All language subtitles for Watch Mistress Mercy S01-E02 - Episode 2 - Free TV Shows - Tubi

- At 18, I was charged with murder.

Notorious, the teenage dominatrix.

I was accused of killing a
respected English cricket umpire

by throwing him bound hand
and foot into a raging river.

I was very naive, very young, very stupid.

- It was just an incredibly sad, sad story

of a girl who got involved
with the wrong people.

- [Renee] I was charged
with my then boyfriend,

Neville Walker.

The shocking secrets of bondage
and discipline were exposed

for the first time in
three sensational trials

that gripped a whole nation.

- She looked for all the
world like a demure debutante.

She did not look like a murderer,

or a dominatrix for that matter.

- I was there, so I know what happened.

My clients knew me as Mistress Dominique.

This is my story.

(dramatic music)

(suspenseful music)

- Well, not only was it
a, you know, sensational,

jolly trial, it had so much
media interest because of that.

- It was just absolutely
full on with pictures.

Good story, got everything.

- [Anna] It was a media scrap all right.

- Get out.

- [Reporter] Details of a conversation

were given to the court
by secret witness A,

but all personal details of the witness

have been suppressed.

- Neville said that they couldn't
let Mr. Plumley-Walker go,

otherwise, he'd go straight to the police

about the hiding he'd just been given.

He said that they had to get rid of him.

- Did she tell you anything

about Mr. Plumley-Walker's
condition at that time?

- She said that he walked out to the car

and she showed me how bent over he was,

hands tied in the front,

and that when they got to the falls,

they took him out of the car
and they weighted him down.

- Did she say anything else

about Mr. Plumley-Walker at that time?

- She said that she knew that he knew

that he was going to die.

- Disbelief.

I knew that it was not true.

I was angry.

I was angry that she was up there lying.

- There was a lot of talk
about the secret witnesses

and, you know, who they were,

you know, back in the newsroom,

and, actually, in restaurants
and bars, you know,

whenever you went out

there was a lot of speculation
about who they were.

And, you know, sometimes
you would hear some

quite well-known names in New
Zealand circles mentioned.

- [Narrator] Neville Walker
had allegedly given details

about Peter Plumley-Walker's death

to a man in the holding cells

at the Auckland District Court.

The man was a police informer.

- He told me Ms. Chignell had
been beating Plumley-Walker

and just generally abusing him,

and that he'd actually
beaten him himself as well.

And then Plumley-Walker cried out,

"I'm fucked, I've had enough."

- I'm fucked, I've had enough.

- Yeah, then Walker said
him and Ms. Chignell

went and had a coffee
and something to eat,

but when they came back, they
found him all slumped over,

looking a lot worse for wear.

So they unchained him and
Walker tried to find a pulse,

but he couldn't, so he
gave him cardiac massage.

- What else did the
defendant, Walker, tell you?

- Well, they decided to
take the body to Huka Falls.

And when they got to the
falls, they dumped him over.

- Did he tell you anything about

Mr. Plumley-Walker's
condition at that time?

- He said his arms were still twitching.

- If Renee and her accomplice
had known that he was alive,

then plainly murder at Taupo was,

not to put too fine a point
on it, a slam dunk. (chuckles)

- It was always going to be a case

where any lawyer involved
was gonna make his mark.

Either way, good or bad,

they were gonna be in the
media every single day.

- Well, we had our moments.

- Christopher Harder
was just extraordinary.

- I had a lot of admiration for Chris.

He was a superb, determined,
perhaps obsessively so,

private investigator.

He was also, though, a renegade.

- Just as the bite.

- [Carroll] At one stage he
got a scorpion and produced it,

and said, "What's going on
at the moment in this trial

is as bad as a scorpion as the
fatal killer of my client."

- He did things that were
likely to annoy the judiciary,

and the risk was

we just had no way of knowing
how he would impress a jury.

- On the 1st of May, you were in court

and you spoke to Neville
Walker, is that right?

- [Secret Witness B] Yes.

- [Chris] And you were bailed at

about 10 past two in the
afternoon, weren't you?

- Early afternoon.

- Did you then contact Constable
Ruth requesting a meeting?

- Yeah, to give him a
book on a car and I said

I had something else I
wanted to talk to him about.

- Well, I put it to you
that at this meeting

you received money from Constable Ruth

for previous information given to him.

- That probably happened at the same time.

That's not why I called him.

I mentioned to him about the book

that I promised to give him,

and then I said I had something else

that I wanted to tell him.

By that I was referring to
what had been said to me

by Neville Walker.

- How much money did you receive?

- Well, I'm not sure.

- Take your time, think about it.

Was it a hundred, 200, 500?

- It wasn't that much.

- Well, how much?

Was it in the hundreds or the tens?

- It was 300, sorry.

- [Chris] You have a number
of previous convictions,

is that right?

- Yes.

- Do you accept that you have
about 36 burglary convictions,

29 for theft, 46 for false pretenses,

nine for altering a document?

- Yeah, I got quite a long past record,

but over the last year that
has changed, thankfully.

- Cellmate confessions,

one simply cannot say they never happen

and that they're never genuine,

but reliability is a major issue

because prisoners have too much to gain

by cooperating with authorities.

Almost invariably,

the toughest witness
of the police officers,

all those professional
witnesses called for the Crown

know that they're not
there to help the defense.

- [Stuart] You were present when Mr. Dewar

first came into the interview
room to speak to Ms. Chignell,

weren't you?

- Yes, I was.

- And you didn't take any
notes of this conversation,

did you?

- No, it was his interview.

I took down her written
statement at the end.

- And what did you do with it?

- Gave it to DSS Dewar.

He made the comment that it differed

from what she'd said
in the interview room.

- [Stuart] Did you agree with that?

- Yes, as I was taking
the statement from her,

I mentioned that it differed

from what she'd earlier said to Dewar,

but she insisted that what
she put down in the statement

was, in fact, what she
now was saying happened.

I was only there to record her statement.

- Did Mr. Dewar show
you his job sheet notes?

- Yes, he asked me to read them

and make sure they were
correct as I record them.

I was convinced it was a
true and correct record

of the interview, and
I certified it as such.

- And did you then show Ms.
Chignell the job sheet notes

that you had just certified as correct

so that she could see the differences?

- No, that was done later

by Detective Senior Sergeant Dewar.

- Well, it might've been
fairer to show her right then

exactly what you and
Mr. Dewar had maintained

that she had said.

- I could've done that,

but I knew Ms. Chignell
was an achieved liar.

I wasn't gonna push her
or lose her confidence

when we'd at least got her talking.

- She had been encouraged to talk.

Payn took the statement,

which didn't have the oral material

that Dewar later recorded.

- Even Detective Payn was quite shocked

when he came back in with a statement

and banged it on the desk.

You know, Renee, you're to sign this now.

And I was shocked.

I was absolutely shocked
and just angry as well,

that, you know, he's a detective

and he's wanting me to sign
something I have not said.

- He had alleged a number of admissions

that weren't recorded on a job sheet.

- And he was a bully.

- Our in was to try and drive a wedge

between the testimony of
the two police officers.

- Were you critical of Mr. Payn

after reading the statement
he took from Ms. Chignell

after your interview?

- I was obviously disappointed.

It was missing one important point.

- What important point?

- Well, admission

with regards to the murder
of Mr. Plumley-Walker.

- You said that she told you three times,

I knew what was happening to him.

- A number of times, yes.

- She said something like,

I taught you bloody bastard.

I decided to leave the
bastard hanging there.

Is that what you're saying?

- No, that's what she told me.

- Well, I suggest to you that
she said none of these things

and that they're total fabrication.

What do you say to that?

- Well, if your defense
is attacking the police,

I think that's pretty pathetic.

See, I don't work on commission.

I don't rely for the future of my success

on convictions and acquittals,

and I don't have to tell lies,

and I don't run that
risk of perjuring myself.

Now, your client clearly
told me her involvement

in the presence of Payn,
and he substantiates that.

- And yet when she sees your
record for the first time

and she comes to the place where you say

that she said it was murder,
she immediately says to you,

"No, I didn't say that."

- Yes, that's right.

- I suggest to you that in
the midst of all the activity,

you simply got it wrong,

and you misunderstood what
she was trying to say to you.

- No.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind

that your client said it was murder then.

Now it really was a bombshell.

And I knew by her demeanor,
which had changed at that point,

that she'd had a moment of
weakness that had dropped

and that remark just came out.

Now, I am absolutely certain
that is what she said.

- What was surprising was that
Renee actually never spoke.

She never gave any, you know,

she didn't take the stand at all.

And I think a lot of us were
quite surprised by that.

- I don't mean to demean her
her intelligence or anything,

but she was confused as a young woman,

confused by the process.

She would've been a lamb to the slaughter

of cross-examination
had we ever called her,

and so she was never going to be called.

- [Reporter] When
19-year-old Renee Chignell

arrived for the final day
of her High Court trial,

she followed her lawyer's
instructions and said nothing.

- [Reporter] Are you feeling confident?

- When the jury came back
in it was absolute silence.

I remember looking at this
one particular older woman,

and she didn't look at me, you know.

We'd had days and days of looking
at each other and smiling,

and she didn't look at me.

- All rise.

(suspenseful music)

In relation to the accused,
Neville George Walker,

how do you find him guilty, or not guilty?

- [Juror] Guilty.

(gasping)

- [Public Gallery Member] Bullshit.

- And in relation to the
accused, Renee Melanie Chignell,

guilty or not guilty?

- Guilty.

- [Ngaire] She didn't do it.

- She didn't kind of react
the way I thought she would.

And later she told me that
she just didn't believe it.

She thought it just couldn't be true.

- I can hear my mother calling out to me,

telling me that she loves me
and other people talking to me.

That was a really, really painful memory

just to feel just the hurt from,

you know, friends and family, yeah.

It will stay with me for a long time.

- When the first verdict
and the first trial came out

that they were guilty,

everyone was absolutely astonished.

You know, they just couldn't believe

that it was a guilty verdict.

- I was very sorry, really.

I thought it was wrong.

I thought manslaughter at most,

but murder seemed way off the mark.

- Whatever went down I
don't think personally,

and I think a lot of people
agreed with me at the time,

there was the intent there to kill him.

- [Reporter] There were gasps of surprise

as the two were given
the mandatory sentence,

life imprisonment.

- No comment to make at all.

- [Reporter] The two convicted murderers

were rushed away under tight
security to Mount Eden Prison.

- And we got taken away so quickly

back down to the holding
cells and I just lost it.

(chains rattling)

I put a dog collar around his neck

and clipped it to a
chain from the ceiling.

I asked him if it was
tight enough and he said,

"No, Mistress, I want tight bondage."

So I put everything up a couple of notches

and the collar slipped up his neck.

He didn't have anything in his mouth,

so he was able to talk.

He wasn't blindfolded.

He was absolutely fine.

He was on his tiptoes by this point.

If he stood flat-footed,

the chain around his
neck would've tightened.

I asked him if he was okay and he said.

- Yes, Mistress.

- He was getting right
into it, enjoying it.

He was all for tight bondage.

- What happened then?

- I left the room.

I would say, slave, I'm
going out of the room.

You are to behave, you
know, I will be back soon.

And I would sometimes
go out, sometimes not.

I would open the door, shut
the door, still be there,

and then come up and give him a smack.

And it's just that
heightened sense of arousal

that they're going through.

I was quite taken back by
what Peter had told me.

I had a coffee and a cigarette

and told Neville all about it,

that Peter was a sick-minded person.

Neville agreed.

(suspenseful music)

I was gone about 20 minutes,
I suppose, longer than usual.

I would've thought that if
he was having any problems

he would've yelled out,
or made some noise.

I would've heard the chains shaking

because they were down
and would've made a noise

if he was trying to get my attention.

I came back in, it was absolutely,

I can't even put words into
how I felt when I saw him.

Neville!

I remember screaming out
to Neville to come in.

I was getting him down onto the floor.

(loud thump and Renee crying)

- [Neville] What the fuck is going on?

Fuckin' help him, mate.

(Renee crying)

- [Reporter] Dominatrix
Renee Chignell and her lover,

Neville Walker, are still behind bars

for the murder of Peter Plumley-Walker.

Elsewhere today, lawyers
were filing a formal appeal

against the verdict.

Questions were being raised
about lawyers' conduct

and controversy was raging over
the use of police informers

in the trial.

- Well, the submission
to the Court of Appeal

was that the trial judge,
the summing up was erroneous.

You could not tell from the verdict

whether there were some jurors

who were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt

of murder at Auckland,

or whether they were satisfied
beyond reasonable doubt

of murder at Taupo.

And the law required
that they had to be sure.

- [Reporter] The appeal
judge is saying the jury

wasn't clearly told their
decision on where he died

must be unanimous before they
could return a guilty verdict.

They also declared Walker's conviction

a miscarriage of justice

because the police didn't
disclose damaging information

on a controversial crown witness,

secret witness B.

He referred the Court of
Appeal to an affidavit

from an old friend of secret witness B's,

who said, "B told him that he lied

about the twitching at the falls.

He lied about the beating, and
that he'd done it for greed."

- That's what caused the Court of Appeal

to order a new trial.

- The Plumley-Walker murder trial

begins all over again tomorrow.

It'll be the second trial

for Renee Chignell and Neville Walker.

- [Reporter] On the eve of this new trial,

Neville Walker is a free man
after his successful appeal,

but Renee Chignell is still in prison.

- The superintendent
of the jail said to me,

"Renee, you have a visitor here."

I thought, well, great,
I've got a visitor.

She said, "Well, the visitor

is actually in one of the other wings."

And for the life of me, I
couldn't think who on earth

she was talking about,
you know, friend or who?

Mom, oh, my God, oh, my God.

I can't believe they let you in here.

They never do that.

- [Ngaire] I'm not a visitor, sweetie.

- What?

- Parking tickets finally
caught up with me.

They slapped me with a
ridiculous finding cost,

10,000 bucks.

- Can you have got the money?

You should have asked.

- I could've got it,

but my other choice was a
few weeks in here with you.

- Oh, mom.

- So tell me what's going on.

I heard Neville's out on bail.

- Have to wait for the second trial.

- [Ngaire] So why are you still in here?

- 'Cause I didn't apply.

I don't want bail.

- Oh, baby, why not?

- Before he got out,

he used to smuggle notes to
move from the men's prison.

He worked in the kitchens.

It's where they make our food.

- [Ngaire] What did he say to you?

- He wants me to take all the blame.

He reckons the courts will go easy on me.

Give me a shorter sentence

'cause I'm a young white
girl with no record.

Says he loves me and he'll
come and see me in prison.

- No, he's just using you.

You can't listen to that.

- If I'm out on bail, he
can try and get to me,

control me even more.

- Not if you came home with me.

- The news and TV reporters,
they'd never leave us alone.

- [Ngaire] I don't care.

- I'll just get used to it.

Being out, what if I
was found guilty again?

They'd just lock me back up.

It's too hard, mom.

I can't face it.

I didn't want to put any
more stress on my family

and friends, you know.

I explained to everyone that I'm fine.

I'm safe here.

No one's going to pester them.

- Dramatic new developments

in the Plumley-Walker murder trial.

There's no verdict.

After 15 hours, the jury
couldn't reach a conclusion

and so the judge dismissed
the 12 men and women.

- [Reporter] Defense lawyers
were warned by the judge

not to discuss the case with the media

because there could be a new trial.

- I've got no comment to make.

And then we had, of
course, the third trial

in front of Justice Noel Anderson.

(suspenseful music)

The question was,
particularly the third trial,

how did we convey these
evidential issues to the jury?

The defense contention
was death at Auckland

and at worst manslaughter.

And the prosecution contention was

death by drowning at Taupo.

And so there laid the
seeds of a real battle

in terms of the forensic pathology.

- [Reporter] A postmortem on
Peter Plumley-Walker was done

soon after his body was
pulled from the Waikato River.

That medical evidence

was called as part of the Crown's case,

which hinges on proving
Plumley-Walker was alive

when he was thrown over the Huka Falls.

- Dr. Taylor, did you
examine the deceased's heart?

- [Dr. Taylor] Yes.

- What did you see?

- I saw the small atheroma bump

in an otherwise normal artery
for the age of the patient.

- Did you reveal that detail
in your pathology report?

- Yes, I said I considered
the atheroma to be normal.

- But now you're saying normal for age?

- Yes.

- How closed was the artery?

- To a moderate degree.

- You're aware the heart
slide has been examined

by Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes.

- Yes.

- And that he will give
evidence for the defense to say

that it was the main heart artery

and that it was 50% closed.

What do you say to that?

- In my view, the deceased
had no disease of the heart

that could have contributed to his death.

- You're not disagreeing
with Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes,

are you?

- I'm telling you my opinion.

No doubt he would tell
the court his opinion.

- When you start getting
professional people in,

like Sir Barratt-Boyes,

you know, it makes a huge difference.

- Question then was, well,
what was the mechanism

by which Plumley-Walker
had, in fact, died?

And was it strangulation,

or was it pressure on the vagus nerve

caused by the ligature
when he was strung up?

- Dr. Taylor, if a person
were to die by hanging

in unusual circumstances,

what evidence would you
require as a pathologist?

- A rope.

- Did the police tell you

that the deceased was more
upset on the day he died

than he'd ever been before?

- No.

- [Chris] Did the police tell you

that he had been rejected by his wife

after the divorce that morning?

- No.

- [Chris] Did the police tell you

that he had a nine year
matrimonial separation?

- No.

- Did the police tell you

that he did not want to
be divorced on that day?

- [Dr. Taylor] No.

- Can you describe to us how
the police first suggested

he may have died?

- In bondage.

He was tied with his feet
and arms stretched out

and a noose around the neck.

He was suspended from the ceiling.

- Did they tell you how they
suspected he was standing?

- Possibly on tiptoe.

- [Chris] Balls of his feet?

- Yes.

- Ever tried to stand on
the balls of your feet

for 20 minutes?

- No.

- If a person became tired,

or lost concentration for a
moment in a situation like that,

could the bonds on the
neck have caused vasovagal,

or compression of the neck
causing acute heart failure?

- Mr. Harder.

- Yes.

(thump)

(door opens)
(somber music)

- I insisted to Neville
that we phone the ambulance.

This man needed help, you know,
he definitely needed help.

Neville was also trying to help
with the chest compressions.

To this day,

I don't know what stopped
making that phone call.

If I could turn everything back,

by God, we would've been
on the phone straight away,

you know.

I don't understand why
I listened, you know,

and it's my fault as
well for just not doing

what I knew was the right thing to do.

Picking up the phone and
ringing the ambulance.

We were in shock.

We didn't know what to do.

(phone ringing)

And then the phone rang and it was mom

saying she was bringing
around fish and chips for tea.

I sort of agreed.

(phone ringing)
(somber music)

Mom was late.

I kept going back into the room

seeing if Peter was coming around,

but there was no sign of it.

She finally turned up about nine o'clock.

- [Ngaire] Is everything okay?

- Yes, mom.

(suspenseful music)

- [Neville] It's getting late, eh?

- According to witness A,

Plumley-Walker was alive and well

after the incident in Auckland.

So our strategy was to
demonstrate to the jury

at trial number three

that she had received a huge benefit

for cooperating with the police,

that she had made this up all along.

- You say that the accused, Chignell,

told you that Plumley-Walker
walked naked to the car?

- No, no, I never said naked.

I said he walked to the car.

- The jury has been told that
the deceased was bound up,

wrapped in a blanket
and placed in the car.

Do you understand that?

- Yes, but I distinctly
remember Renee showing me

how he walked, bent over.

- This was all in mid-February 1989

when you were under some stress in prison,

given your situation, weren't you?

- Yes.

- [Stuart] You desperately
wanted to get out, didn't you?

- Not desperately, no, I wasn't desperate.

- You knew that your boyfriend was facing

a very long term of imprisonment?

- Yes.

- So I suggest to you

that the state of mind that you were in,

you simply got it wrong from the outset,

and once you'd given your
information to the police,

you quickly realized
there was some advantage

in you maintaining your story.

What do you say to that?

- No, I never received any advantage.

- Am I right that you gave evidence

at Ms. Chignell's
depositions in June 1989?

- Yes.

- The following day you
were released on bail?

- Yes.

- You had twice before been
refused bail, is that correct?

- Yes.

- Did you know that when
you gave your evidence

that the police would not oppose
your application this time?

- No.

- So you're saying your release

the day after you gave evidence

came as a complete surprise to you?

- Yes.

- Your boyfriend was sentenced
to 13 years imprisonment

for conspiring to import in
the importation of heroin.

You were convicted and
sentenced on the same charges.

What did you get?

- Three years on both counts.

- It was about 11:30 by then.

Neville and I sat down and
talked about what we would do.

We thought we had to get rid of the body

as far away as possible.

(suspenseful music)

I guess the next thing I knew

that we were in the car driving down.

I remember a lot of crying,

a lot of just being so overwhelmed
with the whole situation,

just being so surreal that this was,

was just far too much going
on to really take on board

the enormity of the situation.

- After you told Ms. Chignell
there were differences

between her statement and
Mr. Dewar's job sheet,

did she make any amendments
to her statement?

- She added one thing.

She said, "I tell all my
customers when they arrive

that if I tie the knots
too tight or hit too hard,

all they have to do is say,
"Mercy, Mistress, mercy."

- So you're saying that
she told the deceased

that if things were too
tight, all he had to say was

"Mercy, Mistress, mercy,"

and something would be done about it?

- That's what she said,
so I feel he recorded it.

- In your evidence you
suggested that Plumley-Walker

was happy and out celebrating his divorce.

- That's correct.

- [Chris] Did you put
that up as a red herring?

- No.

- Where did you get the
information he was out celebrating?

- At a briefing when I
first joined the inquiry.

- Who gave you that information?

- Detective Senior Sergeant Dewar.

- Have you ever suggested
to Inspector Cooper,

the officer in charge of the case

that other information you had obtained

might be used as a red herring
to suggest drowning at Taupo?

- Definitely not.

- May I approach the witness, Sir?

This is a letter to Inspector Cooper.

Do you recognize the signature?

- It's my signature.

- Do you see the line
with red herring in it?

- I do.

- [Chris] Read it.

- Objection, Your Honor.

The question is not fair to the witness.

The whole document should be read.

- Yes, agreed, the whole document.

- Read the whole letter.

- Ron, I enclose a
statement I took off a woman

in relation to the above homicide.

In view of recent publicity,

she has decided to come forward

with this gem of information.

Does not sound as though
it has any relevance.

At brightest, we may be able to use it

as a red herring at any subsequent
retrial as a possibility

it may have been Plumley-Walker
screaming for help

from the river, some eight
hours after he was tossed over.

Regards, Les.

- My understanding of a
red herring, detective,

is that perhaps you'd like to
indicate if it's yours also,

something lays a false trail and misleads.

- I would call it more
of a diversion, Sir, yes.

- I'm just trying to understand

why you would want to suggest

that a court should be
diverted or misled in a retrial

by a red herring?

Can you assist us with this?

- It was a bit of a snide comment.

One I obviously regret now.

- Now, facetious aside.

- Most definitely, Sir.

- You know, police were
pillars of society, you know.

What they said went.

No one ever questioned what the police did

because, you know, their word was law.

You never questioned their
behavior or their morals.

And that was a mistake

as we have discovered over the years,

and you only need to ask

Louise Nicholas about
that really to, you know.

- After Ms. Chignell's comment,

well, in that case, it's murder.

I continued to question her and she said,

"She lifted the deceased up

until his feet were almost
hanging off the ground."

She said that she knew what was happening,

and she left the bloody
bastard hanging there.

Now at this point, I cautioned her

and then I asked her to
continue if she wished.

- Did she tell you anything else?

- She said she went
and had a cup of coffee

in another part of the house.

And when she came back into the B&D room,

Plumley-Walker had turned blue.

And she thought, you stupid bastard.

She thought he looked funny hanging there,

and Neville wanted to go and
get a camera and photograph.

- Well, we had to try and
show that he was a liar

and to use the old vernacular
that he had verbaled her.

When I'm approaching a cross-examination,

I go through in my mind a process

which I call closing the gates.

It's not an original phrase.

So you anticipate what the
witness is going to say

and ask all the questions
that might enable

a particular witness to
avoid a direct answer.

And you do that without giving away

what the crucial question is.

And once you've decided
to close the gates,

you then ask the crucial question.

- When Ms. Chignell saw
your job sheet notes

for the first time, she took
issue with it, didn't she?

- Yes, she refused to sign in
that case, its murder remark.

- And was Mr. Payn present
when she made these remarks?

- Yes.

- So what prevented him
from writing it in his book

at the time?

- Well, I didn't ask him to,

and I didn't personally take notes.

See, I find that that
impedes free discussion.

- You have said that Ms. Chignell

was apparently cooperative
and willing to talk to you.

- Yes.

- And Mr. Payn had made jottings
of less important matters

with previous discussions with her.

You were aware of that?

- Yes.

- So I suggest to you there
was no reason that Mr. Payn

could not have taken note of
such an important statement.

- No.

- I further put to you

that for you to create
your job sheet accurately

without notes an hour after
the interview concluded

is a remarkable feat in memory.

What do you say to that?

- Yes.

- So do you accept there are
certain parts of your memory

that might be in error?

- There'd be parts, yes,
but it's only minor parts.

- The adrenaline runs when
you're cross-examining,

and, yes, it is an enjoyable process.

- Detective Senior Sergeant Dewar,

you were determined to win
this trial from the start,

weren't you?

- No, no.

We're talking about a
homicide investigation,

not someone taking the milk money.

- Come hell or high water.

- Yeah, man, that's absurd.

You get paid for results,
Mr. Harder, I don't.

Your future and reputation
probably suggests that you should

when, see, it makes no difference to me.

- Counsel is suggesting
that you or the police

have become emotionally committed

to securing a conviction in this trial,

which has led to over-zealousness,
misrepresentation,

and wishful thinking.

- I had no interest in the
outcome of this trial personally.

- How many homicide
cases have you overseen

in the past two years?

- Four.

- And what were the verdicts?

- On the murder counts of
all four it was not guilty.

- Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

- It was like all the baggage had gone.

All the planted evidence had
been disposed of, had gone.

- The former wife of cricket
umpire, Peter Plumley-Walker,

has revealed her husband's long
history of sexual deviance.

- [Reporter] The witness
didn't come forward

at the first trial,

but decided she had
something to offer this time.

(suspenseful music)

- You were previously married
to Peter Plumley-Walker.

- Yes, in 1958.

We separated in 1980.

- What was his reaction to the separation?

- He was very upset.

For the next nine years,

he tried everything to keep
us together as a family.

His mail kept coming to our home

right up 'til the day he died.

- The last time you saw
Peter alive was when?

- Straight after our divorce.

We came out of the court together.

He asked me if I wanted
to go for a coffee,

but I'd said I couldn't.

I had a friend waiting for me.

- [Chris] What was
Peter's reaction to this

from your observations?

- He was very distressed.

The most upset I've ever
seen him in my life.

He had tears in his eyes,

and was holding himself very tightly.

- [Chris] Did you have
concerns about how Peter

might react to the divorce
when it finally happened?

- Yes, I was very concerned.

- Were you told at some
stage by the police

that they thought Peter
might have died in bondage?

- Yes.

- [Chris] What was your reaction?

- I felt awful because of the divorce

and because he was just so upset.

I feel that's what I thought
that he might have just

given in in bondage.

I don't know.

- Thank you.

(somber music)

(flames roaring)

- [Neville] Come on.

(door closes)

(Renee sobbing)

- [Neville] Fuck off.

(suspenseful music)

- I could read when the
jurors came back in,

it was a totally different courtroom.

The environment, it was
charged in a different way.

(suspenseful music)

- In relation to the accused,
Neville George Walker,

how do you find him, guilty or not guilty?

- [Juror] Not guilty.

- And in relation to the accused,

Renee Melanie Chignell, guilty
or not guilty of murder?

- Not guilty.

(indistinct murmuring)

(Renee sobbing)

Oh.

Oh, when they read out the not guilty,

just being so thankful, so thankful.

- You are both free to go. (bangs gavel)

(soft music)

(indistinct chattering)

- It was wonderful.

It was just a great, just
being washed over me,

it was just that life could
start again, you know.

(melodramatic music)

(music continues)

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(music continues)

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(music fades)

(bright music)