Australian senator gets it right: Psychiatric expert witness who defended murderer is "gun for hire"

May 11, 2011

The University of Melbourne should sack an academic for defending a man who threw his young daughter to her death off a bridge, Senator Julian McGauran has told parliament.

A jury in March found Arthur Freeman guilty of murder.

He has since been given a life sentence for killing four-year-old Darcey in January 2009.

Peak-hour motorists watched in horror as the girl plunged 58 metres to her death from Melbourne's West Gate Bridge on what was meant to be her first day of school.

Senator McGauran argues evidence from psychiatrist Graham Burrows almost convinced a jury to find Freeman not guilty.

Professor Graham Burrows, a psychiatrist with four decades' experience who holds an Order of Australia medal, was the only one of four experts to find Freeman had a mental illness.

The Victorian Liberal senator accused the academic of providing concocted evidence to the courtroom and called on University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis to have Prof Burrows sacked as a fellow with the department of psychiatry.

"I say the university ought to remove him from that position for the evidence he gave in the Freeman case," he told parliament.

"The university's reputation must surely be sullied if Professor Burrows remains in that position."

Senator McGauran said the university's vice-chancellor needed to take a stand for "common decency".

"I call upon the vice-chancellor to consider all the facts, to deliberate beyond the excuses like academic freedom or acting outside the university's jurisdiction and consider the case, its effect on family and society," he said.

The last Australian vice-chancellor to ban an academic from teaching was Macquarie University's Di Yerbury, who intervened in 2005 after veteran Associate Professor Andrew Fraser said African migration was causing crime.

Senator McGauran said defence lawyers often used Prof Burrows as a gun for hire.

"He has been described as a psychiatrist of last resort and one who will sing whatever song the defence wants," he said.

"He has been a star witness for the defence before."

Prof Burrows' high academic standing may have caused the jury in Freeman's case to take five days to reach a verdict, Senator McGauran said.

"Professor Burrows absurdly claimed Freeman as being in a state of 'serene disassociation or hypnotic state like sleepwalking'.

"Burrows actually said, and I quote: 'Freeman didn't know what he was doing."'

Comment was being sought from the University of Melbourne. 

Source: "Sack bridge murder academic, MP says," The Age, May 11, 2011.