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By Dan McAloon
Christians cherish the belief that in death our loved ones are finally at peace. But this is not always the case. When the manner of death is violent, the life torn suddenly
apart, there is the necessity to provide closure for those who are left behind. In such cases it is as if the dead cry out for justice and it is their families who must be their advocates.
For three families
named Leigh, Levy, and Stephens, the investigations by authorities into the circumstances surrounding the violent deaths of loved ones raised many questions about the nature of the investigations themselves. Had
justice been served? Excluded from the processes of police inquiries, each family was left living with the dire consequences of issues unresolved, not knowing where to turn for help.
When 14-year old Leigh
Leigh was brutally raped and murdered on Stockton beach, Newcastle in 1989, 18- year-old Matthew Webster was jailed for 14 years for the crime. Leigh’s mother, Robyn Leigh, however, never felt confident about the
conclusions reached by the police investigation. She believed others were involved in Leigh’s death. Without the financial means to appoint a lawyer to represent Leigh’s interests, Robyn Leigh approached the
Newcastle Legal Centre (NLC), an initiative of the Faculty of Law of Newcastle University, opened in 1994.
“By the time Mrs Leigh came to us the case had been closed,” recalled John Boersig (pictured),
director of the Newcastle Legal Centre. Nevertheless, the investigative work that Boersig and colleagues Ray Watterson, Robert Cavanagh, and Newcastle University law students carried out over subsequent months
unearthed many irregularities in the police inquiry into Leigh’s death, opening a whole new line of criminal inquiry.
The NLC submission, presented to Police Minister Paul Whelan in 1996, led the Minister to
refer the matter to the Police Integrity Commission. As Mr Whelan told Parliament in October of that year: “It’s time for those who know what happened to come forward. It’s time to stop the lies and cover ups and
set the record straight.”
Acting on the submission, the Police Integrity Commission determined that the police conduct in the girl’s murder investigation had jeopardised further convictions in the case.
Furthermore, the Commission recommended that five of the police officers should face criminal charges, others internal prosecutions, and that the man who headed the investigation should be sacked.
Of Leigh
Leigh, John Boersig told the ABC’s Australian Story: “Even though she died, she still deserves justice. She still deserves to be considered and have her life taken into account. Unless we push the system as far as
we can to try and address that then we can’t possibly say that we’re providing justice to either her to her family”.
Using the law to fight injustice and champion the cause of the underdog has long
characterised John Boersig’s legal career. As a law undergraduate at Macquarie University in the 1970s, involved in Christian groups he came to see the law as a means of addressing the social justice issues gnawing
at his conscience. “With the law I found a way to act on what I believed. At university I was involved in the legal centre and the tenants’ union and that interest took me into involvement with the Aboriginal Legal
Service.”
Today in his 40s, John Boersig’s youthful appearance belies his long experience as a public advocate. His is an unassuming manner, a calm exterior, the words softly spoken and direct. His first
assignment for the Aboriginal Legal Service was researching for a federal inquiry the effects of asbestos mining in the small NSW town of Baryulgal where the majority of workers were indigenous people, the
population characterised by a high incidence of mesothelioma and asbestosis.
“We were representing a number of indigenous families who’d had people who’d died or were ill. I stayed with the Aboriginal Legal
Service for the next 10 years, working in Walgett, Moree, Redfern and finally ending up in Newcastle. All this gave me a very strong footing in seeking justice and linking that with indigenous people and the plight
of indigenous people in New South Wales.”
During the 1980s at the time of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, just as John was starting his own family, he remembers the personal impact of
reading the file of an Aborigine named Malcolm Smith who had died in custody some years before. Going through Smith’s life story in detail he realised he was the same age as Smith at the time of his death. Smith’s
sad life ran parallel to the strong assimilation policies of the day predicated on the idea of separating Aboriginal children from their people.
“He was one of about 10 children taken as a child of nine years
of age from his family. He went into a boys’ home and by the time he was in Mt Penang where he died he had lost all contact with his family and, as I understood it, was told that his family was dead. In fact in the
17 years from when he was first put into a children’s home to the time that he died he was outside an institution for a total of about 17 months. It was a very confronting case for me.”
At the end of 10 years
of exhaustive high volume work for the Aboriginal Legal Service John was offered a position at Newcastle University founding the Legal Centre and developing the public aspect of merging the goals of teaching, law
reform and community service within the context of teaching students ethical attitudes and professional skills. One of the first cases the NLC took up was Leigh Leigh’s murder. Since then there have been other high
profile cases that similarly emphasise the NLC’s breakthrough investigative work in the coronial sphere. The shooting of Roni Levy on Bondi beach in June 1997 was one such case.
Levy, a mentally disturbed
man armed with a knife had resisted arrest while surrounded by police officers with guns drawn. At the time of his death police had claimed Levy had lunged at them with his knife and so in self defence they had shot
him four times. Contrary to the official police line, the NLC’s submission uncovered the fact that two of the officers had been under internal investigations as drug users and suppliers, and that at the time of the
shooting both men had come to work with little sleep following a party the previous night. As a consequence of these findings the two officers are no longer in the police service and there have been significant
ramifications generally for the way police conduct investigations.
The NLC will also represent the Stephens family at an inquest to be held later this year into the circumstances surrounding the fatal
shooting, of Rayden Stephens, 25, also of Bondi, in February 2000. John Boersig says the motivation in acting for victims and their families is bound up in the “needs and rights of individuals who are often the
secondary victims” and giving them a say in the coronial process, and part of that is a critique of how police conduct investigations.
“The theme is accountability and transparency – that the police are
accountable in how they conduct their investigations; they’re accountable to the families, as well as to society generally. Secondly, the manner in which they conduct an investigation should be transparent. It
shouldn’t be done where there is misconduct or covert activities, but should be an investigation which is conducted in a manner in which it can be reviewed.”
This sense of compassionate and practical legal
aid was behind the NLC’s approach to Caritas Australia in September 1999, offering to train the Timorese people in the collection of evidence of human rights abuses and crimes following the violence of the
independence referendum. This program was delivered in Dili and regional centres last year. “People told us over and over that they wanted justice before reconciliation in Timor,” says John.
“These were
people who were going to get involved irrespective of what anyone said they should do, so we were going to provide them with the skills so that they wouldn’t destroy evidence, to see that it was properly collected
so it could be used ultimately for the purpose that they wanted – to prosecute at a state level or internationally, or through a truth and reconciliation commission.”
In his desire to change the culture of
many of his legal practitioners John Boersig knows one of the best places to start is at our universities “where we are training our lawyers of the future”.
“There is a growing awareness among lawyers to
develop the pro bono system, where everyone takes a share of the load for those individuals who are denied access, and for firms to target important and needy cases.
“If all lawyers took up that attitude
then we would at least start to redress those kinds of issues,” said John.
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