A woman, who was found by a court to have been wrongly jailed for 10 years for attempting to kill her husband, was awarded 1.6 million dollars compensation.
Australian media
report on Monday said that Roseanne Beckett was jailed in 1991 for allegedly
trying to solicit others to kill her husband Barry Catt as well as trying to
poison him.
The
report noted that Beckett became the state’s longest-serving female inmate,
before she was released in 2001, and her case became a cause célèbre for
advocates who saw a miscarriage of justice.
It
said in 2005, the charges were quashed after new evidence emerged that she had
been framed.
It
said in her attempt to sue the government’s public prosecutor for malicious
prosecution, she was asked to prove her innocence.
“A
10-year court battle ended on Monday, 26 years to the days since she was
arrested.
Meanwhile,
Ian Harrison, Supreme Court Justice overturned a 91-year-old legal precedent
requiring her to prove her innocence.
The
judge ordered the public prosecutor’s office to pay her compensation for
malicious prosecution, plus her legal costs which she said run into the
millions.
Beckett
said outside the court that the public prosecutor spent millions of dollars
trying to prevent her from suing.
She
said “Victory at long last, with tears streaming down her face as she was
cheered by supporters.
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