my wife’s father; Chester Porter QC in that book describes the process of “groupthink” that affects non-corrupt police, and he also describes corrupt police. I met David Eastman in 1989/90 when I was staffer to an MP in the Legislative Assembly of the ACT; my impression was that David was eccentric, a ‘whistleblower’ type who got upset about bureaucratic waste (of which there is plenty in Canberra); my impression was that David was not the type of person who would actually commit murder.
Mr. Eastman is not first to be jailed for nothing and will not be the last. It is a sad situation .
Going by the resurrection of this and Donald McKay their is obviously a connection and the truth is brimming to come out. Many nervous people out there trying in desperation to hold the lid on. Would like to also know what happened to the Judd brothers one day too