William Tyrrell payout: Cops told to drop $1.5 MILLION for tradie wrongly prosecuted for missing boy’s disappearance
A washing machine repairman maliciously pursued by police as a suspect in the disappearance of William Tyrrell will receive a $1.5 million payment following an unsuccessful appeal by the State of New South Wales.
Dealer Bill Spedding received the huge amount in December last year after police charged him with historic child sexual abuse in 2015 to pressure him into testifying about the whereabouts of the three-year-old.
This strategy, created by then-Inspector Gary Jubelin, consisted of ‘fabricated and false’ accusations against Spedding for a collateral purpose, New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison said last December in awarding the 1, 5 million dollars.
On Wednesday, as a nervous Spedding looked on at the New South Wales Court of Appeal, a three-judge panel upheld Judge Harrison’s ruling.
At the appeal hearing in June, the washing machine repairman said the police approach had destroyed his life and a large sum of compensation was warranted.
The State of New South Wales argued that while the three police officers who pursued Mr Spedding were named in his lawsuit, no one in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which led the convicted sexual assault case, was identified. children in court.
This meant that Judge Harrison had erred in ordering the $1.5 million in damages because it was impossible to know whether someone in the ODPP had also acted maliciously towards Mr. Spedding or colluded with the police, the state filed.
Since the police were unable to find that Mr. Spedding had anything to do with William’s disappearance in 2014, they have not formally charged anyone else in the nine years since.
In June, a police leak alleged that the ODPP had recommended the prosecution of William’s adoptive mother.
Police alleged that the woman, whose name cannot be identified for legal reasons, may have disposed of William’s body following a fatal accident at a property in Kendall, on the north coast of New South Wales.
No charges have been filed and the foster mother has always denied having anything to do with William’s disappearance.
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