In 1989 Roseanne Beckett was arrested and charged with nine offences against her then husband Barry Catt by corrupt NSW detective Peter Thomas. In 1991, she was sentenced and served ten years in prison and was labelled an ‘evil and manipulative woman.’ For 25 years, she has strongly asserted her innocence and claimed she herself was a victim of domestic abuse and that her step children were abused by Barry Catt.
Beckett was released in 2001 after fresh evidence emerged that a gun found in her bedroom had been planted by police. In 2004, an inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge found that Crown witnesses had conspired to frame her and recommended that her convictions be quashed. Nevertheless, prosecuting authorities continued to insist she was guilty of all charges. Finally, the NSW Court of criminal appeal acquitted or dismissed all but two of eight charges, Roseanne has received no compensation for spending ten years in prison.
She sued the NSW Crown for malicious prosecution. The trial began in late July, 2014 and continued until November with Justice Harrison reserving his judgement.
On 24 August 2015, 26 years to the day since Roseanne was arrested, Justice Harrison found that Peter Thomas had malicious intent in his dealings with Roseanne and that he had intimidated and bullied many people including another witnesses in this case, an accused in another case and Family and Community Services Officers who had been prosecuting her ex husband Barry Catt for child abuse at the time of her arrest. He found that in relation to two of the original charges - perjury and solicitor to murder - Thomas and fellow Detective Paget had no reasonable basis to charge Roseanne. He awarded $2.3 million, plus interest and costs to Roseanne Beckett.
Last week, Roseanne Beckett won her High Court appeal, but the NSW Attorney-General is resisting compensation. It's time to put a spotlight on the Crown's conduct in this case, writes Wendy Bacon.
My last post introduced readers into an investigation into the frame-up of Roseanne Beckett (previously Catt). Three days after we published Fire Trail in October 2000, we published a second feature. This one specifically focused on Roseanne's case, about which the media had been silent since she was imprisoned in 1991.
This week, Roseanne Beckett (previously Catt) unanimously won her appeal to the High Court of Australia against the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW DPP), clearing the way for her to sue NSW for malicious prosecution.
ROSEANNE CATT, who was convicted of attempting to poison her husband after a trial in which Patrick Power was the prosecutor, is asking the Director of Public Prosecutions to review her case.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has upheld the appeal of Roseanne Catt against seven of her nine convictions, leaving it to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdrey, to decide if she should be retried.
A witness who is expected to give evidence at the inquiry into the convictions of Roseanne Catt heard gunshots outside her house on Saturday morning, a Sydney nun said yesterday.
Former detective, Peter Thomas risks prosecution for evidence he gave at a judicial inquiry into the conviction of Roseanne Catt, a judge warned yesterday.
Senior NSW Internal Affairs police had found that a detective should be charged with misconduct in relation to his investigation of the Roseanne Catt case, even before her 1991 trial, a Supreme Court inquiry into fresh evidence in her case was told this week.
A raft of new evidence has raised fresh doubts about the conviction of Roseanne Catt for conspiring to kill her ex-husband. Wendy Bacon reports one key witness for Catt has been bashed and handed a bullet.
The judge said she was either an evil woman or the victim of a terrible conspiracy. Wendy Bacon and Tracy Pillemer explore the truth about Roseanne Catt.