Prosecutors ‘chickened out’ in grilling of High Country murderer Greg Lynn: defence

Of the five appeal grounds, four relate to Lynn’s conviction and one to his sentence.

On Friday, Lynn was guided into the appeals court through a side door by two guards minutes before the hearing began before Justices Karin Emerton, Phillip Priest and Peter Kidd.

Dressed in a suit jacket, pink shirt and hiking shoes, he smiled politely at the media as his handcuffs were removed.

In appealing the conviction, Dann pointed to what he argues were dozens of breaches of the rules of fairness including allowing expert witnesses to introduce evidence while addressing the jury that were absent from the witnesses’ statements.

This, Dann said, included prosecution failures to put elements of their case to Lynn when he took to the witness box.

Dann said that by the time the closing addresses began, the prosecution team had already been given a “rare warning” from the trial judge for their conduct.

There were so many breaches, Dann said he couldn’t keep up when trying to tally them all.

“The number and significance of breaches are in a territory likely to never be seen again,” he said.

“The prosecutor went mad.”

Dann said it looked like the prosecution “chickened out” in failing to put parts of their case to Lynn while the accused man was in the witness box.

Lynn’s lawyers are also relying on the evidence of ballistics expert Paul Griffiths and DNA expert Mark Gellatly to progress his appeal, and argue the latter allegedly provided evidence outside his qualifications.

Griffiths, Dann said on Friday, explored three possible hypotheses regarding whether Clay might have been standing, squatting or crouching when shot, but only mentioned two of these in his statement to police.

Priest – who said Dann questioned “the socks off” Griffiths – repeatedly challenged the defence submissions, asking why Lynn didn’t call for the jury to be discharged when fairness issues began to be raised.

“If it was as bad as you [Dann] say it was, one would expect you to ask for a discharge of the jury,” Priest said.

Kidd said that while Dann claims the unfairness became clear early on, the defence lawyer appeared to decide to “roll the dice” at trial to maximise Lynn’s prospects of acquittal.

“You’d raised it on several occasions. Your client, on advice from his experienced legal team, was actually considering whether to make a discharge application, at least two, three, four occasions throughout the trial,” Kidd said to Dann.

“So there were no surprises here. It seems it can be inferred a considered and informed position was taken to continue with the trial.”

Dann maintained that during the trial he made “violent and vehement objections” to what was going on, knowing Lynn was facing a life sentence if convicted.

“When you have this colossal collection of matters, illegitimate attacks, that’s the breaking point … in this case,” Dann said.

“We say [Lynn] was placed in a difficult position trying to choose the lesser of two evils visited upon him.”

Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane, KC, told the court the defence failed to establish that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.

Any departures from the rules of fairness, Kissane argued, were adequately remedied by the trial judge, so much so he said the directions given to the jury were “favourable to the accused in the extreme”.

Lynn’s appeal will continue next Thursday.

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