An appeal against the murder acquittal of former Perth barrister Lloyd Rayney has been dismissed.
Mr Rayney was found not guilty of murdering his wife Corryn, who was killed in August 2007, after a three-month trial before a judge alone last year.
Prosecutors appealed against the verdict on the grounds the judge did not properly assess all of the evidence.
They claimed the judge assessed the circumstantial case in a piecemeal and sequential manner and failed to consider the circumstances as a whole.
The judge had previously found Mrs Rayney was attacked at or near the couple’s house in Como, and a dinner place card with Mr Rayney’s name was found near his wife’s burial site.
However, the judge ruled that those facts did not on their own prove guilt. The prosecution in the current case argued that the judge had erred in that finding.
But Western Australia’s Court of Appeal rejected their argument and threw out the appeal.
It followed one of the most high-profile trials in WA history, which involved two prominent members of the state’s legal community.
Mrs Rayney, 44, was a Supreme Court registrar and her husband was a well-known barrister.
To prevent prejudice, the trial was heard by Justice Brian Martin, a former chief justice in the Northern Territory.
The former Northern Territory chief justice found the case against Mr Rayney lacked “logic” and “crucial evidence”.
Defence lawyers labelled the police investigation “single minded and biased” and welcomed the acquittal.
Mrs Rayney’s body was found in a bush grave in Kings Park.
Marriage irretrievably broken down
During the trial, prosecutors said the couple had arranged a meeting on the night Mrs Rayney disappeared.
It was the deadline for Mr Rayney to provide financial records his wife has been pressing for as they tried to avoid a messy Family Court battle.
He maintains his wife did not come home after her bootscooting class, and the court was told no-one saw her after that point.
It was alleged Mr Rayney killed his wife at home while one of their daughters, Sarah, was asleep upstairs.
However, Sarah told the court she did not hear anything to suggest her mother came home that night.
Her older sister Caitlyn was at a concert and prosecutors allege the murder occurred in the hour window between Mrs Rayney returning and Caitlyn coming home.
Caitlyn told the court her father appeared normal when she got home and helped her with homework for about an hour before she went to bed.
At the trial, experts gave evidence about microscopic particles found on her body matching samples taken from the Rayney home, as well as the presence of liquidambar seed pods in her hair, which prosecutors say link her death to the couple’s home.
Defence lawyer David Edwardson argued the case was based on “conjecture, not evidence,” and it was “absurd” to suggest Mr Rayney, a devoted father, would kill his wife at the family home.
“If Lloyd Rayney had contemplated the perfect murder, it beggars belief that he would consider executing his wife at the home he shares with his two daughters,” he said.
Mr Edwardson said it was unrealistic to suggest Mr Rayney could have killed his wife, buried her in Kings Park, dumped her car in Subiaco and somehow made his way home to Como and appear completely normal the next morning when he got his daughters ready for school and went to work.
Caitlyn and Sarah were both called as witnesses at the trial.
They told the court their father was a mild man who “never gets his hands dirty”, is “very, very unfit,” and has been unable to do physical tasks for a number of years because of a back injury.
Defence lawyers also said there was no DNA, fingerprints or blood linking murder to the Como home and there was nothing to say murder happened there.
Police investigation into murder
Throughout the trial, the integrity of the police investigation was questioned and labelled “single-minded” and “biased,” and issues over the handling of evidence were raised.
The defence suggested that seed pods, central to the prosecution’s case, may have been planted in Mrs Rayney’s hair by police after the court heard evidence from a forensic pathologist who said he did not see them during his initial examination.
“There was no doubt they [police] were circling around Lloyd Rayney,” Mr Edwardson said.
Mr Rayney was not charged with his wife’s murder until December 2010, more than three years after she was killed.
However, as early as September 2007, he was publicly named by police as the “prime” and “only” suspect.
Those comments from Senior Sergeant Jack Lee prompted the barrister to launch a defamation action, claiming he had been “brought into public hatred, scandal, odium and contempt” and “shunned and avoided by right thinking members of the community”.
Mr Rayney says his reputation was destroyed and he is seeking damages for past and future loss of earnings.
The barrister was also charged with bugging his wife’s phone in the weeks leading up to her death.
That case was put on hold pending the outcome of the appeal.
The focus will now shift to Mr Rayney’s phone tapping charges and his defamation case against the state.
