A DOCUMENTARY film about a legal case with parallels to the Lindy Chamberlain controversy will be a feature attraction at this year’s Lorne Film festival.
Award-winning Tasmanian documentary Shadow of Doubt follows one of the most intriguing and alarming legal cases in recent Australian history.
Radiation physicist Bob Chappell, aged 65, was last seen alive on the Four Winds yacht on Australia Day, 26 January 2009.
In October 2010 his partner of 18 years, Sue Neill-Fraser, was convicted of murder and jailed for 26 years, later reduced to 23 years.
Lorne Film chief Emma Crichton said the documentary presented evidence that the case was entirely circumstantial, given Bob Chappell’s body was never found.
“Sue has always protested her innocence, vehemently denying any involvement in Bob’s disappearance,“ Crichton said.
“Fresh and compelling evidence has emerged and this will be discussed following the screening via a 45-minute panel session with facilitated audience discussion.”
The panel discussion includes film-maker Eve Ash and Dr Robert Moles, an Australian academic regarded as a world-class expert on legal theory and miscarriages of justice.
“The Neill-Fraser case is one of the worst ever,” Dr Moles said.
“No body, no plausible scenario or motive and no credible evidence that a murder has even been committed.”
Civil Liberties Australia head Bill Rowlings said the film depicted a miscarriage of justice so blatant it was “impossible to believe it could happen in this day and age”.
Stuart Tipple, lawyer for Lindy Chamberlain, said the story had many parallels to Chamberlain’s case.
Well-known QC Robert Richter said if half of the Chappell allegations were well-founded it required “a full judicial inquiry into the investigation and prosecution of the case”.
Ash said she began filming Shadow of Doubt in Hobart after Sue Neill-Fraser was arrested and later convicted of her partner’s murder.
Sue Neill-Fraser is in her seventh year at Tasmania’s Risdon Prison. A new law to be debated in the Tasmanian parliament this month could give her the right to a further appeal.
Shadow of Doubt will screen on 2.30pm on 15 November at Lorne’s Cumberland Auditorium.
