Gene Gibson gets $1.3m payment after wrongful conviction over Josh Warneke's Broome death
Updated
The man who spent nearly five years in prison after being wrongfully convicted over the death of Joshua Warneke in 2010 has been awarded a $1.3 million dollar ex-gratia payment by the WA Government.
Attorney-General John Quigley confirmed Gene Gibson would receive the payment after a flawed police investigation over the incident in the Kimberley town of Broome led to his conviction.
Mr Gibson was sentenced in 2014 to seven-and-a-half years in prison after admitting to unlawfully causing the death of Mr Warneke.
The 21-year-old was found dead on the side of a road after leaving a nightclub in February 2010.
But that conviction was quashed last year, with Mr Gibson arguing he did not understand the court process or the instructions given to him through an interpreter and that he was induced to make a plea based on a false or unreliable statement.
Mr Gibson is from the remote community of Kiwirrkurra and barely speaks or understands English.
Testifying at his appeal last year, he told the court via an interpreter that he did not kill Mr Warneke and said police had not listened to his story.
Expert witnesses said Mr Gibson's limited English was compounded by mental impairment.
Apology from Quigley, Government
The $1.3 million ex-gratia payment will be put into the hands of the public trustee, with an extra $200,000 to be included for expected fees.
Mr Quigley said the Government was sorry for what happened to Mr Gibson.
"I want to extend my personal apology and the Government's apology … for the terrible suffering he had to endure for four years and eight months in prison," Mr Quigley said.
Mr Quigley said the agreement would not prohibit Mr Gibson from seeking further compensation through the courts."
Mr Gibson's representatives had initially applied for an ex-gratia payment of $2.5 million.
Ex-gratia payments by State of WA:
- Andrew Mallard — $3.25 million — Spent 12 years in prison until his conviction for the 2006 murder of Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence was quashed by the High Court.
- The family of Mr Ward — $3.2 million — Mr Ward died from heatstroke in 2008 after being transported in a prison van.
- Ray and Peter Mickelberg — $1 million — The brothers spent eight and six years respectively in jail, having been wrongfully convicted of the 1982 Perth Mint swindle.
- John Button — $460,000 — Spent five years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of the manslaughter of his girlfriend in 1963, a crime to which serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke later confessed.
- Darryl Beamish — $425,000 — Deaf-mute man was originally sentenced to death but spent 15 years in prison for the 1959 murder of a chocolate heiress, to which serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke later confessed.
However, Mr Quigley said the amount awarded was adequate.
"We have dispersed what we believe to be a fair amount to Mr Gibson," he said.
"I have a responsibility to the taxpayers to make sure that the compensation is rationally and justly arrived at and I feel comfortable that we've done that."
"After taking advice from the Crown Counsel for Western Australia … I have gone just past what he put at the top end of that.
A Corruption and Crime Commission review of the case was scathing of WA Police's handling of the case, finding that it exposed "systemic failures" within the agency.
Mr Warneke's death remains unsolved.
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, broome-6725
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