Isla Bell: Judge reveals new details into police investigation

New details have been revealed in court, shedding light on why a murder charge against the man last seen with Brunswick teenager Isla Bell was dropped. The details came out during a judgement regarding whether Marat Ganiev would still have to face the remaining lesser charge — attempting to pervert the course of justice — relating to his actions after Ms Bell's death. Kristian Silva returns to the pod to break down the judgement with Stephen Stockwell. For more background, listen to our previous episode explaining Marat https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-case-of/isla-bell-court-hears-bid-to-throw-out-case/106919268Ganiev's bid to throw out case. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-case-of/isla-bell-court-hears-bid-to-throw-out-case/106919268 If you have any questions you'd like Kristian and Stocky to answer in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:46Stephen Stockwell?

  For months, we've wondered why charges against the man once accused of murdering Isla Bell have been dropped. And after hearing last week, we finally know. I'm Stephen Stockwell, this is the case of Isla Bell.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Victoria Police have charged two men in relation to the suspicious disappearance of a missing Melbourne teenager.

• 1:04Speaker 05

  Isla, then 19, was last seen leaving her home in Brunswick. Six weeks later, a grim discovery with Miss Bell's remains found at a Dandenong tip. A 53-year-old man has been charged with murder and a 57-year-old man has been charged with assisting in a murder. This is a very difficult day to see the charges have been dropped.

• 1:24Speaker 06

  And the rage in me, I just, I promise, Bob, I fought hard. I fought with my every breath.

• 1:36Stephen Stockwell?

  Isla Bell died after visiting a man called Murat Ganyev in St Kilda. He was charged over her death, but those charges have since been dropped to attempting to pervert the course of justice. And then a couple of weeks ago, we brought you the extraordinary news that his defence team wanted a permanent stay on all proceedings, that Murat Ganyev shouldn't face any charges against him because of how the prosecution has handled the case. Now we have a decision on that bid and so many more details about how the prosecution has handled this case, why they have downgraded these charges. And in the room, as all these details came to light, was the ABC's court reporter and very familiar voice on the pod, Christian Silver. Welcome back to the pod.

• 2:16Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me, Stocky.

• 2:18Stephen Stockwell?

  This is one of those cases that's been around the court precinct for and, you know, we've been following on the pod. The latest news was that the defence said that Murat Ganyev shouldn't be tried for his actions following Isla's death. What were the arguments made when that argument was being brought forward?

• 2:34Speaker 05

  The defence was saying that the way the prosecution had run the case was very unfair towards Ganyev because they'd chopped and changed the accusations against him constantly. And, and they said that was the abuse of process. At this stage of the case, they weren't actually taking aim at the specific current allegations, it was more the way things were done.

• 2:57Stephen Stockwell?

  Right.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  And so they went to Justice James Elliott, calling for a permanent stay, saying this has gone on for too long, it's time to get rid of this case because it's been, as they describe it, so unfair. The prosecution said, no, this is a perfectly fine way to go about things. We always reassess cases as, as they progress. And that sometimes means that charges do change.

• 3:26Stephen Stockwell?

  Right, okay. We have a lot more detail on these arguments in the last episode we did, and we'll pop a link to that in the show notes of this episode, so you can go back and have a listen to that. Christian, we were expecting to wait a little while before we actually had an answer on this. The judge actually made a decision last week, though. Where did he land?

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, it did come in quickly. I think we thought it would be a few months. So where he landed was he sided with the prosecution. And to sum it up, Justice Elliott said that the prosecution wasn't being unfair to Murat Ganyev. And the reason that was is the charges that related to Isla Bell's death initially, the murder, the manslaughter charges, they were obviously about the events that led up to Isla Bell's death and what apparently caused it. The current charges, which are attempting to pervert the course of justice, are all about what happened after the death.

• 4:24Speaker 05

  So any sort of arguments about like double jeopardy and charging him with different offences over the same actions, the judge has said that wasn't the case. These are charges that relate to separate sets of actions. Of course, they're all part of the one bigger timeline. What the prosecution has done is carved out a period of time that they have linked with this attempting to pervert the course of justice charge, if that makes sense.

• 4:53Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, okay, got it. I want to talk a bit more about that timeline and kind of what's unfolded as the prosecution's been making this decision. But we did think this would take some time, you know? Judge Elliott was in the middle of another trial, he was then going on holiday. You know, we were thinking this would probably be a couple of months before we actually got this decision. I mean, does the fact that this has come back so quickly mean that this is actually probably a pretty doomed application?

• 5:16Speaker 05

  Stocky, often quick decisions can mean bad news for the applicants in cases. And in this particular example, Ganyev was the applicant because he was trying to have the case thrown out. Sometimes also, it could mean the judge just had a bit more spare time in their schedule than what they had anticipated. So I think that may have been what happened here.

• 5:36Stephen Stockwell?

  Right, okay. And really what Justice Elliott has landed on here is that, you know, while the defence was saying in this application that, you know, the way the prosecution has handled this is out of line and shouldn't have been managed that way, he's basically found, well, actually, the prosecution's job is actually to review this, to change these things. And this is all very much within the matter of process.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  That's correct. And one of the key findings that Justice Elliott made was that even if the defence had knocked out the manslaughter charges, if this case had gone to a trial, that would not stop the prosecution from pursuing other charges. And that's because those other charges relate to different conduct. Because the manslaughter is all about the death and the attempting to pervert the course of justice is all about the alleged cover up. So what he said was, you know, a potential acquittal on manslaughter doesn't provide immunity for other possible crimes. And it's for that reason that he said the prosecution case could continue.

• 6:40Stephen Stockwell?

  Right. And just to clarify as well, a permanent stay, you know, getting something like that for charges like the ones that Murat Ganyev is facing, that is an incredibly high bar, isn't it?

• 6:51Speaker 05

  It's a very high bar, it rarely, rarely happens.

• 6:53Stephen Stockwell?

  Okay, yeah. Now, Christian, throughout these proceedings, Murat Ganyev has had a translator as part of this to help kind of break down any of the language barriers that may exist between him and the, the language being used in court. And this language can be quite dense, you know, it's often a little bit hard to follow.

• 7:09Speaker 05

  Even in English.

• 7:10Stephen Stockwell?

  Even in English. And I found it bizarre that halfway through this proceeding, the translator just quit and left.

• 7:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was pretty farcical scenes. I mean, when you consider what's at stake here, what this case is about, the death of a, a young woman, well, apparently it's not about the death of a young woman anymore, but we know that is the broader context of what's happened.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  You've got this judge reading out this complex legal decision about whether the case continues or not. And then midway through, the translator, who is on a link, just vanishes off the link. The, the judgment is paused for a moment. Everyone thinks it's just a matter of, you know, firing the link back up and getting this guy back online. And then he says, oh, sorry, I'm not qualified to interpret at this level. I only sort of do a couple of lines here or there, not qualified to interpret on the fly. So in the end, he bails out of the hearing and Ganyev's defence team, they decide not to hold the case up.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  They say, look, just proceed and we will, we'll relay the decision to him, which was probably the right thing to do, given Isla Bell's family was there, the court had been convened. But yeah, pretty farcical scenes in a case of such high stakes.

• 8:34Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, it's a really bizarre scene, especially to happen in the, you know, Victorian Supreme Court, no less. Now, Christian, throughout this series, we have been wondering why the charges against Murat Ganyev were downgraded in the way they were. You know, they started at murder, a charge with the murder of Isla Bell, then it was downgraded to the manslaughter of Isla Bell. And now we're just sitting at attempting to pervert the course of justice. You know, the defence in this application was saying something funny was going on in that process. But what did we learn at this judgment about the reason for this downgrade over those different points?

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Justice Elliott's decision very helpfully provided some answers to these questions that a lot of us have been wondering for a long time. And, and what he said was after the committal, so after a magistrate sent this case up to the Supreme Court on a murder charge, police conducted further investigations. They found that Murat Ganyev had been prescribed methadone for a number of years. And the prosecution then changed the charge to manslaughter and the cause of death was changed from an assault that allegedly happened in the apartment to supplying Isla Bell with methadone.

• 9:48Speaker 05

  So it's a very different cause of death. And Justice Elliott sort of stepped through some of the timeline. He said around the time that Isla Bell was at Ganyev's apartment, Ganyev has made a trip to the pharmacy, he has collected some of his methadone prescription and taken these drugs home. While at the house, Isla Bell is said to have taken a photo of what the prosecution described as an almost empty bottle of methadone on a table. She sent this photo to a friend. Now, later, it has emerged that Isla Bell did have methadone in her system as well

• 10:33Speaker 05

  as several other drugs. So you can understand now how this prosecution case has changed. We also mentioned in a previous episode that the prosecution was relying on the CCTV footage, which showed apparently an assault of Isla Bell. The defence had been very critical of this footage, saying that it didn't stack up. And I think the fact that the charge has changed and the alleged cause of death has changed highlights that they are no longer relying on that footage to link that to the death.

• 11:08Stephen Stockwell?

  Right. And there was a change of prosecutor around this time as well, wasn't there?

• 11:12Speaker 05

  There was. So the prosecutor at the committal has changed while the case has gone to the Supreme Court. And obviously.

• 11:22Speaker 05

  Also with this new information from police, the prosecution has reviewed the case and has now come to a different conclusion about how Isla Belle died. We also know that they then dropped that manslaughter case after the defence raised concerns with it.

• 11:40Stephen Stockwell?

  What did the court also hear about Murat Ganyev's interview with the police?

• 11:45Speaker 05

  Previously, we'd heard that Ganyev had lied to police about what happened in the apartment, but Justice Elliott gave some new details. He said that Ganyev ultimately admitted that Isla Belle had died in the apartment. He told police that he had nothing to do with the death and he said initially that he thought she was asleep. He kept quiet because he didn't want to wake her up. And then eventually, according to his interview, he's come to the realisation that she is in fact dead and he said that he held her in his hands and cried and then panicked. And that's when he has put her body into his fridge.

• 12:29Speaker 05

  And afterwards, this fridge has been moved around Melbourne allegedly before Isla Belle's remains ended up at the tip. And after police found her remains, the charges were laid.

• 12:42Stephen Stockwell?

  And how does all of this information come to light? Has the prosecution just handed this to the judge so he can make this decision?

• 12:50Speaker 05

  This information would be in the prosecution and defence submissions. This is normally material that we either can't report on at this stage or it's material that comes out at the trial. But because of the fact that this permanent stay application has happened, we've been given a bit of an insight into what the legal arguments were going to be.

• 13:13Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, okay. I was wondering, you know, kind of how we're able to get into this much detail around what's unfolded, but obviously, as you explained, Christian, Murat Ganyev no longer facing any charges relating to Isla Belle's death, not the murder charge that was downgraded to manslaughter or all that charge either. Now it is attempting to pervert the course of justice. Christian, what did Justice Elliott have to say about that attempting to pervert the course of justice charge, what it relates to?

• 13:37Speaker 05

  What he said was, he said, the acts relied upon for the attempting to pervert the course of justice charge all allegedly occurred after Isla Belle had died. So some of those acts include allegedly concealing her remains after she died, putting her remains in a fridge, moving her body from the apartment and then transporting it to addresses around Melbourne's south east suburbs. The prosecution also say Ganyev told lies to the police and that's another element that they're including in this attempting to pervert the course of justice charge.

• 14:18Stephen Stockwell?

  Okay, got it. And kind of what happens now, does this, does this go to a trial?

• 14:24Speaker 05

  It will. The only thing that would stop it from going to a trial is if Ganyev chooses to plead guilty at an earlier stage. But now we're back into the process of, we need to set some timetables for various material to be provided by both legal teams. And then the judge has got to set a date for the trial and try and book that in and fit in with everyone's schedules.

• 14:47Stephen Stockwell?

  When you're looking at attempting to pervert the course of justice as a sentence, you know, the maximum penalty for that, that charge is 25 years. Is Murat Ganyev, you know, likely to face the maximum penalty in something like this?

• 15:02Speaker 05

  You never want to predict what's going to happen in a case. Of course, we don't even know if he's going to be found guilty or not. But what we do know is that the stats from recent years, I think the periods 2019 to 2024 in Victoria, they show that people found guilty of this offence don't tend to get jailed for more than three or four years. So the maximum penalty might be 25 years, but no one has got anywhere close to that in recent times.

• 15:33Stephen Stockwell?

  Yep. People that have listened to the case of the Crok Rangler would recall that Matt Wright in the Northern Territory, when charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice, was found guilty of two of those counts and spent five months in prison in the Northern Territory for one charge and the other charge was fined, I think, $5,000.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  And with manslaughter, the maximum penalty is actually the same, 25 years. But what we've seen in recent times is that the sentences tend to be more than what we see for attempting to pervert the course of justice. We're talking, you know, more like eight to 10 years is a more of a standard range for that charge.

• 16:10Stephen Stockwell?

  All right. Yeah, thank you. Murat Ganyev has been imprisoned for a little while already, though. He's been in custody since he was charged in late 2024. Does that mean he may not spend much time in prison if he is found guilty of these, these charges?

• 16:26Speaker 05

  Of course, it depends if he's found guilty and if so, what the sentence is. But the courts do take into account time already served in custody. So he's been on remand since November 2024. So that's about a year and a half. So if he is found guilty and is sentenced, that will be included as part of any potential sentence.

• 16:55Stephen Stockwell?

  Christian, at the centre of this is Isla Belle, a young woman who has lost her life. We've spoken a lot about her mum, Justine Spokes, who's been a kind of constant present at the court throughout this. Was she at this hearing?

• 17:06Speaker 05

  She was. So was Isla's grandfather, David Spokes. In the past, they've been pretty vocal outside court. Last week, not so much. I think, you know, obviously the emotional impact of this case, it's, it's just weighing really heavily on them. So there wasn't too much that they had to say. But obviously for them, this, this torture drags on in a legal sense. But of course, the bigger loss that they're dealing with is the loss of Isla and that's something that's going to continue well beyond this court case, regardless of how that ends.

• 17:44Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, absolutely. Christian, thank you so much for joining us on The Case Of to break all this down.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  Thanks, Toki.

• 17:49Stephen Stockwell?

  On Thursday, I'll be back in your feed with an update on Alan Jones's pre-trial with Isabel Rowe, who's been following that in Sydney. That's ahead of his trial starting next week. So he's charged with indecent assault and sexual touching. So we're following that trial for you here on The Case Of. I'll be in Sydney for that one, in the courtroom with Isabel, following that entire case as it unfolds. And you have a bit of a preview to that, the rulings from the pre-trial, what's in, what's out as that trial gets underway. Best place to follow that is on ABC Listen, so make sure you grab that. And if you're listening on another podcast platform, please give us a follow, leave us a comment. It makes it much easier for other people to find us.

• 18:34Stephen Stockwell?

  The Case Of is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Christian Silver and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson. This episode was produced on the land of the Rundri people.