Richard John Cotic
Richard John Cotic
HOW WILL ‘COOPERATION’ BE MEASURED?
A failure to locate a body does not equate to ‘never to be released’. As has been mentioned, it is not a failure to locate a body that will lead to a prisoner becoming ineligible to be considered for early release, rather a failure to cooperate in the search for that body. However, questions remain about how that cooperation will be measured by the Commissioner of Police in his or her report to the PRB, and how thereafter will it be evaluated by the PRB A failure to cooperate may be due to the prisoner’s actual or maintained innocence, but alternatively it may, for example, be because of environmental factors, the passage of time or natural events having eroded those remains or their location, or because the body was disposed of at sea, or because of the involvement of a third party, such as an accomplice or accessory hired to dispose of a body, with the perpetrator of the killing having no knowledge of where the disposal occurred. Indeed, it may result from a lack of mental capacity to cooperate at the time parole is being considered (paragraphs 6.71 to 6.79 below). Under the new provisions, the extent of a prisoner’s cooperation will first be reported upon by the Police Force under proposed section 66C, then adjudged by the PRB under proposed section 66B and in reports to be given to the Attorney General under the proposed amendments to sections 12 and 12A. Officers from the Police Force confirmed that they would be able to report satisfactory cooperation even in the absence of a body. Mr Scanlan, Commander, State Crime gave examples in evidence to the Committee: We do have a body that is missing down in the forest area south of the metropolitan area. The person has taken us out there twice to try and locate the body. However, due to the passage of time, we have been unable to locate that body. So in those circumstances, where we have those people coming forward and making great effort to provide us with the information we require, that would be provided in the report.
He went further: Mr SCANLAN: There are a couple of examples I could use. I was talking about one this morning. We have not found the body of Richard Cotic, who was murdered in Geraldton some time ago. The offenders for that were Steve Southam, Paul Zaghet and John Hobby. The reality is that the murder was probably undertaken by Steve Southam and Zaghet, but John Hobby disposed of the body. Now, we have never been advised as to where the location of that body is, so those two people who have been convicted of murder highly likely do not know the location of where the body was placed. Their information that they have provided to us would be that, yes, we murdered the person. The person who disposed of the body was, say, John Hobby. So he is the person. They have pointed us in the direction and provided us with as much information as they possibly could.
The CHAIR: So an assessment could be done that gave them, metaphorically speaking, 10 out of 10 for cooperation, despite the fact that there was no recovery of a body?
Mr SCANLAN: Yes.77