Estelle Blackburn OAM (born 1950) is an Australian journalist who played a crucial role in the review of several controversial criminal cases in Western Australia.
Estelle Blackburn OAM (born 1950) is an Australian journalist who played a crucial role in the review of several controversial criminal cases in Western Australia.
Born in 1950 in Nedlands, Western Australia, [1] to Margaret Mercer Blackburn (1920–90) and George Everard Blackburn (1917–82), and younger sister to Dr Gregory Blackburn (born 30 May 1947), Estelle Blackburn spent her pre-school years in Northam, Western Australia.
In 1956, her father's employment as a personnel manager with AMP Limited required the family to return to Perth where she attended Floreat Primary School in 1956 and Presbyterian Ladies' College Primary School from 1957 to 1961. She then attended and completed high school at Methodist Ladies' College, Perth, from 1962 to 1967, obtaining a Western Australian Leaving Certificate with distinctions in the subjects English and Music. [2]
When unsuccessful in her initial application for a journalism cadetship with West Australian Newspapers she was offered a position with the company as a clerk in the newspaper library which she occupied for three months. In 1968, she gained a Commonwealth government scholarship to attend the University of Western Australia as a full-time student. She succeeded in entering the journalism cadetship program in 1969. [3] While working for WA Newspapers, she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree part-time with a double major in psychology and anthropology. At WA Newspapers she progressed from general news and minor features to coverage of the proceedings of the WA state parliament.
In 1974, she travelled to Europe contributing some articles to Western Australian journals as a freelance correspondent. In 1980, she returned to Perth and joined the ABC as a radio and television reporter. [3] In 1985, she was invited to apply for a position in the media office of the WA government as the media advisor to the minister for police and local government, Jeff Carr, and later Gordon Hill. In 1990, she became junior media advisor in the office of the premier of Western Australia, Carmen Lawrence, until the defeat of the Lawrence government in 1993.
John Button's brother, who met Blackburn at a dance in November 1991, claimed his older brother had been framed for a murder committed by Eric Cooke. Though skeptical Blackburn met John Button in February 1992. After hearing his testimony and reading the appeal books kept from his previous court actions, decided that his case would be an appropriate topic for a book. [4]
During the following ten years this project became a combined exercise in authorship and citizen advocacy which led to the re-opening of the cases of both Button and Darryl Beamish and the quashing of their long-standing convictions. The key discovery in the revision of the case histories was that Eric Cooke had been a multiple-method killer. His offences show a significant deviation from the pattern generally accepted as the orthodox serial killer template which holds that such killers target the same type of victim in the same way, impelled by the same underlying motive. Police at the time didn't make public Cooke's deviation from this.
Following the initial publication of Broken Lives in 1998, Blackburn became the recipient of a number of awards, the most significant being the Medal of the Order of Australia and a Walkley Award. Renewed public interest in the cases led to several appearances in the electronic media, including two on ABC Television's high-profile program, Australian Story , in 1998 'Dancing with Strangers' and 2002 'Murder He Wrote'. on 60 Minutes Australia 'Dead Man Talking' and on USA's Forensic Files 'Dueling Confessions'. This increased media profile afforded an opportunity to engage in paid public speaking and invitations to contribute to true-crime anthologies.
Blackburn assisted in preparation of the appeal cases for John Button and Darryl Beamish, and acted as media liaison for the defence team. In 2002, the conviction of John Button for manslaughter was quashed; in 2005, Darryl Beamish's wilful murder conviction was quashed.
In 2007, Blackburn's next book, The End of Innocence, was published. A partial autobiography (memoir), it revisited the topics covered in Broken Lives and told the story of the investigation which produced it. This work contained a background story of Blackburn's own experience of violence at the time of writing her first book. This attracted media attention and led to further appearances on radio and television programmes (including a return to Australian Story in November 2007 'Before You Leap').
Blackburn has received the following awards and honours:
Historical & Critical Studies
Sir Ronald Darling Wilson, was a distinguished Australian lawyer, judge and social activist serving on the High Court of Australia between 1979 and 1989 and as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission between 1990 and 1997.
The Walkley Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism, formerly Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism, is one of the prestigious Australian Walkley Awards, and "recognises the achievements of a person or group for outstanding or enduring commitment to the highest standards of journalism and is chosen by the Walkley Directors".
The Western Australia Police Force, colloquially WAPOL, provides police services throughout the state of Western Australia, an area of 2.5 million square kilometres, the world's largest non-federated area of jurisdiction, with a population of 2.66 million, of which 2.11 million reside in the Perth Metropolitan Region.
Australian Story is a national weekly current affairs and documentary style television series which is broadcast on ABC Television. It is produced specifically by the ABC News and Current Affairs Department. The program first aired on 29 May 1996, and since then it has continued to profile various Australian people, typically ones with a diverse background or notable reputation.
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Eric Edgar Cooke, nicknamed the Night Caller and later the Nedlands Monster, was an Australian serial killer who terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, from September 1958 to August 1963. Cooke committed at least 22 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths.
Andrew Mark Mallard was a British-born Australian who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Almost 12 years later, after an appeal to the High Court of Australia, his conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. However, the charges against him were dropped and Mallard was released. At the time, the Director of Public Prosecutions stated that Mallard remained the prime suspect and that if further evidence became available he could still be prosecuted. He was released from prison in 2006 after his conviction was quashed by the High Court, and paid $3.25 million compensation by the state government.
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John Button is a Western Australian man who was the victim of a significant miscarriage of justice. Button was wrongfully convicted of the manslaughter, by vehicle impact, of his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson, in 1963. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and released in 1968. The conviction was quashed in 2002.
Darryl Beamish is a Western Australian man who was wrongfully convicted of wilful murder in 1961 and sentenced to death by hanging. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was paroled in 1977. After six appeals, his conviction was finally overturned in 2005.
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Broken Lives was written by Estelle Blackburn between 1992 and 1998. The book is about the false imprisonment of two people, John Button and Darryl Beamish who were both convicted for murders that were later proved to be committed by Eric Cooke the last man hanged in Western Australia in the Fremantle Gaol.
Malarndirri Barbara McCarthy is an Australian politician and former journalist who has been a Senator for the Northern Territory since 2016. She is an Assistant Minister in the Albanese Government, and previously served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.
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The Walkley Book Award is an Australian award presented annually by the Walkley Foundation for excellence in long-form journalism and nonfiction, with subjects ranging from biography to true crime to investigative journalism and reporting.
