A liquidambar seed pod in Kings Park. Source: PerthNow
PERTHNOW breaks down Justice Brian Martin's findings on key pieces of evidence exhibited at the Lloyd Rayney trial.
THE PHONE TAP
Justice Martin said Mr Rayney had engaged in "discreditable conduct" by having the family's home telephone tapped.
"The accused has engaged in discreditable conduct, including knowingly arranging for illegal telephone interception, making a false declaration and giving deliberately false evidence to a court while on oath," he said.
"The evidence raises suspicion; in some instances quite strong suspicion. But discreditable conduct does not prove guilt and suspicion, even strong suspicion, falls well short of proof beyond reasonable doubt".
The judge said he was also satisfied that Mr Rayney removed the recorder and digital notetaker from the roof of the home and that he destroyed or placed the CDs of the recordings "beyond the reach of police".
SCREAMS FROM KINGS PARKWhile two people who lived near Kings Park reported hearing a "blood curdling" female scream on the night of August 7, 2007, Justice Martin said he was satisfied the scream had nothing to do with Corryn Rayney's death.
"The scream came from units adjacent to Kings Park and not from the bush area of Kings Park," he said.
"The totality of the evidence satisfies me that at Kings Park the deceased was not in a state which would have permitted her to scream."
He also discounted the evidence of an off duty police officer who reported seeing someone he thought could be Corryn Rayney in Victoria Park that evening.
The judge said he was also satisfied that two cars -- one a Ford Fairlane similar to Mrs Rayney's -- reported by an RAC patrolman to be fishtailing on Albany Highway that night were not connected to the case.
THE DAUGHTERS' TESTIMONY
The Rayney's two daughters Sarah, 15, and Caitlyn, 18, both testified at the trial. But Justice Martin said he had "significant reservations" about aspects of their evidence.
"Both daughters were exceptionally well prepared for the giving of evidence," he said.
"This was immediately apparent in the manner and content of their answers. Caitlyn in particular was alert to the implications for the accused in her answers and the nuances in the prosecutor's questions. Her hostility to the prosecutor was suppressed, but readily apparent."
Justice Martin noted that Caitlyn had said in a written police statement signed in 2007 that she had gone to bed at about 11.30pm on the night her mother disappeared.
In court, under questioning from her father's lawyers, she said it was closer to midnight.
THE DINNER PLACE CARD
Justice Martin said a dinner place card bearing Mr Rayney's name which was found close to Mrs Rayney's bush grave in Kings Park was a mystery.
"Sometimes an apparently incriminating piece of evidence has an innocent explanation that is not obvious; sometimes an apparently implausible explanation is true....," he said.
"The State case cannot succeed on the basis of the place card alone."
Justice Martin found the dinner place card had come from a legal dinner Mr Rayney had attended in July 2007.
He said Mr Rayney's former secretary Shari Paradise gave "intentionally untrue evidence" about the card and declared her a hostile witness.
But he found she had been telling the truth when she said Mr Rayney had told her he had put the card in the console of a car.
Justice Martin also found that Mr Rayney had lied to a colleague, barrister Philip Urquhart, about which car he had driven to the legal dinner.
SECRET TAPE RECORDINGS
As well as the telephone tap, Justice Martin also found that Mr Rayney had secretly recorded conversations with his wife on a dictaphone -- and made a false claim about them in the Magistrate's Court.
"The accused knew that the recordings were not protected from disclosure by reason of legal professional privilege and he knowingly made a false claim for that privilege," he said.
"The accused compounded his false claim by swearing an affidavit that was false in material aspects and followed up with false evidence..."
POLICE CONDUCT
Justice Martin said former major crime squad boss Jack Lee demonstrated a lack of judgement and gave inappropriate responses at a September 2007 press conference in which he identified Mr Rayney as the prime and only suspect in Mrs Rayney's death.
Justice Martin said other officers involved in the inquiry into Mrs Rayney's death also engaged in conduct that should not be tolerated, such as that directed at lawyer Clare O'Brien, who is a friend of Mr Rayney's.
"Ms O'Brien is to be commended for her generosity of spirit in not taking offence at the behaviour of the detectives....however that generosity should not deflect from the totally unacceptable behaviour of the officers who conveyed the threat that if Ms O'Brien did not cooperate both she and her brother would be charged," Justice Martin said.
"Those officers misused their position of authority and threatened to abuse their power of arrest which should only be exercised when the evidence justifies an arrest."
Justice Martin also found that police officer Mark McKenzie had tried to mislead Mr Rayney by chatting to him in his capacity as the family liaison officer without telling him he was also second in charge of the investigation.
Police officers had also behaved inappropriately by trying to persuade forensic pathologist Gerard Cadden to change his report that he found three seed pods in Mrs Rayney's hair to two.
"In substance they set about persuading a witness to alter that witnesses' evidence to fit with the police view of the evidence," the judge said.
But Justice Martin said he was satisfied that a police officer had not tried to mislead Dr Cadden before he gave evidence at the trial by providing him with only a section of a video tape of his examination of Mrs Rayney's head at a preliminary examination.
BLACK COAT
Mrs Rayney was unlikely to have been wearing the black coat to bootscooting that was found lying across her bed, the judge found.
Justice Martin said it was the type of coat more likely to have been worn to work than to a casual bootscooting class.
After hearing evidence from bootscooters he said he was left with more than a reasonable doubt as to whether Mrs Rayney was wearing a coat at all that night.
"The failure of the evidence to prove that the deceased was wearing a coat at bootscooting leaves a significant gap in the evidence upon which the State relied to prove that (Mrs Rayney) arrived home and entered the house after bootscooting," he said.
SEED PODS
Justice Martin found that there had been three seed pods in Mrs Rayney's hair on the day of her postmortem, August 17, 2007 -- and he found that they were not planted.
But while two of the seed pods were collected by police, there was doubt as to what became of the third.
Justice Martin said he had concerns about a third pod collected by police from Mrs Rayney's body bag four months later and had ignored it as evidence.
He said if the seed pod was not "planted" in the body bag it could have become contaminated as evidence by contact with other items and objects.
A reason put forward by a police officer for a search of the body bag had an "air of unreality", he said.
Justice Martin also questioned why it had taken five hours to search the bag and why the pod, although it had been mixed with sand from Kings Park, was still consistent with soil from Como.
He said he had significant doubts as to whether it was the third pod found in Mrs Rayney's hair in August.
BUSH GRAVE
Justice Martin noted that Mr Rayney was in a soft physical condition at the time his wife disappeared and said he believed it would have taken him much longer than the 38 minutes it took a police officer to dig a grave similar to Mrs Rayney's.
Justice Martin also noted that Mrs Rayney at 78 kgs had been heavier than her 67kg husband, who had a back problem.
"I am satisfied that if the accused dug the grave and buried (Mrs Rayney), he could not have completed that task in 38 minutes," he said.
Justice Martin said a man's hankerchief found in the grave with Mrs Rayney could not be linked to her husband.
SOIL, SAND AND PAINT PARTICLES
The judge said he was satisfied that some soil, sand and paint particles found on Mrs Rayney's body, clothing and boots, along with the two seed pods from her hair, had come from outside the family home in Como.
"Across the boots, clothing and the body of the deceased, the totality and consistency of (the particles), including seed pods, has satisfied me that they came from Como...," he said.
"It is unlikely in the extreme that the deceased was waylaid on her way home to Como and was forcibly taken to another locality which, by coincidence, possessed the same combination of soil and other artefacts."
Justice Martin said he was satisfied that Mrs Rayney was "in difficulty" and lying on the ground when the seed pods became caught in her hair.
