Jason Roberts, whose conviction for the Silk-Miller police murders was overturned, has lost another bid to be bailed while he awaits a retrial.
The Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed an appeal against an earlier court decision to refuse him bail.
Jason Roberts, pictured being escorted into the Court of Appeal last year, has made a fresh bid for bail.Credit:Joe Armao
In 2002, Mr Roberts was found guilty of murdering police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller in Moorabbin in 1998. Those convictions were quashed last year when the court found police misconduct corrupted his trial.
The 40-year-old is in custody awaiting a retrial on the same charges.
He appealed against a decision by a bail judge who refused his application because he did not show he had exceptional circumstances to justify bail on the two murder charges.
His lawyer Peter Matthews had argued bail was warranted because of the injustice constituted by the corruption of the original trial and the personal hardship from the 20 years Mr Roberts has since spent in custody.
Sergeant Gary Silk (left) and Senior Constable Rodney Miller.
Court of Appeal president Chris Maxwell and justices Karin Emerton and Richard Niall ruled on Friday the decision to refuse bail was the correct one.
“Those matters did not, as the appellant submitted, compel the conclusion that bail was justified,” the judges said.
Justice David Beach, the appeal judges wrote, was not obliged to view past events as making it unjust for his pre-trial incarceration to continue.
Mr Roberts’ convictions were overturned after an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission investigation found some police officers who comforted the dying Senior Constable Miller had their witness statements revised and backdated, and gave false and misleading evidence.
Bandali Debs is still serving life imprisonment for the murders of the two officers, who were killed on a stake-out of the Silky Emperor restaurant as part of an investigation into a series of armed robberies.
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