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On 6 March 1974 the Canberra Times Reported “Debate on Murder Case – Juror Regrets Guilty Vote”

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On 6 March 1974 the Canberra Times Reported “Debate on Murder Case – Juror Regrets Guilty Vote” Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge Van Beelen Homepage This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles On 6 March 1974 The Canberra Times reported “Debate on murder case – Juror Regrets Guilty Vote” From our South Australian Correspondent South Australia seems to have had more than its fair share of sensational murder and probable murder cases over the past 20 years. They include the Sundown murders (three victims); the Stuart case (convicted murderer Rupert Max Stuart was released recently after 14 years in jail); and the Beaumont case (the disappearance without trace of three children). Last week, another notable murder case, theVan Beelen trial, leapt back into the headlines when a member of the jury which convicted Mr Van Beelen after his second trial said publicly that he had felt "pressured into voting in favour of a finding of guilty". The juror, who served for 40 days, said, "I was certain that the stress of circumstances and pressure in the jury room influenced my vote. It was a moment of weakness which I have lived to regret". The juror decided to break the traditional silence of the jury room (for what is believed to be the first time in the history of South Australian criminal proceedings) after receiving counselling from a minister of religion. The events of the past few days all lead back to a cold July morning in 1971 when Detective J Richter found the outraged body of a pretty 15-year-old schoolgirl, Deborah Leach, covered with seaweed on lonely Taperoo Beach, near Port Adelaide. The discovery led to the longest and most expensive murder trial in SA, estimated to have cost the State more than $750,000. A total of 7,500 pages of evidence was recorded and court hearings occupied 169 sitting days. Two trials Two trials, three appeals and 2½ years after the girl's body was discovered, Mr Frits George Van Beelen, a 27-year-old married carpenter, was convicted of murder. He is now in Yatala Labour Prison awaiting the outcome of a petition to the Governor, Sir Mark Oliphant, for a pardon following recent public disclosure for the first time that a 21-year-old invalid pensioner had confessed to Deborah Leach's murder a few days after her body was found. (The pensioner, however, had been a patient in a mental hospital and retracted his "confession" soon afterwards). State Cabinet has considered the petition and has referred it to the Attorney- General, Mr King. There has been no other South Australian case in which a conviction has been sought purely on scientific evidence based on an accumulation of similarities. In the two trials, the Crown attempted to identify the girl's attacker by a comparison of trace materials which could have been left on the body, or picked up by the assailant from his victim. In the process, the courtroom became a scientific battleground, with university scientists and forensic science experts from Britain and the US pitted against each other on behalf of either the prosecution or the defence. The case has been listed as a subject for discussion at a Home Office seminar in Britain this year. In the end, both juries found Mr Van Beelen guilty. But the first jury's verdict was set aside and a retrial ordered when the defence successfully argued on appeal that the first trial judge had misdirected the jury on a number of points of evidence. There were no witnesses to Deborah Leach's murder. The Crown relied on 27 points of scientific based evidence which allegedly identified Mr Van Beelen as her assailant These 27 points were challenged and rebutted by the defence and finally reduced to four, on the strength of which the two juries found Mr Van Beelen guilty. The Crown amassed volumes of complex evidence by comparison of trace materials found on the girl's body and on clothing owned by Mr Van Beelen. Things like hair, fibres from a jumper, paint flecks, specimens of seaweed and marine life from shoes and time of death were brought into the case. Post-mortem Juries had to be told how clothes and bodies under microscopic examination reveal our daily habits. Such scrutiny has been used as evidence to unveil secrets to courts for many years, but rarely has such importance been attached to their significance in a South Australian court case. A post-mortem examination of the dead girl revealed that intercourse had been committed on her body after death. Necrophilia is not an offence in law, and for this reason, certain information which might have seemed relevant was never given in court once Mr Van Beelen had been found guilty. Death was due to drowning in seawatcr. Mr Van Beelen's arrest followed reports by two men that they had seen a Torana car on the beach about the time of the murdered girl's disappearance. One described it as red, the other maroon, and both agreed that the first three letters of the registration plate were RCC. This evidence eventually led police to the man they charged. Mr Van Beelen subsequently admitted having been on Taperoo Beach twice on the day of the murder but denied having seen the girl. The Crown's case against Mr Van Bcelen was built around an account of his movements throughout the day and particularly at the time when the girl was killed; the matching of fibres and their dyes found on her clothing with those from a jumper Mr Van Beelen was said to have been wearing; and the time of the girl's death. The defence disagreed with the time of death, asserted that the dyes in the fibres were commonplace and introduced further doubt with a tide theory which did not fit in with the circumstances of finding the body. The most important single aspect of the fibre evidence was the Crown's finding of 19 black fibres and 17 red fibres on the top half of the girl's singlet. Mr Van Beelen was allegedly wearing a black and red jumper of which the ratio of the two-color fibres was 50-50. Mr Van Beelen maintained he had never been near the area where the girl's body was found in seaweed. He said his walk had taken him only on the dry side of the seaweed bank. Yet seagrass was on his clothes and shoes and foraminifera (tiny marine organisms) were found adhering to his shoes. The prosecution claimed that such a large amount of foraminifera could have come only from the ooze on the seaward side of the bank where Deborah had been found. But the defence showed that such marine life was common along the SA coastline and doubt was cast. Blood, hair and paint were among the two dozen or so items of prosecution scientific evidence which were eroded, diluted, withdrawn or found inadmissible by the courts. Crown experts tested the semen found in the girl's vagina and concuded that the attacker was blood group A. They overlooked the fact that the girl was also blood group A and that the blood grouping they got from the semen could have come from her own vaginal tissue. But they were satisfied the strength of the biochemical reaction could have come only from the semen specimen tested. Certain hairs were found on Deborah Leach's clothing which were foreign to her environment. They could not have come from herself, her family or her dog. The Crown's evidence was intended to show that there was contact between Van Beclen and the girl, but the defence was successful in showing that some of the methods used in the investigation were faulty and of unproven scientific value. In the end, however, four of the 27 points of scientific evidence were found sustained by the two juries. The first jury brought in a verdict of guilty in October, 1972, and the second, in July, 1973. Since the case ended the police have been strongly criticised by academics because so much of their scientific evidence was capable of credible challenge by the defence. Immediately after last week's public statement by the first trial juror who said he had felt "pressured" into voting in favour of a guilty finding, two other first trial jurors (all three have remained anonymous) wrote to South Australian newspapers hotly disagreeing with their colleague. One said he did not agree that stress had influenced him or any other juror and said that if the same evidence was presented to him again he would have "no hesitation in finding Van Beclen guilty". The second juror said, "We heard the tone and hesitation in every voice of every witness. We experienced the drama, the pathos .... We considered all the evidence and after seemingly unending days of listening and several hours of final debate and consideration we found Van Beelcn guilty —and so did the second jury". Debate has now begun in Adelaide on whether, now that capital punishment has virtually disappeared in South Australia, the majority verdict system of 10 to 2 in all other jury cases should also be observed in South Australian murder trials. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/110764812?searchTerm=van%20beelen%201972&sear chLimits=# .
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