Statement by Joe Crowley, Graham Stafford’s Lawyer

I spent three hours reviewing the 500 odd page re-investigation report.

It is interesting that at no point does it discredit or subvert the evidence given in 1997 by Police Scientist Leo Freney.

In 2009 Justice Holmes (as she then was) said “Mr Freney’s evidence … comprehensively demolished the theory that Leanne Holland was killed at her Goodna home”.

Justice Keane said “[o]n the basis of this evidence, it was demonstrably unlikely that the deceased had been killed at her home and the bleeding body … put in the boot of the car”. The material in the report does not detract from those findings.

In relation to the house, the report merely establishes that at some time before she was murdered, Leanne Holland had put peroxide on parts of her hair and that a spot of blood on the shower curtain had been DNA matched to her.

Evidence that the body had a checked pattern, which was very similar to a pattern that appeared on the boot mat of the Holden Gemini, does not explain why there was negligible blood in the boot.

As to the maggot, the report demonstrates that it had no human DNA in it, which indicates that it was not from the body of Leanne Holland.

In all, the report does not impeach the evidence of Leo Freney and does not provide evidence of Graham Stafford’s guilt.