In September 2003, police raided the home of Val Clarke’s brother looking for child pornographic material.
They found none.

What soon emerged was that her brother, a Scout Leader, had been accused of anally raping a young boy on four occasions many years earlier – once on his farm and three times at a scout camp on the 1988 Labour Day weekend. The Sale police charged the Scout Leader with four counts of rape, eight counts of indecent assault and three counts of gross indecency.

It was soon discovered the Scout Leader was not at the camp in question, so how could he have raped the boy? The Scout was mistaken about the events of the Labour Day weekend –
was he also mistaken about the alleged events on the farm?

The Scout Leader endured:

• a committal hearing in Sale
• an aborted trial in Bairnsdale
• a trial in Bairnsdale in which he was convicted on some counts, leaving a hung jury on the others
• almost a year in custody until there was a successful, unanimous appeal
• a second trial, this time in Morwell where he was convicted on all counts
• almost another year in custody awaiting the second unanimous, successful appeal
• a second aborted trial in Sale
• finally a trial in Melbourne where he was acquitted of all the charges arising from the Scout’s allegations.

Val Clarke was inspired to share her story to show how an innocent person
can be wrongly imprisoned for false allegations.

The one positive aspect of this case was that the appeal and re-trial process did ultimately
acquit the defendant.  This is not always the case.  Others for whom there is strong evidence
of innocence remain in gaol in this country, having exhausted all legal avenues of appeal.
Such cases are described on this website and at www.netk.net.au

The Law in Australia

We may think that we enjoy the security of "British justice" in Australia.  This is not so.
  In fact, in Australia the position is noticeably inferior to that of the other jurisdictions:

• After an unsuccessful appeal, the Court of Appeal cannot re-open the appeal, even to deal with a manifest miscarriage of justice.

• The High Court of Australia says that for constitutional reasons, it cannot receive fresh evidence even if it shows incontrovertibly that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

This means that an applicant has to petition the state attorney-general to refer the matter back to the court.
Unlike Canada, the state attorneys in Australia claim that they do not have to give reasons for refusals
to make such references, and that any refusal is not reviewable by the courts.

This leads to the situation in Australia where an unquestionably wrongfully convicted person
has no legal right to any review of the case
– the existence of an entirely discretionary and non-reviewable power is not the same as a legal right.