Keli Lane
On 12 September, 1996, Keli Lane gave birth to her second daughter, Tegan. Two days later at the hospital, she handed Tegan over to the baby’s biological father Andrew, with whom she had had a brief affair. Three years later, Keli gave birth to her son and decided to put this child up for adoption but stated to the adoption workers that this was her first child. A Community Services worker discovered that Keli had given birth twice previously and that while Keli had given her first daughter up for adoption in 1995, there was no trace of Tegan. The police were notified about a missing child and began to investigate. When she was interviewed by the police, Keli explained that she had given Tegan to Andrew to care for.
A Coronial Inquest ran from 2005 to 2006 where it was decided that police had searched extensively for Tegan. The Coroner declared that he was satisfied of Tegan’s death and recommended New South Wales police continue with their investigations. Police searches for Tegan and Andrew were not successful and eventually Keli was indicted for murder.
In 2010, Keli Lane was convicted of the 1996 murder of Tegan, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2023. Keli Lane’s conviction was based on circumstantial evidence, with no evidence of a body, death, cause of death or motive, and no witnesses, confession or forensic evidence linking Lane with a homicide.
Exposed: The Case of Keli Lane (ABC, 2018)
In a three-part documentary series, Exposed: the Case of Keli Lane, produced by the ABC revealed a potentially flawed police investigation that was not ready to go to trial. Former NSW Unsolved Homicide Detective Sharon Rhodes said police “didn’t have anything”. “We weren’t ready...It was massive, it was mammoth,” she said. With police searching for a man named Andrew Norris or Andrew Morris, it was suggested that police failed to take into account that this person may not have been using a real name during his relationship with Lane. This means the police investigation could have been seriously flawed because they were focused on the wrong man. Lane admitted she was not 100 per cent certain of Andrew Norris’ name and that he may not have been telling the truth, or shemay have made a mistake.
The police investigation continued throughout the long trial, swamping the defence. “This was a case that was being prepared on the run. There's no doubt about that,” Anthony Whealy QC, the Judge who presided over Lane’s trial said.
Whealy disclosed his reservations about whether the prosecution met the standard of proof required – beyond reasonable doubt. After an initial prosecution theory that Lane disposed of her baby’s body at an Olympic Park site, the prosecution later withdrew the statement because there was no evidence to support the theory. By the time the statement was withdrawn, the theory had already received significant media coverage which had the potential to impact the jury. Lane’s water polo coaches and friend also contradicted the prosecution’s argument that her motive for killing her daughter was to enable her to focus on her Olympic ambitions.When asked if he ever heard Keli Lane speak about wanting to go to the Olympics, Lane’s water polo coach Les Kay said “No. Simple as that. No way breathing”.
The jury also failed to hear from two crucial witnesses who would have supported Lane’s version of events. These witnesses were either overlooked or deliberately omitted, according to the Innocence Initiative. McCauley was not called on to give evidence because of an agreement reached between the prosecution and defence. Morris was supposed to have testified: "I'm the Andrew Morris. I remember having sex with her, and [I] didn't have the baby.” He informed Exposed that he was told “we've done a deal that you don't have to give evidence but neither does one of Keli's witnesses”. “I wonder how important their story was then?” he asked. Director of the RMIT Innocence Initiative and Associate Dean of Criminology and Justice Studies, Dr Michele Ruyters, said suggestions about witness coaching raised in the final episode of Exposed also warranted further investigation.“Rhodes confirmed the possibility that Morris was led to believe the person he had slept with was Keli Lane,” she said.
Darryl Henson, a tenant in the apartment block where Lane claimed to have met ‘Norris’ on multiple occasions, told Exposed that he had clear memories of seeing her leave the premises numerous times. Exposed also highlighted that the evidence of Natalie McCauley, the only person who could support Lane’s claim about Norris’ existence, was ‘traded out’ for a prosecution witness named Andrew Morris.
Exposed highlighted the fact that the prosecution failed to present any evidence to support their case which was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.
Issues of non-disclosure
Ruyters also said there was a possibility that the police and prosecution had not disclosed an estimated 2,000 recordings of intercepted conversations obtained from Lane’s mobile and home phones under a listening device placed in her home.
The Innocence Initiative at RMIT has applied for access to any undisclosed recordings through a freedom of information (FOI) application which is currently under external review.
Slut-shaming in Keli’s case
The final episode of Exposed also raised questions about the use of slut-shaming as a strategic device in the prosecution of criminal trials. In the words of former Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery QC, Lane’s case was prosecuted because “it raised all sorts of values”.
“The relationship between a new mother and child, the idea of child-killing, which is so abhorrent to the community generally, the nature of the accused and her conduct over a period of time. That made it important,” he said. Cowdery went on to say that he didn’t think Lane was a risk to the community, in that she would “go around killing other people’s babies”.
“She seemed to be a bit of a risk to the virile young male portion of the community,” he said.
Petition of Mercy
In 2019, the Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative called for an urgent review into the Keli Lane murder case, following evidence that has cast doubt over the adequacy of the police investigation and the fairness of her trial. We have petitioned the Attorney General of New South Wales to open a full inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Keli Lane.
While we are supporting a petition for a review into Lane’s conviction, what is needed urgently is an investigation into the policing and prosecutorial practices that led to Lane’s trial in the first place.