Fed: Earl Heatly leaves the public spotlight

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-2004
Fed: Earl Heatly leaves the public spotlight

EARL HEATLEY has walked from the public spotlight less than 24 hours after his unprecedented
release from prison.

His departure from his first press conference, in which he uttered few statements,
came almost ten years after he was charged with a double murder.

After one conviction, a successful appeal, two hung juries and two aborted trials,
New South Wales prosecutors finally abandoned a planned sixth trial.

They say there is no reasonable prospect they'll get a conviction.

The now 57-year-old has spent more than nine years in prison, on remand for the crimes
he still maintains he did not commit.

He has always claimed he was never at the Asquith factory in Sydney in October 1994,
when a bungled robbery resulted in the deaths of his brother, PAUL HEATLEY, and DESMOND
THOMPSON, the factory's owner.

Director of Public Prosecutions NICHOLAS COWDERY released his reasons today for abandoning
the sixth trial.

He says factors included false or inconsistent evidence under oath and one witness
with a psychiatric illness who claims he is Phar Lap.

AAP RTV ld/nf/wz/rp

KEYWORD: HEATLEY (SYDNEY) WITH AUDIO

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