Leith Ratten

Case identification

Leith Ratten

Status and final outcome

Leith Ratten was sentenced to death in 1970. The death sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison. He was released in 1983. He died in January 2012.

Timeline

• 7 May 1970 — Victoria Police stationed in Echuca responded to an emergency call at a home in Mitchell Street.
• August 1970 — Trial took place in the nearby town of Shepparton, Victoria; a jury found Ratten guilty and he was sentenced to death.
• 1973 — Beverley Ratten’s body was exhumed as part of one of four appeals.
• 1974 — Ratten’s appeal to the High Court was rejected.
• 1981 — Ratten had been advised he would likely be released and was given time on release to find a job; later, he heard via radio that he would not be released.
• 1983 — Ratten was released.
• 1978 — Tom Molomby published The Web of Circumstance.
• January 2012 — Leith Ratten died.
• 3 February 2012 — A report stated Ratten died late last month in Brisbane at 73.

Background

On 7 May 1970, members of the Victoria Police stationed in Echuca responded to an emergency call at a home in Mitchell Street. They found a heavily-pregnant woman, Beverley Ratten, lying dead in the kitchen from a shotgun wound to the torso. Leith Ratten, the upset husband, was removed for questioning.

Beverley Ratten was later interred in the Cheltenham Memorial Park, Melbourne.

During interview, Ratten said he was cleaning an old rusty double-barrelled shotgun brought in from the garage when it fired, hitting his wife under the left armpit while she was in the kitchen at lunchtime. Ratten could not explain how the gun discharged or how it came to be loaded.

Subsequent investigations revealed that Ratten was having an affair with Jennifer Kemp, the wife of a family friend, and had spoken to her on the morning of the shooting. Ratten had also applied for a twelve-month posting to a base in Antarctica.

The offence

Beverley Ratten was shot in the torso while she was in the kitchen at lunchtime.

Investigation

Victoria Police responded to an emergency call at the Mitchell Street home in Echuca and found Beverley Ratten dead from a shotgun wound to the torso.

After the case, further examination of the unfired cartridge was undertaken.

Arrest

Leith Ratten was removed for questioning after police found Beverley Ratten dead.

Trial

Ratten was committed to trial for murder. The hearing took place in August 1970 in the nearby town of Shepparton, Victoria.

Ratten’s defence counsel asserted that the shooting was accidental and that evidence against him was circumstantial.

The jury found Ratten guilty. He was sentenced to death.

Sentencing

Ratten was sentenced to death by a Supreme Court jury in Shepparton in 1970.

The death sentence was later commuted to 25 years’ prison.

Appeals

Following the case, Ratten’s lawyers undertook four separate appeals on various grounds. One involved the exhumation of Beverley Ratten’s body in 1973. All four appeals were dismissed.

Ratten also sought leave to appeal to the High Court in 1974, and the appeal was rejected.

The High Court judgment stated:

"There was ample motive for the pressure on that trigger to have been deliberate,"
"The applicant was infatuated with another woman to the point that he had agreed on her pressing suggestion to leave his wife and children and set up house with her."

The case was widely discussed among the legal fraternity while Ratten’s cause was taken up by many notable lawyers and politicians, including Don Chipp.

Aftermath

Ratten served his sentence and was described as a model prisoner. He was released in 1983 and worked as a surveyor in Queensland.

In 1981, he had been advised he would likely be released and was given time on release to find a job, which he did. He then heard via the radio that he would not be released, and it was stated that politicians making the decision had allegedly been pressured by the police force. He was released soon after.

Media coverage included a program on Ratten in ABC TV’s “Beyond Reasonable Doubt” series in the late 1970s. The program was researched and scripted by Tom Molomby, who later organised a campaign lobbying politicians on Ratten’s behalf.

A Sunday Observer beat up was severely criticised by the Press Council of Australia.

Tom Molomby wrote a book in 1978 titled The Web of Circumstance, subtitled “The Web of Circumstance: how an innocent man was found guilty of murder,” arguing that Ratten was innocent.

Professor Colin Howard of Melbourne University wrote:

"After reading his scrupulous and impartial account I share the author's belief that there can be no doubt left that Ratten did not murder his wife".

Don Chipp said that in 1971 Henry Winneke had told him the convicted murderer Leith Ratten was innocent. In 1981, when Ratten had yet to be released, Chipp said Winneke denied the conversation had taken place.

A member of the Supreme Court at the time of Ratten’s trial told Tom Molomby that Winneke had wanted to remove the jury from the trial. Such a move would require a belief that the evidence would not support a guilty verdict.

A report on Ratten’s death stated that he continued claiming to be innocent of the murder of his wife. His brother, Gream, 84, said Ratten should never have been jailed and claimed Beverley Ratten was killed when Ratten’s shotgun accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it.

The report also stated that Ratten died late in Brisbane at 73. It stated that he ran the prison radio station 3NP in Pentridge and appeared in The Herald in 1981 with entertainer Ernie Sigley.

In 1988, Ratten’s daughter, Wendy, 22, collapsed and died at her office desk as a result of blood clots on her lungs.

The report stated that Greame Ratten said Ratten had found love again after moving to Queensland and was survived by his partner, Sandi.

Other details

Beverley Ratten was described as pregnant and eight months pregnant with the couple’s fourth child at the time she was shot.