Perfect Victim (39 page)

After hearing legal argument from counsel representing the Crown and defence, the president determines whether or not an offender has reasonable grounds on which to pursue an appeal. If he believes grounds exist, he will allow the appeal to go before a tribunal of three judges. If he feels there are insufficient grounds, he will dismiss the request.

Five separate preliminary appeals were listed before the Court of Appeal president, John Winneke, on the morning of Friday, 27 April 2001, each involving offenders taking issue with the length of their sentences. In each, Winneke took extreme care to point out that his function was a supervisory one, and it was not his job to say whether a final appeal might eventually win or lose.

Two requests from convicted criminals seeking to appeal sentences had already been knocked back that morning by the time Caroline Reed Robertson was brought into the Green Room of the Court of Appeal. She arrived in a security van from Deer Park more than an hour earlier and had been lodged in the cells underneath the building waiting for her case to be called. She walked across the plush green carpet and past the lines of olive-coloured leather seats from which the courtroom takes its name. She appeared to be a vastly different prisoner from the pale, downcast and nervous young woman who had stood before Justice Vincent in November the previous year.

She was dressed in a white skivvy top and navy fitted pants, her golden shoulder-length wavy hair scraped back into a ponytail. Her close resemblance to the Jem Southall identity she had sketched in her stylised drawings was eerie. Her further weight loss, which attracted hushed comments from court staff, saw her looking more like her new persona than she could ever have dreamed possible. In her drawings she’d fantasised about a new slim figure, golden-blonde locks, a natural complexion, smart tailored pants. Now she was the living image of her sketch.

There was also a confident new step in Robertson’s stride as she walked briskly up the side of the court towards the dock, separated from the public gallery by a reinforced glass partition. A few feet behind the glass sat the victim’s mother, Elizabeth. It had been Elizabeth Barber with whom Robertson had shared her aspirations of being an actor. And Elizabeth who had encouraged her to join a local children’s theatre group. Now she sat pale and nervous as she waited for another glimpse of the young woman who’d admitted to killing her daughter; the same young woman who’d babysat their children, chatted to Michael Barber as he’d mowed the lawns of the little house across the road from the Reids, and who’d sometimes used the Barbers’ family computer. Indeed, just weeks after the preliminary appeal hearing, the Barbers had accidentally discovered, when cleaning out the hard drive on their home computer, a draft of an essay written by Caroline in which the central character, named Rachel, ends up being locked in a mental asylum. A copy of this essay was subsequently passed to the Office of Public Prosecutions.

Now, carefully avoiding eye contact with her victim’s mother, Robertson adjusted her fine-framed metal spectacles. She acknowledged, with a smile, a young woman sitting at the back of the court. She appeared to be a new friend, about Robertson’s age; a face not previously seen during Robertson’s plea or sentencing hearings.

Elizabeth Barber had only heard about the preliminary appeal hearing a few days earlier, and had been informed that Robertson was unlikely to make a personal appearance. The hearing, she’d been warned, was likely to be a non-event; a paper shuffle among lawyers, over in a few minutes. Robertson’s request to appeal was likely to be instantly rejected. If it
were
successful, the process could take months. And even if it were unsuccessful, the prisoner could re-appeal again within fourteen days. There would be no result today. So she was told it would not be worth her while attending. Elizabeth Barber thought otherwise.

Mike Barber refused to join her, claiming there was little point to the exercise. Nothing would bring Rachel back, he said. Secretly, though, Elizabeth suspected he was daunted at the prospect of revisiting the imposing court complex, of reliving the process all over again; of having no closure when the family had already been struggling to come to terms with last year’s jail sentence. And she wondered if he might be even more afraid of the anxiety he’d experienced during Roberton’s earlier appearances; frightened of another panic attack.

But Elizabeth vowed she would be there to remind people who the real victim in the case was. She didn’t
want
Caroline Reed Robertson assuming the role of victim. Yet by her notice of appeal, Robertson was claiming she was being victimised by the system; being punished too severely. As Robertson’s lawyer later put it, this was a sentence Robertson considered to be manifestly excessive. Elizabeth Barber determined that her presence was a necessary reminder of the family’s loss; of Rachel’s loss; of the price an innocent fifteen-year-old had paid for another’s jealousy. Rachel, in the legal process, had already become the
deceased
; another type of victim. Perhaps by now Rachel might not even warrant a mention. The appeal process, said Elizabeth, would be entirely about Caroline; about
her
unfair harsh treatment. The victim’s mother wanted to look Rachel’s killer straight in the eye and be sure Caroline knew Rachel still had a voice in the proceedings.

In court, Caroline Reed Robertson’s comfortable, relaxed demeanour was in direct contrast to the highly agitated state of the victim’s mother as she sat with her hands tightly clasped together, waiting.

The president invited Robertson to move from the dock to a seat directly in front of the bench where he could address her. Winneke confirmed he’d read all the evidence; the witness statements and doctors’ reports; the judge’s sentencing remarks. He explained his own role in the proceedings, telling Robertson that if her appeal had any reasonable prospects of success he would order it to go on to the full Court of Appeal. But this didn’t mean her appeal would eventually succeed, simply that it had reasonable prospects. The Court of Appeal had a very different role to that of the sentencing judge whose task had been to hear all the evidence in her case. The Court of Appeal, said Winneke, intervenes only in cases where a judge’s discretion in sentencing might be considered erroneous. Or where the sentence was too harsh for the crime.

Robertson’s lawyer, Colin Lovitt QC, was not present in court that morning, though the prisoner told the hearing that she had expected him to represent her. Several attempts had been made to contact him, but when a brief adjournment failed to trace either the prisoner’s lawyer or his report, another barrister, Nick Papas, agreed to represent Robertson. He spoke briefly with the prisoner in the cells during the adjournment. He knew of her case since he had reviewed it in another role for Legal Aid.

Robertson sat silently as the court was told about her crime; a cold-blooded murder, executed by a very young woman with no prior criminal history, in ‘extraordinary circumstances’. Winneke agreed. Robertson’s case had been based on facts which the criminal courts rarely saw. But all this had been taken into consideration by Justice Vincent,
the
most experienced trial judge, who had included his observations in ‘very detailed and considered sentencing remarks’, Winneke said.

Winneke also noted that there were ‘exhaustive efforts’ made by both sides to reveal more about the circumstances leading up to Robertson’s crime. But each of the persons who sought to achieve some insight into Robertson’s mind was frustrated because of what was said to be real, or unreal, amnesia.

Mr Papas responded by saying that although the plea had involved ‘most experienced counsel’ and a very experienced judge, Robertson’s QC, Mr Lovitt, had struggled ‘to come to grips with what this case was about in terms of instructions and explanations’.

Then Mr Papas told the court something quite extraordinary. Robertson, he explained, had told him she was experiencing ‘detailed improvement in her recollection’. She was now able to provide the court with fresh information which could explain, ‘in an aggravating or mitigating way’, her conduct at the time of the crime. Mr Papas added that this new material meant the prisoner could offer details to explain her role, ‘her participation’, in the murder of Rachel Barber. And because of her impaired memory at her plea and sentencing, this crucial material had been unavailable to Justice Vincent.

But, argued Mr Papas, if Justice Vincent
had
been aware of these details, it might have influenced his subsequent sentencing and perhaps resulted in a different outcome for Robertson. He further contended that her appeal was being made on the basis that her twenty-year jail sentence had been at the upper end of, if not outside, the range of sentencing options available to Justice Vincent. Even the prisoner’s parole period of fourteen years and six months, he contended, was considered manifestly excessive for such a young offender with no prior convictions. For all these reasons, he urged the court to consider granting Robertson a full appeal hearing.

But Winneke said he was prepared to neither allow nor deny the request. Justice Vincent ‘was a very experienced trial judge who had engaged in very careful consideration in this case, and very careful sentencing,’ he said. And even with a lack of information in the lower courts, this didn’t mean there had been any sentencing error. Justice Vincent had sentenced Robertson with
all
the available evidence before him. However, if this new material
had
been presented to him, it might possibly have explained the facts of the case in a ‘more understandable way,’ Winneke said.

Winneke called for time to explore the new information and adjourned Robertson’s application to a date to be fixed. This, he said, would allow Mr Papas more time to speak with the prisoner, and to collect further details for the court.

Retiring from the bench to his chambers, Winneke was unaware of a drama about to unfold behind him. As barristers collected their piles of documents and chatted amongst themselves, the victim’s mother took a few paces forward, blocking the entrance to the dock where her daughter’s killer was standing. Elizabeth Barber had sat silently throughout the hearing, trembling with nerves. Her anger had been building as she listened to arguments on Robertson’s behalf, claiming the sentence was excessive – too harsh for such a young offender. Overcome with rage and frustration, Elizabeth Barber confronted Robertson, standing directly in her path as prison guards unbolted the door to allow the prisoner to pass. She stared intently into the killer’s face. Robertson tried to look away.

But two years of pent-up grief and distress spilled from Elizabeth, erupting into the silence of a stunned court. She was oblivious to the warnings of the officers guarding the prisoner. ‘Stand back, madam! Stand back!’ commanded the burly male guard.

‘You think
you
are being treated too harshly, do you?
Too harshly
!’ Elizabeth shouted. ‘You think your sentence is unfair? You were not fair to my daughter … you were not fair. You gave my daughter death …
You
were
unfair
to my daughter. You are a killer … a killer …’

Obviously concerned by these developments, the guards closed in on the prisoner and the tense silence continued as the despairing mother refused to move. ‘Stand back,
please!
’ urged a female guard, pushing Robertson past. But Elizabeth, her voice loaded with emotion, screamed at the back of Rachel’s killer as she hurried down the aisle towards the staircase and was ushered into the sanctuary of the cells below. Barristers stopped in their tracks, lifting their grey-wigged heads to observe the commotion. Journalists leaving the press bench in front of the dock stood in silence, too astonished by the unexpected outburst even to take notes. A routine court appearance had just been transformed into another news break.

Stunned by her own actions, Elizabeth Barber rushed from the court, sobbing. ‘She
is
a killer. She is
not
the victim here. Rachel was the victim. Rachel. Yet
she
feels hard done by and unfairly treated. How can that be?’ Lawyers waited for things to clear before creeping past in an uncomfortable silence, avoiding the tears of a grieving mother; avoiding the tangible, unmistakable grief every person in the waiting area could feel.

Outside in the street, a TV journalist ran briskly up the footpath towards Elizabeth, asking for an interview. While the journalist went to organise her camera crew, others crowded around, keen to hear a mother’s thoughts on the morning’s proceedings.

‘How much sympathy did
she
have for Rachel?’ Elizabeth continued. ‘She says she suffered from amnesia. Yet now that it suits her, it appears her memory is coming back. She had no memory at the Supreme Court, though she remembered my daughter begging for her life, pleading with her, “Please, please don’t.”

‘She should do the time that was allotted to her, but she thinks the courts have been unfair to her, too harsh. How much sympathy did she have for Rachel when she was squeezing the life out of her? And how much more can she remember?

‘I wanted her to see my eyes. They are Rachel’s eyes. I wanted her to look at me and see Rachel.’

Throughout the afternoon and evening the story made news on TV and radio broadcasts.
Distraught mother confronts her daughter’s killer
. By the following morning it was news around the State as the newspapers picked up the story.
Envy killer lodges appeal – teen’s murderer remembers more
stated the weekend’s
Herald Sun
, reporting the latest twist in one of Australia’s most bizarre murders.

Caroline Reed Robertson was making headlines all over again.

But not for long.

Because of the backlog of appeal applications waiting to find their way into the Court of Appeal, a lengthy waiting game followed Caroline Reed Robertson’s preliminary appeal hearing.

It would be eight long months before her name surfaced on the court’s lists.