Killer dad's lawyers to argue new point in court (Australia)

Good grief. Will this guy EVER go away? Dad ROBERT FARQUHARSON was convicted of killing his three sons during visitation. Like most of these killer dads, he was miffed at Mom and wanted to get back at her. This case is one of many that have caused the Australian public to question the wisdom of their near mandatory joint custody laws.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/dam-dad-robert-farquharsons-lawyers-to-argue-new-point-in-court/story-e6frf7jo-1226144512413


Dam dad Robert Farquharson's lawyers to argue new point in court
September 23, 2011 12:48PM AAP

TRIPLE-CHILD killer Robert Farquharson will be allowed to argue that a jury should have had the option of convicting him of manslaughter when he makes his latest appeal bid.

Farquharson was sentenced to life in jail last year for the murders of Jai, 10, Tyler, seven, and Bailey, two, who died after Farquharson drove his car into a country Victorian dam on Father's Day 2005.

A Victorian Supreme Court jury convicted Farquharson of three counts of murder, rejecting his argument he had blacked out from a coughing fit and woken up in the dam.

Farquharson has appealed against his conviction.

On Friday, his barrister Peter Morrissey SC applied to the Victorian Court of Appeal to be permitted to argue a further point at his appeal - that the jury should have had the option of convicting him on an alternative charge of manslaughter.

Appeal justices David Ashley and David Harper allowed the application.

An appeal hearing is expected to be held later this year or early in 2012.

Farquharson was last year ordered to serve a minimum of 33 years in prison.

He was returning home from a Father's Day access visit when he drove his car off the Princes Highway and into the dam near Winchelsea in Victoria's southwest.

Farquharson was first convicted of murdering his sons in 2007 and sentenced to life without parole.

But in 2009 he won an appeal and was granted a retrial.