R V Carroll - Background

Background

In October 1983 Carroll was interviewed by the police in relation to the murder of Deidre, a baby whose body had been found on the roof of a toilet block in Ipswich, Queensland, in April 1973. A post-mortem at the time had determined Deidre died of strangulation. During the post-mortem bite marks and bruises were noted on the baby's legs and it was these marks which led police to charge Carroll over the murder, as odontological evidence matched the marks with Carroll's teeth. Carroll was charged with murder.

The murder trial started on 18 February 1985. The prosecution's case was that the teeth marks on Deidre's body were made by Carroll, that he had a propensity for biting small children on the legs and that his alibi was false. Carroll claimed he was at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia at the time of Deidre's death. The jury found him guilty of murder, but the conviction was quashed on appeal. The court of appeal found that the prosecution had led no evidence to disprove Carroll's claim that he was not in Ipswich at the time of the death, that the evidence relating to Carroll's propensity to bite children's legs was prejudicial and inadmissible and that a jury must have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the odontological evidence presented by the prosecution.