Source : Perth Now news
A remorseless killer who staged his wife’s death as a suicide has erupted during his appeal hearing as his lawyers argued the trial had a fatal flaw.
Adrian Basham, 49, was jailed for life in 2023 after murdering Samantha Fraser a week before she was due to give evidence in court about allegations he had raped her.
Basham appeared in the Court of Appeal on Friday where he argued both that his conviction should be overturned and that his sentence was manifestly excessive.
Currently serving the maximum possible sentence, Basham twice interrupted the proceeding, prompting a stern rebuke from a judge and a warning he could be removed.
“Check the camera footage that this bloke here has for the 27th, 20th of July,” he said while gesturing toward the police informant. It is unclear what Basham was referring to and his barrister made no mention of footage during the appeal.
Handing down the sentence of life in prison, Justice Lesley Taylor said Basham’s “objectively heinous” and premeditated killing of his estranged wife fell into the worst category for murder.
“Your decision to execute Samantha Fraser, a woman who had found the courage to defy you, keep her children safe from you and live a life free from you, was cold,” Justice Taylor said.
“The steps that you took to disguise your presence on Phillip Island and stage a suicide scene shows that you had the arrogance to think that you would not be caught.”
Members of Ms Fraser’s family, including her father Trevor Fraser also attended the hearing.
Basham’s barrister, Dermot Dann KC, submitted his client’s chance at a fair trial had been dealt a “fatal” blow by a problem in Justice Taylor’s final directions to the jury.
Mr Dann argue the judge had invited jurors to consider whether Ms Fraser’s statements about the alleged rapes were truthful statements.
“What else does that mean other than that’s a matter they’re going to have to determine?” he asked.
During the trial, jurors were told Ms Fraser had made three allegations of rape against Basham to police which prosecutors were only relying on to demonstrate he had a motive to kill her.
She was set to give evidence during a preliminary court hearing against him when she was murdered.
While Justice Taylor had given a number of directions to the jury that the rape allegations against Basham were untested and they “must not” embark on a fact-finding mission, Mr Dann argued the allegations were front and centre in the trial and there was a risk of jury confusion.
“Think about the dangers associated with any juror coming to conclusion the allegations of rape were true – it would be devastating for a fair trial,” he said.
“We say it undoes what’s gone before … It couldn’t have been a matter for the jury.”
Stephanie Clancy, for the Crown, argued there was nothing wrong with Justice Taylor’s “orthodox” direction to the jury about hearsay evidence.
“We contend that when the direction is considered in the context of the charge, and the trial as a whole, there is no risk the jury would have understood the trial judge’s hearsay direction as an invitation,” she said.
“The court should find there was no substantial miscarriage of justice occasioned in this case.”
Ms Clancy told the court the allegations of rape were used as part of a body of evidence to demonstrate Ms Fraser was extremely fearful of Basham and would not have invited him into her home, nor gotten out of her car if she knew he was there.
CCTV captured him arriving at Ms Fraser’s home in Cowes the morning of July 23, 2018, and running from the scene at 12.04pm.
During the trial, jurors heard Basham lay in wait for the mum-of-three to return home from dropping her children to school before attacking her in the garage, leaving 41 separate blunt force injuries.
He then tied a noose around her neck and hanged Ms Fraser from the garage door.
At trial, Basham admitted he assaulted her, but contended that she was alive when he left and later died by suicide.
Justice Taylor described this as a “palpable fiction”.
On Basham’s sentence, Mr Dann argued the judge had not properly taken into account all the factors in mitigation and his client should have received a sentence less than life.
The Crown, through Ms Clancy, have argued there was no mistake.
Court of Appeal president Justice Karin Emerton, Justice Rowena Orr and Justice Peter Kidd will hand down their judgment at a later date.
Basham will first become eligible for parole in August 2048 after serving a minimum term of 30 years.
