Take it Higher

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK—LIA’S REPLY.

Formal Complaint – CCC Refusal to Investigate Serious Misconduct (Button v The Queen)

To:The Hon. Matthew Zilko SCParliamentary Inspector of the Corruption and Crime CommissionDate: 8 December 2025

Dear Mr Zilko,

Subject: Formal Complaint – CCC Refusal to Investigate Serious Misconduct Related to Wrongful Conviction (Button v The Queen)

I write to request that your office urgently review the conduct and decision-making of the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) of Western Australia regarding my repeated complaints of police and prosecutorial misconduct during my 1963 arrest, prosecution, and wrongful conviction for the manslaughter of Rosemary Anderson. That conviction was overturned in Button v The Queen [2002] WASCA 35.

Grounds for Complaint

1.     Conflict of Interest in Referral to WA PoliceThe CCC referred my complaints—including those alleging evidence tampering, suppression of forensic evidence, and false confession extraction—back to WA Police, the very agency responsible for the original misconduct. This undermines the integrity of any review and creates a clear conflict of interest.

2.     Failure to Investigate Serious Misconduct Despite New EvidenceI submitted material including forensic reports (e.g., the Haight Report), witness accounts, and expert opinion identifying probable evidence tampering and scene manipulation. The CCC refused to investigate these claims despite their seriousness and impact.

3.     Improper Dismissal Due to Age of EventsThe CCC declined to act based on the age of the events and the current age of the officers involved. However, the Corruption, Crime and Misconduct Act 2003 (WA) does not exclude historical misconduct, and the public interest remains high where a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

4.     Failure to Address Allegation of Improper Jury ConductNew evidence shows the trial jury was taken to the crime scene and improperly addressed by prosecution without judicial or defence presence. This grave procedural breach was not considered by the CCC, despite its potential to render the original trial unsafe.

5.     Ongoing Institutional FailureThe CCC’s refusal to act denies public accountability and perpetuates the effects of the miscarriage of justice. It frustrates closure and damages faith in integrity institutions.

Request for Action

I respectfully request that your office:

• Investigate whether the CCC’s refusal was legally and procedurally valid;

• Assess whether the CCC’s decision constituted maladministration or failure to perform statutory duties;

• Direct the CCC to properly consider the evidence and reopen the investigation;

• Consider whether broader systemic or cultural issues within CCC decision-making need to be addressed.

I will supply any additional materials required.

Yours faithfully,John Button

29 January 2026

Dear Mr Button

YOUR COMPLAINT TO MY OFFICE

I refer to your correspondence of 10 December 2025 and my response on 18 December 2025, in which I undertook to review the Corruption and Crime Commission’s decisions regarding your allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct, which you lodged with it in 2009 and 2013.

All of these allegations concerned your 1963 arrest and the trial that resulted in your conviction for the manslaughter of Ms Rosemary Anderson, a conviction that was later overturned in Button v The Queen [2002] WASCA 35. You subsequently supplied a bundle of materials relating to your trial, including a report by Mr William Haight and a copy of Ms Anderson’s death certificate. I have read this documentation, together with the Commission’s files on your complaints.

This matter is of great importance to you, and I acknowledge that among the materials you provided were letters from Dr Bernard Kessel, who was at that time your general practitioner, and from a psychiatrist, Dr Paul Skerrit. These letters, dated 21 May 2002 and 25 June 2002 respectively, clearly set out the deleterious impacts that your conviction had on your mental and physical health and on your family.

When writing to complainants, it is my practice to go through each of their allegations in detail, to the extent possible given the restraints imposed by confidentiality requirements in the Corruption, Crime and Misconduct Act 2003 (CCM Act). I will not depart from that practice in this instance. However, unfortunately I need to make it clear from the outset that I found no legal or procedural irregularities on the Commission’s part, that it has in my view discharged its statutory duties, and that I cannot see any basis to recommend that it reassess your allegations. My reasoning is set out below.

Your first complaint to the Commission was made in 2009 and included allegations that the police wrongfully arrested you in 1963 and tampered with evidence relating to the charge against you. You also alleged that following your arrest, three police officers not only harangued you and wore you down verbally over a six-hour period but that one of them also assaulted you. The Commission assessed your allegation, determined that it merited an investigation, and referred it to WA Police. You disagreed with that decision. In your view, it would have been appropriate for the Commission to investigate the matter independent of the police. I can well understand this perspective. However, the Commission’s decision was entirely within its statutory power and discretion.

The scheme of the CCM Act was never reliant upon having the Commission take on each investigation itself, as the Act establishes a mechanism by which allegations can be referred to an appropriate agency for action. Importantly, the agency must provide a report to the Commission at the conclusion of its investigation, and the Commission retains the power to scrutinise and monitor the action taken. Having reviewed the file, I am satisfied with the procedures employed by the Commission in dealing with your complaint.

Your second complaint to the Commission also raised allegations of police misconduct in connection with your trial. On that occasion, the Commission found insufficient evidence to support your allegations. Accordingly, it decided to take no further action for the reasons set out in its letter to you dated 27 June 2013. Once again, although I appreciate that the matters raised in your complaint continue to weigh heavily on you, I have formed the view that the Commission’s procedures were effective, and its decision was open to be made.

I now turn to the documents you supplied to my office, which focus in large part on your concern that the jury in your trial had been taken to the crime scene and improperly addressed by the prosecution in the absence of the judge and defence counsel. In support of this proposition, you provided a copy of a letter from Ms Irene Coleman, who identified herself as a juror in the trial. The letter expressed concern about the circumstances of your conviction and referred to an occasion ‘when all the jurors were taken to the scene of the accident’ and had ‘[a]ll the facts and evidence…presented to us there’.

You also included an excerpt from the decision in Button at [12], showing that your counsel initially sought to amend the appeal notice to include an additional ground of appeal, being that a viewing of the crime scene took place during your trial, with the jury but without your knowledge, thereby depriving you of a fair trial. However, subsequently your lawyers advised the court that the proposed amendment would not be pursued: Button at [13]. I do not know why that decision was made, although your lawyers may have determined that this particular ground had limited chances of success.

In my experience, it would be highly unusual for the defendant, or his or her lawyer, not to be present during the examination of a crime scene as part of a trial. Nevertheless, there was nothing in the materials you supplied that would suggest that the prosecution did or said anything improper during such an examination. You have also raised other concerns with the way the prosecution advanced its case at your trial, including its failure to call particular witnesses, but it is simply too late at this juncture to deal with these kinds of issues. Many of the individuals involved will now be deceased and certainly no one who was a prosecutor in 1963 will still be carrying out this role.

Moreover, whatever the flaws in the case put forward by the prosecution, your conviction was quashed in 2002 and in the eyes of the law you are an innocent man. Naturally this legal outcome cannot undo the injustice that you have suffered, and I understand from the materials you provided that you feel that you have not been sufficiently exonerated. Therefore, you seek a Coronial Inquiry into Ms Anderson’s death to replace the Coronial Inquiry of 17 February 1964 and to obtain a ruling that you were not responsible. The holding of such inquiries is not within my jurisdiction, but if I may venture an opinion, it seems to me that there would be little or no merit in a further examination of Ms Anderson’s tragic death at this juncture. This is because firstly, your 2002 appeal, in effect, found that you were not involved in her death and secondly, it is on the record that Eric Edgar Cooke confessed to running down Ms Anderson prior to his execution in 1964.

I regret that I have been unable to assist you to secure a fresh investigation of the circumstances of your arrest and your trial or to achieve a sense of closure. Nevertheless, I hope that my letter has been of some assistance in explaining my reasoning, and I wish you well in the future.

Yours sincerely,

After giving this reply to LIA—this is her reply

One-Line Legal Verdict

The Parliamentary Inspector has adopted a procedural legality stance on the CCC’s decisions but has not resolved material contradictions in the official narrative — particularly the absence of investigation into jury misconduct and police conduct. You have standing to pursue external judicial or parliamentary accountability, including further FOI actions or a parliamentary petition.

Key Legal & Procedural Issues

• CCC’s decision to refer 2009 misconduct complaints back to WA Police (the accused party)

• Refusal to act on new 2013 allegations or post-2002 forensic disclosures

• Inspector’s conclusion that CCC “acted within its statutory powers” — despite lack of substantive investigation

• No examination of whether the CCC applied its discretion lawfully and fairly

• Unexplained failure to examine improper jury conduct evidence (Coleman letter) or how the AG misrepresented an “inquiry”

Findings from the Letter:

• The Inspector confirmed that:

  • The CCC referred your case to WA Police (despite conflict of interest)

  • The CCC declined to reinvestigate your second complaint

  • Your evidence (e.g., juror letter, Haight report) was reviewed

  • No finding of legal or procedural failure by the CCC

  • He declines to recommend further investigation or referral

• However, the Inspector does not address:

  • Whether it was reasonable to accept a WA Police “self-investigation”

  • Whether it was lawful to ignore new post-exoneration forensic evidence

  • Whether the AG misrepresented that an inquiry took place

  • Whether the CCC had a duty to investigate jury tampering allegations

Jurisdictional Constraints vs Gaps in Oversight

• The Inspector claims he cannot recommend a coronial inquiry (outside jurisdiction), yet does not refer the matter to the appropriate authority.

• His conclusion is based solely on the CCC's procedural compliance, not on the merits of the misconduct claims.

• He admits the crime scene view without the defence is unusual but finds no evidence the prosecution acted improperly — despite the fact you were excluded and a juror confirms facts were presented without defence presence.

LIA then suggested sending the following letter to a parliamentary  committee

Subject: Request for Parliamentary Assistance – Oversight Failure and Ongoing Injustice Following Wrongful Conviction

Dear [MP's Name],

I am writing to seek your assistance in raising a matter of profound public interest and unresolved institutional failure concerning my wrongful conviction in 1963 for the manslaughter of Rosemary Anderson—a conviction quashed by the WA Court of Appeal in 2002 (Button v The Queen [2002] WASCA 35).

Despite my exoneration, I have encountered repeated refusals by oversight agencies, including the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC), to investigate credible evidence of historical misconduct by WA Police and prosecution officials. Most recently, the CCC and its Parliamentary Inspector refused to examine:

• Allegations of police fabrication, suppression of forensic evidence, and coercion during interrogation;

• A juror’s sworn statement revealing that the trial jury was taken to the crime scene and told what I had done—without judicial supervision or defence presence;

• A statement from the Attorney General to Malcolm McCusker suggesting that an inquiry into police conduct had occurred, despite no record of such inquiry being found.

These refusals raise serious questions about the integrity of our oversight institutions and the limits of justice after exoneration. I am now pursuing a coordinated FOI campaign and preparing a public media disclosure. However, the continued institutional silence demands parliamentary attention.

I respectfully request that you consider:

• Raising this matter via parliamentary questions or a formal petition;

• Referring the issue to the appropriate Standing Committee for review;

• Supporting a call for a second inquest or independent judicial inquiry;

• Urging the CCC and Attorney General to release all records related to the alleged inquiry.

I am available to meet at your convenience and to provide full documentation, including court records, forensic reports, juror statements, and oversight correspondence.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,John Button.

The wait continues.