Oct. 22
AUSTRALIA:
Still fighting on, 30 years after death row
Darryl Beamish is not so angry anymore.
But after spending 15 years in prison, including four months on death row,
for a murder he maintains he did not commit, the 63-year-old handyman has
a lingering question: "Cooke did it ... what did they catch me for?"
It is 28 years since Mr Beamish was released but he still carries a
conviction for the wilful murder of Melbourne heiress Jillian Brewer in
1959.
Mr Beamish, who is deaf, unable to speak and only communicates through
sign language, now leads a happy life in an outer Perth suburb.
"I was angry, always angry," he said in sign this week of the 1960s legal
process that saw him convicted on the strength of a 3-page confession he
always maintained was concocted.
"Today, the anger is down a bit. Now I am hoping and praying." It is a
week since lawyers and supporters acting on Mr Beamish's behalf presented
a new case to the West Australian Court of Criminal Appeal attempting to
have his 1961 conviction overturned.
If the appeal is successful, Mr Beamish will be confirmed the victim of
one of the worst miscarriages of justice in West Australian legal history.
Among the supporters beside him during the 4-day hearing was Margaret
Ridge -- the sister of bricklayer John Button, who was convicted in 1963
of the manslaughter of girlfriend Rosemary Anderson.
Mr Button's conviction was overturned in 2002 on the basis of new evidence
and the confession of the last man hanged in Western Australia, serial
killer Eric Edgar Cooke.
Mr Beamish and Mr Button met in the carpenter's shop while both served
time in Fremantle jail and remain friends. They shared a link in Cooke,
though neither man knew it at the time.
Cooke confessed to killing Brewer and Anderson before he was hanged for an
unrelated murder in 1964. Cooke gave evidence of the crime, which was
rejected as untruthful, at Mr Beamish's unsuccessful appeal that year.
Though Cooke was incarcerated in Fremantle jail while Mr Beamish was an
inmate, the two never met. But he remembers how word quickly spread
through the prison of Cooke's arrest and admissions. "When Cooke was
caught and in jail, people told me, 'Now you are all right, all right, all
right'," he said.
"But nothing happened. I lost the (1964) appeal. I stayed there."
Mr Beamish remembers being frightened during his 1961 trial, but said that
he never realised the 4 months he spent in an isolation cell were on death
row.
"The jury finally came in and said I was guilty," he said. "I didn't
understand. I couldn't hear or talk. I didn't know the court had finished.
I went to Fremantle that night."
When the death penalty was commuted to a life sentence, Mr Beamish was
moved and given work: "They put me in sewing. I hated that, always
pricking my fingers. I changed to woodwork. I was happy."
Since his release in 1976, Mr Beamish has built a contented life. He has
been happily married to Barbara, a deaf woman he met at a deaf club dance,
for 23 years.
Mr Beamish and his family have hope but no certainty about the court's
decision on his latest, sixth appeal which is being considered by the
three presiding judges. But he is buoyed by a show of public support. "A
man saw me this morning. He told me the (1960s) court was wrong. Everyone
was shaking my hands," he signed. "But it has been long, too long."
(source: The Australian)
