The Exoneration Papers Sue-Neill Fraser

What happens when a man disappears from his yacht on Australia Day 2009 and police target his partner of 18 years as the prime suspect? The only suspect. By the time Sue Neill-Fraser is convicted of murdering her partner Bob Chappell, the court will have seen no murder weapon, heard from no witnesses to the murder, heard no evidence that puts Sue Neill-Fraser at the crime scene. And Bob’ s body is still missing. Tracking the case for a decade, investigative journalist Andrew L. Urban presents the papers full of facts to show this is a wrongful conviction. And shows how ‘ the system’ seeks to protect it. In the wake of two failed appeals and after Sue Neill-Fraser has served 13 years of her 23 year sentence (and is now on parole), legal experts, academics and politicians detail the many errors that demand the conviction be quashed. Yet despite the constant calls for a review, Tasmania’ s Attorney-General refuses to establish an inquiry, citing misleading reasons.

Andrew L Urban an author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker, fled Hungary as a child during the 1956 revolution, eventually settling in Australia. He has written for many publications and has authored investigative books on wrongful convictions. His first book, Murder by the Prosecution explored several wrongful convictions and was described by Margaret Cunneen SC as a ‘ troubling expose’ . He has published the online Wrongful Convictions Report since 2018. Since 1985, before turning his journalistic attention to miscarriages of justice (prompted by the Eve Ash documentary Shadow of Doubt).

Foreword by Lara Giddings, former Premier and Attorney-General of Tasmania The road to exoneration Author’ s Preface When the world shrank The animus overlay Protecting the Conviction The bleak history of calls for an inquiry/review The Missed Clues in Sue Neill-Fraser’ s Statutory Declaration The Abandoned Dinghy Investigating the Investigators Could the Jury Have Got It Wrong? The Carnage of the Second Appeal “ This injustice, the product of our Tasmanian legal family” Anatomy of a wrongful conviction The (ever-active) Sue Neill-Fraser Support Group A Day in the Life ANNEXURE A – Integrity Commission Tasmania ANNEXURE B - The Illogical Conviction EPILOGUE WHO’ S WHO Andrew L. Urban - author’ s biography How Sue Neill-Fraser’ s defence counsel might have addressed the jury in summing up