EXCLUSIVE
The judge who locked up Keli Lane more than 13 years ago says the convicted child murderer should be freed from prison – even though she has never shown any remorse for the killing and denied responsibility.
Lane, a one-time Olympic water polo hopeful, was convicted in 2010 of murdering her baby daughter Tegan two days after she was born in September, 1996. Her has never been found.
Justice Anthony Whealy KC sentenced Lane to a maximum 18 years jail with a minimum of 13 years and five months, which expired last month.
But Lane’s anticipated release was blocked by the now mandatory ‘no body no parole’ law introduced to keep wife killer Chris Dawson behind bars.
The 49-year-old has always maintained she didn’t kill her daughter and instead gave her away to Tegan’s father, who was either named Andrew Norris or Morris.
Investigators and the court found no evidence that he ever existed.
Mr Whealy told Daily Mail Australia that while he respected the jury’s guilty verdict in Lane’s trial, the prosecution case had holes in it, adding that if it was a judge-alone hearing, ‘I would have seen some reasonable doubt’.
‘I wouldn’t criticise the jury in their decision, but it was a wholly circumstantial case. (Chris) Dawson was a very powerful case, an overwhelming case,’ he explained.
Keli Lane has been in jail for more than 13 years for murdering her infant daughter but the judge who locked her up says she should be released from prison now
Justice Anthony Whealy says there was some reasonable doubt about Keli Lane’s guilt and that the fact she hadn’t shown remorse or said where her baby’s body had been built into the sentence
Dawson was found to have murdered his wife Lynette Sims in 1982, concealed the body and got on with his life for decades before his eventual arrest and conviction.
‘You can’t make that distinction (between cases) once you make things mandatory. You are not doing justice. Every case is different,’ Mr Whealy said.
‘When she was sentenced I was a trial judge and as a trial judge knew she had not expressed remorse, denied killing the child and would not reveal where the body was.’
Mr Whealy is one of 100 signatories of a new open letter to NSW Attorney General Michael Daley calling for reforms to NSW’s ‘no body, no parole’ laws – now officially named Lyn’s Law after Dawson’s victim.
Along with convicted-then-exonerated baby killers Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and Kathleen Folbigg, Mr Whealy is championing the restoration of the general discretion of the NSW State Parole Authority when considering parole for prisoners convicted of homicide when a body has not been found.
‘She’s (Keli Lane) is caught up in a net. It’s really silly to apply this law to her,’ he said.
‘The Justice Department says the ‘no body no parole’ law is to console the parents (of the victim).
‘She is the parent. She would have another four years to go. When a judge sentences someone they work out what is the least time that accurately reflects the period that the person should stay in jail.’
Lane was found to have had three pregnancies prior to Tegan, which she concealed from her parents due to ‘shame and humiliation’. All of the pregnancies ended in abortion or adoption.
Mr Whealy said Lane chose to have charges of lying to police tried with the murder count, which he thought allowed the prosecution ‘to swing the balance in (its) favour’.
She was found guilty of murder and three counts of making a false statement by a majority verdict 11-1.
Keli Lane, a former Olympic water polo hopeful, is pictured in 1996 while pregnant with her baby daughter Tegan whom she was later convicted of murdering
Keli Lane is pictured attending a coroner’s inquest into Tegan Lane’s disappearance in 2006. Four years later she would be convicted of Tegan’s murder
Lane had been a model prisoner in jail.
Over the past six months or more, she had been working for a steel manufacturing company on day release, the precursor to actual parole.
However in March, Corrective Services officers inspected a mobile phone she had been given to perform her tasks and found a picture of Valentine’s Day flowers from her husband, Patrick.
Lane was sent back to maximum security at Silverwater Women’s prison for breaking the rules.
Professor Michele Ruyters, of the Innocence Initiative which drafted the letter for change, said that restoring the previous discretion by the parole authority allowed it to ‘consider eligibility for parole on a case-by-case basis, providing scope for wrongfully convicted prisoners to maintain their innocence’.
At the time Lyn’s law was passed, then-Premier Dominic Perrottet said it was a historic moment for the families of murder victims.
‘Families deserve the dignity of saying their final goodbyes and we must do all we can to demand offenders give up their secrets and bring some closure to families and friends of victims,’ he said.
‘These laws mean inmates convicted of a homicide offence who choose not to cooperate with police to locate their victims will not be given parole.’