EXCLUSIVE
The judge who locked up Keli Lane more than 13 years ago says the convicted child killer should be freed, even though she has never shown any remorse for the murder and has denied responsibility.
Lane, a one-time water polo Olympic hopeful, was convicted in 2010 of murdering her daughter Tegan two days after her birth in September 1996. She has never been found.
Judge Anthony Whealy KC sentenced Lane to a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison with a minimum sentence of 13 years and five months, which expired last month.
But Lane’s early release was blocked by the now mandatory ‘no body, no parole’ law introduced to keep his wife’s killer Chris Dawson behind bars.
The 49-year-old has always maintained that she did not kill her daughter but gave her to Tegan’s father, who was called Andrew Norris or Morris.
Investigators and the court found no evidence that it ever existed.
Whealy told Daily Mail Australia that while he respected the jury’s guilty verdict in Lane’s trial, the prosecution’s case had holes, adding that if it had been a judge-only hearing, “I would have seen some doubts.” reasonable.”
‘I wouldn’t criticize the jury for their decision, but it was a completely circumstantial case. (Chris) Dawson was a very powerful case, an overwhelming case,’ he explained.
Keli Lane has been in prison for more than 13 years for murdering her young daughter, but the judge who locked her up says she should be released from prison now.
Judge Anthony Whealy says there was reasonable doubt about Keli Lane’s guilt and her failure to show remorse or say where her baby’s body had been included in the sentence
Dawson was discovered to have murdered his wife Lynette Sims in 1982, hid the body and moved on with his life for decades before his eventual arrest and conviction.
‘You can’t make that distinction (between cases) once things are mandatory. You are not doing justice. Every case is different,” said Mr Whealy.
“When she was sentenced, I was a trial judge, and as a trial judge, I knew she had expressed no remorse, denied killing the girl, and would not reveal where the body was.”
Whealy is one of 100 signatories to a new open letter to NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley calling for reforms to NSW’s “no body, no parole” laws, now officially called the Lyn Law in honor of Dawson’s victim.
Along with convicted and later exonerated baby killers Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and Kathleen Folbigg, Whealy advocates restoring the general discretion of the New South Wales State Parole Authority in considering parole for prisoners convicted of murder when no body has been found.
‘She (Keli Lane) is caught in a web. “It’s really stupid to apply this law to him,” she stated.
‘The Department of Justice says the ‘no body, no parole’ law is to comfort (the victim’s) parents.
‘She is the mother. She would have another four years left. When a judge sentences someone, he determines what the minimum time is that accurately reflects the period the person must remain in prison.’
It was discovered that Lane had had three pregnancies before Tegan, which she hid from her parents due to “shame and humiliation”. All pregnancies ended in abortion or adoption.
Whealy said Lane decided to have the charges of lying to police tried along with the murder charge, which he said allowed the prosecution to “tip the balance in his favor.”
She was found guilty of murder and three counts of making a false statement by a majority verdict of 11 to 1.
Former Olympic water polo hopeful Keli Lane is photographed in 1996 while pregnant with her daughter Tegan, whom she was later convicted of murdering.
Keli Lane is pictured attending the coroner’s inquest into Tegan Lane’s disappearance in 2006. Four years later she would be found guilty of Tegan’s murder.
Lane had been a model prisoner in prison.
For the past six months or more, he had been working for a steel manufacturing company on parole, the precursor to actual parole.
However, in March, Correctional Services officers searched a cell phone she had been issued for her duties and found a photo of her husband, Patrick’s, Valentine’s Day flowers.
Lane was sent back to maximum security at the Silverwater women’s prison for violating the rules.
Professor Michele Ruyters, of the Innocence Initiative who drafted the letter for the change, said restoring the parole authority’s previous discretion allowed it to “consider eligibility for parole on a case-by-case basis, providing scope for unjustly convicted prisoners maintain their innocence.
When Lyn’s Law was passed, then-Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet said it was a historic moment for the families of murder victims.
“Families deserve the dignity of saying their final goodbyes and we must do everything we can to hold criminals to reveal their secrets and provide some closure to the families and friends of victims,” he said.
“These laws mean that inmates convicted of a murder offense who choose not to cooperate with police in locating their victims will not receive parole.”