Australian Story: May 27

Monday’s Australian Story is “The Wronged Man” which revisits the life of Andrew Mallard, victim of one of Australia’s most notorious wrongful convictions.

After spending 12 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, injustice struck again.

When Pamela Lawrence was brutally murdered in her Perth shop in 1994 police focused their investigation around one suspect, Andrew Mallard.

He quickly became the victim of an appalling miscarriage of justice, spending 12 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.

‘I had done nothing wrong,’ Mallard told Australian Story in 2010. ‘I was innocent, and I protested my innocence from the word go.’

Mallard’s family fought to release him, enlisting then WA Shadow Attorney-General John Quigley and journalist Colleen Egan who uncovered a shocking trail of deception and police misconduct.

But even after his conviction was quashed, Mallard’s life continued to be plagued by cruel twists of fate.

‘The Greeks talk about the goddess Clotho who spins people’s fate and all I can say is that Clotho was spinning against Andrew from the word go,’ says John Quigley, the current WA Attorney-General.

In this special episode of Australian Story, we revisit the story of Andrew Mallard and talk to the friends who stood by him until his untimely death last month.

Monday, May 27 at 8pm on ABC.