Miss-Delectable
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Ex gratia payment for wrongly jailed man
A 69-year-old deaf-mute Perth man who was wrongly convicted of the 1959 murder of socialite Jillian Brewer has been granted a $425,000 ex gratia payment.
Darryl Beamish was convicted of Ms Brewer's murder in 1961 and although he was initially sentenced to death, his sentenced was commuted to imprisonment and he spent 15 years behind bars.
In 2005 after his sixth appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned his conviction on the basis that a "substantial miscarriage of justice" had occurred.
The court had finally accepted a 1964 confession to Ms Brewer's murder by one of Australia's most notorious serial killers, Eric Edgar Cooke, which had earlier been dismissed on previous appeals.
On Thursday, West Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter said the ex gratia payment was not intended to fully compensate Mr Beamish for the loss he suffered.
"This payment is intended to express the state's sincere regret for what occurred and provide him with a measure of comfort and financial security in his retirement."
Mr Beamish was the second innocent man to be jailed for Cooke's murders following John Button's acquittal in 2002 for the hit-and-run murder of his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson.
"Following the former government's ex gratia payment to John Button, this payment is another step towards closing a shocking and tragic chapter in WA's criminal history," Mr Porter said.
Ms Brewer was 22 years old when she was slain in her Cottesloe flat by an intruder who brutalised her naked body with a tomahawk and a pair of dressmaking scissors.
At the time he was charged for the socialite's murder, Mr Beamish had been convicted of a sex offence and petty crime and was in prison awaiting sentence.
During his 1961 trial, Detective Owen Leitch, who later became WA police commissioner, said he had four confessions from the then 18-year-old.
Two confessions were given through a sign language interpreter, one was a written statement and another was scrawled on the exercise yard at the Perth lock-up.
However, Mr Beamish insisted the confessions were untrue and obtained through intimidation and threats.
From 1959 Cooke committed eight violent murders and 14 attempted murders to which he confessed to and described in full detail when he was caught in 1963.
Even awaiting the gallows at Fremantle prison on October 26, 1964, Cooke voluntarily took the Bible from the prison chaplain and said: "I swear before Almighty God that I killed Anderson and Brewer."
But his confessions to the murder of Ms Brewer and Ms Anderson were not accepted.
During Mr Beamish's most notable appeal in 1964, in which Cooke himself gave evidence, his account was dismissed by the court as "utterly worthless" and the work of a "palpable and unscrupulous liar".
On Thursday Mr Porter said although the case against Mr Beamish had been very strong in 1964 it was now clear his conviction was upheld in circumstances where it was "legally unsafe to do so".
In determining Mr Beamish's ex gratia payment, the attorney-general said there was a lack of conclusive evidence to suggest there was serious misconduct by the prosecutors or police in his original conviction.
A 69-year-old deaf-mute Perth man who was wrongly convicted of the 1959 murder of socialite Jillian Brewer has been granted a $425,000 ex gratia payment.
Darryl Beamish was convicted of Ms Brewer's murder in 1961 and although he was initially sentenced to death, his sentenced was commuted to imprisonment and he spent 15 years behind bars.
In 2005 after his sixth appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned his conviction on the basis that a "substantial miscarriage of justice" had occurred.
The court had finally accepted a 1964 confession to Ms Brewer's murder by one of Australia's most notorious serial killers, Eric Edgar Cooke, which had earlier been dismissed on previous appeals.
On Thursday, West Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter said the ex gratia payment was not intended to fully compensate Mr Beamish for the loss he suffered.
"This payment is intended to express the state's sincere regret for what occurred and provide him with a measure of comfort and financial security in his retirement."
Mr Beamish was the second innocent man to be jailed for Cooke's murders following John Button's acquittal in 2002 for the hit-and-run murder of his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson.
"Following the former government's ex gratia payment to John Button, this payment is another step towards closing a shocking and tragic chapter in WA's criminal history," Mr Porter said.
Ms Brewer was 22 years old when she was slain in her Cottesloe flat by an intruder who brutalised her naked body with a tomahawk and a pair of dressmaking scissors.
At the time he was charged for the socialite's murder, Mr Beamish had been convicted of a sex offence and petty crime and was in prison awaiting sentence.
During his 1961 trial, Detective Owen Leitch, who later became WA police commissioner, said he had four confessions from the then 18-year-old.
Two confessions were given through a sign language interpreter, one was a written statement and another was scrawled on the exercise yard at the Perth lock-up.
However, Mr Beamish insisted the confessions were untrue and obtained through intimidation and threats.
From 1959 Cooke committed eight violent murders and 14 attempted murders to which he confessed to and described in full detail when he was caught in 1963.
Even awaiting the gallows at Fremantle prison on October 26, 1964, Cooke voluntarily took the Bible from the prison chaplain and said: "I swear before Almighty God that I killed Anderson and Brewer."
But his confessions to the murder of Ms Brewer and Ms Anderson were not accepted.
During Mr Beamish's most notable appeal in 1964, in which Cooke himself gave evidence, his account was dismissed by the court as "utterly worthless" and the work of a "palpable and unscrupulous liar".
On Thursday Mr Porter said although the case against Mr Beamish had been very strong in 1964 it was now clear his conviction was upheld in circumstances where it was "legally unsafe to do so".
In determining Mr Beamish's ex gratia payment, the attorney-general said there was a lack of conclusive evidence to suggest there was serious misconduct by the prosecutors or police in his original conviction.