Jury’s out in Premier Hotel case

By Chris Thomson | posted on September 14, 2017

THE co-owner accused of conspiring to torch Albany’s Premier Hotel will not face a jury after convincing a Supreme Court judge that recent media coverage could create an unfair trial.

Crown prosecutors allege that in May last year Graeme Roderick Cooper, now 35, engaged Scott Jon Gay to arrange for the historic hotel to be destroyed by fire so Mr Cooper could make an insurance claim.

On July 28 this year, Gay, Christopher Lyndon Paterson, Karl Hutchinson and Aaron Mark Hasson were convicted and jailed after being found guilty of setting the hotel alight.

The Weekender can reveal that, before Supreme Court Justice Joseph McGrath, Mr Cooper’s barrister Simon Watters successfully argued his client required a judge-alone trial given the extent and nature of pre-trial media coverage.

Murdoch University criminal law lecturer Lorraine Finlay has told The Weekender that Justice McGrath’s decision to dispense with a jury is “definitely the exception rather than the rule”.

“It was unusual, though perhaps not unexpected,” Mrs Finlay, a former State Prosecutor, said.

“It is interesting that the judge is McGrath, a former WA Director of Public Prosecutions, who is very well aware of these kinds of applications and the considerations that need to be taken into account.

“The decision makes clear why it would be an exceptional case.”

Before Justice McGrath on August 22, Senior State Prosecutor David Davidson submitted the risk of prejudice against Mr Cooper could be ameliorated if the trial judge were to appropriately direct the jury.

But Mr Watters argued media reports on the sentencing of Mr Cooper’s co-accused could prejudice a trial by jury. He also referred to publication on the Supreme Court website of the sentencing remarks, which on August 3 were slapped with a suppression order.

Justice McGrath considered the Supreme Court’s airing of the sentencing remarks would be insufficient to conclude Mr Cooper would not get a fair trial by jury.

But he did think a risk of injustice arose from the media’s coverage of the remarks, against the background of earlier coverage of the blaze.

“There is one feature of the media publications that is of significant concern and distinguishes it from the usual range of publicity expected with a notable criminal case,” Justice McGrath concluded in a judgment delivered on August 25.

“That is the widespread reporting, both in the printed media and on news websites, of the express findings made at the sentencing of the four co-accused.

“Those findings were findings by the sentencing judge that Mr Cooper orchestrated and carried out the plan to destroy the Premier Hotel by arson by enlisting the assistance of the four co-accused.”

On May 13 last year, Mr Cooper told police he had been violently robbed by two men who then started the fire.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges of arson, attempted fraud and lying to police, and is slated to appear for trial in Albany from January 15 to 24 next year.

The fire gutted the hotel, causing between $1.5 and $2 million damage.

Mr Cooper’s solicitor Marc Saupin declined to comment on Justice McGrath’s ruling.