Medich’s former right-hand man,Fortunato “Lucky” Gattellari,had told the jury that Medich was “the big boss” who ordered and paid for the murder,which was carried out in Mr McGurk’s driveway at Cremorne amid a series of legal stoushes between McGurk and Medich.
Court of Appeal justice Cliff Hoeben said on Thursday that it was a two-to-one decision to reject Medich’s appeal.
In his dissenting judgment,Justice Peter Hamill said he agreed with Chief Justice Tom Bathurst that it was not unreasonable for the jury to have reached guilty verdicts for the murder of McGurk and the later intimidation of Mrs McGurk. He said that while the evidence of Gattellari “was riddled with problems” and was “dubious and unimpressive” it was not the only evidence capable of implicating Medich in the murder of McGurk.
Justice Hamill found that a “combination of errors” impacted the fairness of Medich’s trial and resulted in a “substantial miscarriage of justice.”
In his dissenting judgment,Justice Hamill said that “in spite of the weaknesses in Gattellari’s evidence” the case against Medich was a strong one and therefore he should not be acquitted but instead be granted a re-trial.
Chief Justice Bathurst agreed that certain evidence of Gattellari’s sidekick Senad Kaminic was inadmissible. “However,I do not think that that amounted to a substantial miscarriage of justice,” he said. In their majority decision,judges Bathurst and Hoeben rejected Medich’s bid to have his conviction quashed.
Medich’s barrister Bret Walker,SC,had argued that the jury returned an unreasonable verdict on both counts after Gattellari “gave contradictory and wholly inadequate evidence on what are contended to be critical facts”.