Retired Hobart police Inspector Peter Powell has come out of the woodwork trying to discredit the 90 page Etter Selby dossier, critical of the 2009 police investigation which he led, into the now controversial case of Sue Neill-Fraser. But his claim of being misquoted in the dossier has been contradicted by the filmed evidence and inadvertently shone the spotlight on what the police knew and didn’t want the court to know.
The 90 page dossier, by Melbourne barrister Hugh Selby and former lawyer for Sue Neill-Fraser who was convicted of Chappell’s murder, is critical of the police investigation and identifies evidence not tendered in court – including police knowledge of young offenders who had been guilty of boat break-ins, with whom key eye witness Meaghan Vass associated.
Denholm quoted Powell: “I may have indicated that Vass being a young homeless girl was associating with young male offenders,” he said. “I do not believe I ever said they were known to have or been guilty of breaking into boats.”
Powell is wrong. He was recorded on camera on 27 June 2012 saying that, “Meaghan Vass had some associations with some young, male offenders, underage offenders, that have been in the past guilty of breaking into boatyards and stealing things off boats.”
Vass’s DNA was found on Four Winds, but recently Powell and the prosecution have been at pains to suggest, without evidence, that she deposited her DNA on a visit to the yacht in dry dock a couple of days after the murder. This theory lacks credibility (not to mention evidence), say Neill-Fraser’s supporters, as it leaves unanswered the question of why Vass would later insert herself into the case as an eye witness to murder, then 15 and homeless.
This is the latest bizarre development following the 2010 conviction of Sue Neill-Fraser, which Tasmania’s legal establishment is determined to protect – but which Neill-Fraser hopes the High Court will overturn, if it grants her leave to appeal.
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