Case 329: Roseanne Beckett

*** Content warnings: Domestic violence, child sexual abuse, sexual assault, animal cruelty*** In mid-1989, in the small New South Wales Town of Taree, local residents and law enforcement alike began investigating a woman named Roseanne Catt. There were allegations that Roseanne was a violent and cruel woman, intent on killing her husband: it was reported that she had thrown a rock at his head, stabbed him with a knife, poisoned his drinks, and solicited hitmen. But this investigation was just the beginning of a case that would grow even stranger the more it unravelled… --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-329-roseanne-beckett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 2:17Speaker 00

  During the late 1980s, a growing number of residents in the small New South Wales town of Tari had concerns about a woman named Roseanne Catt. In July of 1989, one man decided to do something about it. Adrian Newell had met Roseanne a couple of years earlier, when she married Adrian’s good friend Barry Cat. It was a second marriage for both parties. Roseanne and Barry had previously divorced their first spouses, and both had children from these prior relationships. Forty-two-year-old Roseanne was a well-known figure in Tari, which sits on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Although Roseanne only moved there less than a decade earlier, she became a familiar face after purchasing a delicatessen, a business that had her interacting with lots of locals. Forty-four-year-old Barry had a small business too. He was a motor mechanic with his own auto repair shop called Caddy’s Body Repairs. Barry struck up a romance with Roseanne after hiring her son, and the two were married in August of 1987. But Adrian Newell wasn’t happy that his friend had found a love again, because Adrian had never trusted Roseanne. Ever since Barry had met her, his life had been turned upside down, and it appeared to be Roseanne’s doing.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  There had been worrying rumours even before the couple was married. Family and friends of Barry reported that Roseanne complained about Barry non-stop, calling his business a mess, and describing his friends as no-hobers. Barry’s sister Mary said that one week before their wedding, Roseanne told her: “You are next of kin now, but next week, when I marry him, I will be, and I will have him committed.”

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Sure enough, the couple had been married for less than two weeks when Barry was admitted to a psychiatric facility. Things only worsened from there. Although Barry returned to the couple's home within a week, he was readmitted and released several more times in quick succession. Barry had previously been diagnosed with manic depressive disorder, now known as bipolar disorder, and it seemed to some who knew him that Roseanne was exploiting this for her own advantage. They suspected that she wanted to take control of his business and other assets. Over the next couple of years, issues escalated.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Word spread that Roseanne had attacked her husband on multiple occasions with a rock, a cricket bat, and even a knife. Roseanne sometimes complained to Adrian about Barry, saying that he was mad and that she wanted him put away. She told Adrian that she would do a much better job of running Barry's auto repair business than he was. Adrian started paying closer attention to his friend's situation in case there really was something wrong. As he subsequently noted in an official statement, Adrian saw that Barry was behaving strangely.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  He was unsteady on his feet, his speech was slow, and his thinking was confused. No matter how much sleep Barry had, he always looked groggy and exhausted. It was as though he was drunk, yet he never smelled of alcohol. Adrian began to worry that his friend was being poisoned. "Things I observed and things I was told confirmed my suspicions that Roseanne had a plan," Adrian later stated. By late July of 1989, Adrian decided that something had to be done before his friend's life completely fell apart.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Adrian Newell didn't want to report his concerns to the local police in Taree. He later explained that this was because he didn't trust them to investigate Roseanne Cat properly. Years earlier, in 1983, Roseanne had been charged with arson after the delicatessen she owned went up in flames. This charge had later been dropped, which Adrian said was due to Roseanne putting pressure on the authorities. Roseanne then sold the business in 1986. Adrian didn't like Roseanne, and he'd seen her relationship with Barry decline rapidly.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  The truth was, their marriage had deteriorated so quickly after their wedding that law enforcement was already involved, and they appeared to be taking Roseanne's side. On Monday, May 2, 1988, just the nine months after the couple was married, there had been a violent altercation at the home of Barry's sister, Mary. Mary reported that Roseanne had shown up at her house, along with her 19-year-old son Peter, and a young man named Jack Harris, not his real name. Both Peter and Jack were apprentice mechanics at Barry's panel bedding shop. Mary and Roseanne had never gotten along.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  According to Mary, Roseanne picked a fight, accusing Mary of having incestuous sex with her brother Barry, and saying that Mary's children were illegitimate. Mary tried to close the door on her sister-in-law, prompting Roseanne to slap her across the face, grabbed the keys out of the door, and throw them into a rock garden set up in the yard nearby.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Roseanne and the two young men eventually got back in Roseanne's car and were about to leave when Barry pulled up at the property. He'd realised something must be going on after discovering both of his apprentices had left work along with Roseanne. Barry approached Roseanne as she sat in the driver's seat and the two began arguing. Barry turned the car's ignition off. According to Mary, Roseanne then yelled at Barry and hit him with the back of her hand. Barry struck Roseanne back, then stormed off. Jumping out of the car, Roseanne followed and started pummeling him in the back with her hands.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  Barry hit back and told Roseanne, "Wake up to yourself."

• 9:29Speaker 00

  According to Mary, Roseanne then urged Peter and Jack to step in, pushing Barry to the ground where he knelt on all fours.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  At this point, Mary said that Roseanne picked up a large five kilogram rock from the rock garden and hurled it at Barry while shouting, "I'll fucking kill you, you cunt." Barry later testified that a neighbour drove him to the hospital after this altercation and he'd needed four stitches for a wound in his head.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Roseanne immediately reported Barry for assault and filed an apprehended violence order, or AVO, against him. This was granted, forcing Barry to move into the offices of Caddy's Body Repairs, which was just across the street from his home where Roseanne was staying with his children.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  The couple hadn't lived together since, but that had only been the start of their legal issues.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  Tari was a small town and their lives were still intertwined even if they were living apart.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  Ten months later, in March 1989, a general practitioner named Dr. Goddard went to Caddy's Body Repairs to have a car looked at. While he was there, Barry Cat showed him a wound that he'd sustained to the left side of his torso. According to Barry, he and Roseanne had been having a picnic a few days earlier at a scenic spot called Swan's Crossing, located in the Kerewong State Forest, about an hour's drive from Tari. Barry and Roseanne were both wearing their bathers as they chatted and drank stout on a picnic rug, but an argument soon broke out.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Roseanne, who had been slicing up lemons at the time, began angrily stabbing the knife into the picnic blanket. She then threatened to stab Barry as well, before prodding him with the knife and then driving it into his left side beneath the ribs. Barry said he was horrified as blood spurted from the wound, describing it as something you'd see in the movies. He ran away and flagged down a man who was barbecuing nearby. The man gave Barry his t-shirt to stem the bleeding, then Barry hitchhiked home. Barry didn't seek treatment at the hospital because, quote, "Roseanne would get the police

• 12:06Speaker 00

  and twist it around and I'd be back in jail again as usual. I was like a sitting duck on a restraining order." Two months after that, Roseanne called the police and reported that Barry had physically attacked his two young sons after they went to his workplace looking for stationery supplies. When she went to the children's defence, Barry threw a bottle of eucalyptus oil at her. Barry's version of events was different.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  He said that he'd been on his office phone chatting to a female friend when Roseanne had picked up the other handset in the cat residence and intercepted the call. "I don't want you talking to that slut", she said, before hanging up and turning up at Barry's office with his sons five minutes later.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Barry accused Roseanne of picking up a cricket bat that one of the boys was carrying and hitting the right side of his face while threatening to kill him. When police showed up at the scene, they saw Barry had a bleeding cut on his right eyebrow. Barry had the cut sutured at a nearby hospital, but Roseanne requested he be the one charged with assault.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  All of these allegations were starting to add up for Adrian Newell. But the most shocking moment of all was when Roseanne began accusing Barry of sexually abusing his children. Adrian later reported to police that in early 1988, Roseanne told him that Barry had been raping his children for years. "I don't believe it", Adrian had replied. "I don't believe it could be true, but I certainly would not support him if it turns out that it is."

• 14:00Speaker 00

  It was at that point that he started paying closer attention to Roseanne and Barry's relationship, trying to understand what was really going on. Nothing Adrian saw made him think that Barry was the problem. In fact, he suspected Barry was the victim, that everything Roseanne had said and done was part of a bigger scheme she'd set in motion to gain access to all of his financial assets.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  As Adrian later said in an official statement,

• 14:34Speaker 00

  "In a very short period after marrying Barry, Roseanne set about to absolutely and systematically discredit him. She had him committed to institutions where his family and friends were responsible for his release. She has continually discredited him verbally, saying to any person who went near the place, 'He's mad, he's unreliable, he's a child molester, he's a drug addict.' I know that hundreds, and I say hundreds, of people can corroborate this."

• 15:08Speaker 00

  Despite being confident in his assertions, Adrian didn't want to report his concerns to the Taree police, as Roseanne had repeatedly boasted about the influence she had over them. He had an alternative plan in mind.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  On Tuesday, July 25, 1989, Adrian Newell made the three-and-a-half-hour drive south to the New South Wales capital of Sydney. There, he visited the headquarters of ICAC, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is responsible for investigating corruption in New South Wales' public sector. Adrian spoke with an ICAC employee and lodged an official complaint about Roseanne Catt. He said that Roseanne had put pressure on the Attorney General to drop the arson charge against her after her delicatessen had burnt down. According to Adrian, Roseanne knew the then Attorney General and had some influence over him.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Adrian claimed that not only had Roseanne been responsible for that fire, but she'd lit other fires as well.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  He also alleged that police in Taree had exhibited favouritism towards Roseanne, and that she was involved with drugs and had violently attacked her husband with a rock. Adrian was particularly concerned about this because he thought that Roseanne owned a rifle as well as an unlicensed pistol that she kept in her handbag. What if her violence escalated and the next time, she shot her husband?

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Adrian also paid a visit to police headquarters in Sydney, requesting that an independent detective investigate the case.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  His efforts paid off. A detective by the name of Peter Thomas soon took interest in the case. Detective Thomas lived two hours away from Tari in the harbour city of Newcastle and worked for the regional crime squad where he was responsible for arson investigations. On Saturday, July 29, Detective Thomas drove to Tari to meet with Adrian Newell. In addition to the information he'd passed on to ICAC, Adrian also told the detective about how Barry had been behaving as though he was drugged.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Adrian had also happened to notice some strange sediment in the bottom of a beverage bottle in Barry's fridge. He suspected that Roseanne was poisoning Barry by spiking his drinks.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  Adrian had spoken to Barry's psychiatrist, Dr Ray Sandfield, and asked whether Barry's strange behaviour could be due to an overdose of lithium, a drug prescribed to Barry to treat his bipolar disorder.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Dr Sandfield agreed that it could be. However, as lithium was a drug with a slower reaction time, Barry's rapid deterioration could also be attributed to an excess of clonazepam, a benzodiazepine medication also used to treat bipolar disorder. Barry Cat had a prescription for that as well.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Dr Sandfield gave Adrian some empty specimen containers, which he could decant beverages into for testing. On Sunday, July 30, the day after Adrian met with Detective Thomas, he paid a visit to Barry's office, where Barry was still residing. It was empty at the time, giving Adrian the opportunity to move about freely. He went to the refrigerator.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Inside were cartons of plain milk, chocolate milk and orange juice, all of which Barry was known to drink a lot of. Adrian grabbed all three and took them home with him, carefully storing them in his fridge.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  The following day Detective Thomas went to Adrian's home and observed as Adrian decanted some liquid from each of the cartons into specimen containers. Adrian then handed the cartons over to the detective who took them in as police evidence. The specimen containers were passed along to Dr Sandfield, who in turn gave them to a clinical chemist at Royal Newcastle Hospital. Dr Sandfield requested that the specimens be tested for lithium and clonazepam. One week later, the first result came back.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  The orange juice contained high concentrations of lithium. Further testing revealed high concentrations of both lithium and clonazepam in the other beverages as well. On Monday, August 7, Detective Thomas asked Barry Cat to visit Newcastle Police Station for an interview. He informed Barry that his drinks had been spiked with prescription medication, which would explain why he had been feeling so groggy and exhausted lately. It was Detective Thomas's contention that Barry's wife, Roseanne, had been poisoning him.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Barry said that he usually picked up his own prescriptions from the chemist, but sometimes Roseanne filled them instead. When she did, she kept the tablets at the family residence instead of the office where Barry had been living for over a year. If Barry ever ran out of his tablets, he asked Roseanne if she had any, and she normally did. Roseanne often asked Barry if he had his medication and would sometimes get it for him. She knew exactly where he kept it.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Barry said he'd been unaware that Adrian Newell had taken his drinks for testing. He said he'd purchased these drinks on the evening of Thursday, July 27, three days before Adrian took them away, and had drunk both the plain milk and chocolate milk on Friday, July 28, without feeling any effects. He tended to avoid his office on the weekends, as there was more chance of Roseanne being there, so he hadn't touched the drinks over the weekend.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  This timeline indicated that if Roseanne had done it, she must have spiked the carton sometime after Barry drank from them on Friday, July 28, and before Adrian took them away on Sunday, July 30.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Detective Thomas continued his investigation and learned of the allegations that Roseanne had hurled a heavy rock at Barry's head and threatened to kill him. There was also the stabbing allegation at Swan's Crossing, which Barry detailed to the detective, as well as the alleged attack with the cricket bat. Barry also said that Roseanne owned an unlicensed pistol. He claimed she'd shown it to him a couple of months before their wedding. Two other witnesses provided statements that Roseanne had discussed her firearm with them as well.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Allegations emerged that Roseanne had also tried to enlist others in a quest to get rid of her husband.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Barry said that on Saturday, June 24, 1989, he and Roseanne had gone to the Tari Leagues Club after attending a wedding. Barry was standing at the bar when he noticed Roseanne talking to a friend of his named Tim Smith, not his real name, who owned a farm nearby.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  The pair looked curiously deep in conversation, so Barry seated himself behind them so he could eavesdrop. Barry said he overheard Roseanne offering Tim money to kill him, and alarmingly to Barry, he seemed open to the idea.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Tim said he would shoot Barry and get rid of his body if Roseanne could find a way to lure him to Tim's farm.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  Jack Harris, one of Barry's apprentices, also alleged that Roseanne had once asked him if he'd be willing to kill her husband for money. When Jack said he wasn't interested, Roseanne asked, "Do you know anyone else who will?"

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Another man, named James Morris, alleged that he'd received a similar proposition from Roseanne.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  On the night of Friday, July 28, just one day before Detective Thomas drove down to Taree to begin his investigation, James was at the local RSL club with his sister, having a few drinks.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  James was an Aboriginal liaison officer who worked with police to address issues within the local indigenous community. He'd never met Roseanne Catt before, but she approached him that night and started chatting. Both of them had drunk quite a bit, and James said Roseanne began telling him how her husband was a monster who'd sexually abused his children.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  According to James, she then asked him if he wanted to make some money. James asked, "How?" "To do a job on my husband," Roseanne replied. "A good job on my husband."

• 25:01Speaker 00

  James said she went on to offer him $10,000 to break Barry's arms and legs. If James killed Barry, she would apparently give him a bonus. James's sister stated she had been present for the entire conversation and corroborated his allegations. James didn't accept Roseanne's offer, but he bumped into her a week later, and she asked if he'd thought about it any further.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Another man named Vernon reported a similar situation. He said that he'd paid a few visits to Barry's Auto Repair Shop late in 1988 and early 1989. He'd admired Roseanne's car, which was a Corvette, and asked if he could photograph it. Soon, he was visiting Caddy's Body Repairs two or three times a week, and Roseanne started opening up to him.

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  According to Vernon, she told him how Barry had sexually abused his children, and asked if Vernon owned any guns. He did, as he was a professional kangaroo shooter. A few weeks after that, Roseanne allegedly asked Vernon if he'd do a job for her, adding: "I want you to bump him off for me, because if he's out of the road, it is all finished, and there will be no more problems."

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Vernon understood that Roseanne was talking about killing Barry. He said she offered him $20,000 to do it, but he refused.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Vernon claims that Roseanne persisted in asking, but eventually accepted that he wouldn't take her up on her offer. He said that she told him not to tell anybody what she'd asked. If he did, or if he reported her to the police, she would know about it, because she had friends within the force who would do anything for her.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Detective Peter Thomas applied for a warrant to search the cat home for firearms.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  On the morning of Thursday, August 24, 1989, Roseanne and Barry's children had just finished their breakfast, when police arrived at the front door. Roseanne was still wearing her nightie and dressing gown when she was handcuffed and seated on a stool outside of her bedroom. A female constable took Barry's children to the police station while her colleagues moved from room to room, searching the property. Various items were collected and taken into evidence, including knives and photo albums. A black handbag was reported to have been found tucked away in a drawer in the main bedroom.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  It contained two medication bottles, one was labelled Lithium and the other was labelled Revitrol, a brand name of Clonazepam. Inside the bedroom wardrobe was a 22 caliber rifle. Another officer turned her attention to the bedroom's en suite. She checked the cupboards under the sink and noticed several bottles of alcohol. She then opened a drawer of the bathroom vanity and saw a small handgun lying there. "Oh, look what I found", she called. The police had found the evidence they'd been looking for.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  Roseanne was told to get dressed and was then escorted out of the house in handcuffs. By this stage, several reporters and photographers had gathered outside and they snapped pictures of Roseanne as she was marched out and taken into custody. That afternoon, Roseanne Catt was charged with a range of offences against her husband, including assault occasioning bodily harm, malicious wounding, poisoning, and solicitation of murder. She was held in custody for several weeks before being granted bail. A committal hearing was held in May of 1990, after which Roseanne was ordered to stand

• 29:27Speaker 00

  trial. Her trial finally began in May 1991, almost two years after her arrest. Although she was initially charged with 14 offences, she was only indicted on nine of these.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  The prosecution was alleging that Roseanne Catt had planned to kill her husband so that she could assume control of his business and other assets, including seven blocks of land he owned that were valued at around $600,000. Their case primarily consisted of testimony from dozens of witnesses. Barry Cat took the stand and testified at length about his troubled marriage. He told the court how Roseanne had taken control of his auto repair shop following their marriage and paid him wages while keeping most of the income for herself. She paid her son double of what she paid Barry, even though he was still an apprentice.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  Barry told the court that Roseanne had engaged in multiple physical attacks against him, including stabbing him at their picnic, hitting him with a cricket bat, and dropping a rock on his head. His accounts were corroborated by others who said they had either witnessed or overheard aspects of them. These included a man who said he had helped Barry tend to his wound after the stabbing, a female friend who had been on the phone with Barry immediately prior to the alleged cricket bat attack, and his sister Mary and apprentice Jack Harris, who were present for the rock-throwing incident. Barry said that Roseanne had frequently threatened to kill him or have someone else do it.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Adrian Newell also gave evidence about his suspicions that Barry was being poisoned. He said he had felt the need to report his fears to the police because at the time, his friend seemed reluctant to report his wife, seemingly out of a desire to work on his marriage. Experts spoke about the spiking of Barry's drinks. A detective who had attended the search of Roseanne's home described how he'd found a black handbag in a bedroom drawer which contained bottles of the prescription medication Barry was suspected of having been drugged with.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  The detective who launched the investigation into Roseanne, Peter Thomas, served as another key witness for the prosecution.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  The men who said Roseanne had asked them to kill Barry gave evidence, as did other witnesses who'd seen or heard concerning things.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  A woman named Amanda said she'd been visiting the Cat family home when she saw Roseanne pour a glass of wine, then add two white tablets that she took from her handbag. Roseanne had apparently placed the glass on a table, then stated: "I hope it kills him."

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Another woman named Marie Whelan testified that Roseanne had told her of her plans to go to Sydney to buy a gun, and how she had subsequently shown Marie the handgun she had purchased.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  The trial came to an end after four months, with the jury deliberating for two and a half days before returning their verdict. They found Roseanne Catt guilty of eight of the nine counts against her. She was found not guilty on one count, that of soliciting Tim Smith to murder Barry Cat.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Forty-four-year-old Roseanne stood expressionless as the verdict was delivered. Barry Cat wasn't present in the courtroom to see his ex-wife convicted. It was subsequently reported that he was drinking at a pub across the road.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Roseanne was sentenced to 12 years in prison and would have to serve a minimum of 10 before she would be eligible for parole.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  This was a longer sentence than some other individuals in the state had received after being convicted of murder.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Case detective Peter Thomas spoke to the media following the verdict, noting that he would be looking into recharging Roseanne with arson after burning down her delicatessen eight years earlier. Adding: "She's the most dangerous woman I have ever met in my life."

• 34:19Speaker 00

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  Roseanne Cat was sent to Mullawer, the most violent women's prison in New South Wales. The inmates she was housed with constantly screamed, cried, and fought. Some threatened Roseanne with physical violence and even death. One repeatedly punched Roseanne in the head, knocking her unconscious. The guards weren't much better. On one occasion, a female guard sexually assaulted Roseanne while she changed uniforms.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  More than a year into Roseanne's sentence, a letter arrived for her. She recognized the handwriting on the envelope immediately. It was her ex-husband, Barry's.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  There was no note inside, just two photographs from their wedding day. The images filled Roseanne with horror and revulsion. They were a reminder of the chain of events that had led her here.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Roseanne's version was quite different to what the prosecution alleged in her criminal trial. Originally from the New South Wales south coast, Roseanne had relocated to Tari after leaving her abusive and controlling first marriage. Aged in her mid-thirties at the time, she purchased her own house to raise her two children in and bought a delicatessen with a business partner. The business did well and helped Roseanne familiarize herself with the local community. Although she had to temporarily close the delicatessen after a fire late in 1983, she soon managed to have the business up and running again.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Roseanne crossed paths with Barry Cat after her son Peter was hired to work at his auto repair shop. Although Roseanne didn't know Barry, he appeared to have been admiring her from afar as he constantly talked to Peter about what a wonderful lady she was. One day, Roseanne went to visit Barry's shop to see where Peter would be working. She noticed that the office was in terrible disarray, and Barry explained that he struggled to complete all of the paperwork. He was a single father with four children who had recently been left by his partner. Roseanne offered to help out and began sorting through all of Barry's bills and invoices free of charge.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  She even fixed up Barry's tax return.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Roseanne felt bad for Barry. His house was in as bad a state as his office, with maggots on the floor and mess everywhere. Her pity increased when Barry visited her at home one day, only to pass out on the bathroom floor. He told Roseanne that his ex-girlfriend had been poisoning him, which must have caused him to collapse.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  When Roseanne met Barry's young children, her heart went out to them too.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  All four appeared emaciated and had sores on their skin. Feeling she had to do something to help, Roseanne set about cleaning and improving Barry's home so that it was appropriate for children. She even paid for it to be renovated to include an extra bedroom with an en suite.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Roseanne also invested in Barry's business after he invited her to become a partner. As she had sold her delicatessen some time earlier and could afford a new venture, Roseanne agreed and spent about eighty thousand dollars of her own money improving the auto repair shop.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Barry's children quickly grew attached to Roseanne. They didn't appear to be close with their father. Soon, they were visiting Roseanne's home every night for meals, and she took care of their medical appointments, made sure they went to school, and taught them about hygiene.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  Roseanne caring for Barry's children led to the two of them entering a romantic relationship. She eventually moved into the cat residence, while her own son Peter, now an adult, continued living at her house. Barry could be gentle, funny, and sweet, and Roseanne found him physically attractive. He was a fan of Elvis Presley and would slick back his hair in the same style as the rock and roll legend.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  But, over time, Roseanne noticed that Barry exhibited some disturbing behaviours. He was short-tempered and often started ranting angrily about his children, calling them "fucking little bastards". Sometimes his rages would include complaints about Roseanne. When Barry was on one of these rampages, Roseanne sometimes left the house to escape, but she felt uneasy leaving the children alone with their father in that state.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  After a little while, Barry asked Roseanne to marry him. She said no, having already decided that she never wanted to marry again. But Barry continued to ask, begging her in public to be his wife. Once, he got down on his knees while they were having dinner at the pub and yelled out: "Come on, Wonder Woman, marry me!" Another time, as they drove together through town, he started beeping the car horn non-stop, shouting: "Marry me, I won't take my hand off the horn until you say yes!" Roseanne was mortified by the looks and attention that Barry's behaviour garnered. He promised to change, saying:

• 42:57Speaker 00

  "If you marry me, I'll be better, no more outbursts." Eventually, Roseanne gave in, hoping that being married might make life easier.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  Life didn't improve after they were married. According to Roseanne, Barry would disappear for long stretches of time, sometimes overnight. If Roseanne asked where he'd been, he would burst into an angry tirade. Eleven days into the marriage, Barry walked into the house as Roseanne and the children were having breakfast. Without saying anything to them, he started screaming and punching himself in the head. He soon turned his rage on his children, verbally abusing one of his sons before punching him in the mouth.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Roseanne said that another child jumped up and tried to defend his brother, which resulted in Barry punching him in the stomach. Roseanne grabbed both boys and ran to her bedroom, locking the door behind them. As Barry yelled at her to open the door, she helped the boys jump out of the window and told them to run for help.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Barry eventually kicked in the bedroom door, dragging his two daughters with him by their hair. He held them with one hand and hit them with the other. Roseanne tried to pull Barry away, but he grabbed her by the throat and threw her on the bed where he choked her. Suddenly, he stopped and ran out of the house, looking for his two sons.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Roseanne said she called for help and an ambulance arrived to take her and the girls to the hospital. Meanwhile, the two catboys who fled out the window made it to their Aunt Mary's house for help, only for Barry to find them there. He put both boys in his car, but they were intercepted by the police as they were heading out of town. Following this incident, Barry was taken to a psychiatric hospital and admitted as an involuntary patient. Roseanne discovered that her husband had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had spent several stints in psychiatric care long before the two had met.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  Despite the claims Barry and his friends later made about Roseanne trying to portray him as unstable and attempting to have him removed from the home, it actually appeared that this had been an ongoing issue for many years.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Just under a week later, Barry returned home. At first, he was calm and quiet, but five days later, he is said to have attacked his family again.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Police and paramedics attended the home, and three of them had to hold Barry down as he fought violently against them. A pattern soon emerged throughout late 1987, where Barry would be taken to hospital for a few days before being released for a brief period and then readmitted again.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  This lack of stability and Barry's aggression towards his children prompted hospital staff to make a report to the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services. Barry's children were taken into temporary foster care and provided with counselling, where terrible allegations came to light.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  In January of 1988, Roseanne was informed that during their counselling sessions, Barry's children alleged that they'd been sexually abused by their father as well as another relative. According to Roseanne, all of the counsellors who the children spoke to believed their allegations and found them credible. Roseanne had never suspected sexual abuse and was horrified by what she was told. There would be a police investigation, and Roseanne was informed that their children would be split up into different foster homes unless she was willing to foster all four of them. Roseanne agreed. In March 1988,

• 47:10Speaker 00

  proceedings began to grant Roseanne guardianship of Barry's children. By this stage, Barry was back in Tari, but spent little time at his home.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Two months later, at the beginning of May, an incident took place that would later be framed as Roseanne attempting to kill her husband. There had been a dispute between Roseanne's son Peter, his fellow apprentice Jack Harris, and Barry's nephew Robert Tisdale. Roseanne took both young men over to Barry's sister Mary's home where Robert lived, so they could sort the matter out. As soon as they arrived, Mary began shouting at Roseanne, and she realised it had been a mistake to stop by.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Roseanne and the young man got back in her car when Barry pulled up and raced over to Roseanne's car door, pulling the keys out of the ignition and punching her in the head. According to Roseanne, Peter and Jack jumped out to restrain Barry, which led to a scuffle between the three on the front lawn. Meanwhile, Roseanne claimed it was Mary who picked up a rock and threw it at her. She was able to dodge the blow, but it still knocked the glasses off her face. Mary then picked up the rock again and went to throw it at Peter and Jack. Roseanne shouted a warning, prompting Peter and Jack to jump back.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  The rock hit Barry instead, grazing his head, and he was subsequently charged with assault for hitting Roseanne during this altercation. The event was later dubbed "The Rock Incident", with Barry and Mary testifying that Roseanne had been the one to deliberately throw the rock at Barry's head, and Roseanne was charged with malicious wounding as a result.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Immediately after this incident, Roseanne obtained an apprehended violence order to prevent Barry from being in contact with her or their children. Barry subsequently moved into his office across the street. The proximity of his new home rendered the AVO effectively useless, and Roseanne said he continued to harass them all. He made abusive phone calls to them constantly and lurked across the street, shouting at any visitors who came and went. Sometimes, Roseanne and the children smelt cigarette smoke emanating from the floorboards, and when they checked under the house, they saw Barry hiding there, smoking.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Barry also resorted to cutting the property's phone line, which repeatedly had to be repaired.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Roseanne would notify the police when Barry breached his AVO, but nothing was done. He was eventually issued a $150 fine, but this didn't deter him, and he maintained his campaign of harassment.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, the investigation into the Cat children's abuse allegations was handed over to detectives from the Newcastle Police Child Mistrreatment Unit, a squad that existed during the late 1980s. On Friday, February 10, 1989, Barry Cat and another relative were each charged with 15 counts of sexual assault.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  One month later, on the weekend of Saturday, March 11, Roseanne was visiting the beachside city of Port Macquarie, about an hour's drive north from Tari, for a conference. When she returned to her motel room that night, she was shocked to find Barry asleep in her bed. He had followed her there. Roseanne fled and went back to the conference centre. When she returned a couple of hours later, Barry was gone.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  The next day, she drove to Swan's Crossing in the Karawong State Forest on her way home, where she'd planned to have a picnic. Her adult children were driving the Cat children to join her. Roseanne set up a picnic rug and was waiting for the children to arrive, when she saw Barry striding towards her. She told him to leave, but he didn't. Instead, Roseanne said he began stabbing the picnic rug with a small knife.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  In turn, Roseanne stuck out her foot as Barry walked towards her, causing him to trip over. He left shortly after, uninjured, as far as Roseanne was aware.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  It was several days later that Barry showed a wound on his abdomen to a doctor who visited his auto repair shop, claiming his wife had stabbed him during a picnic. Barry's version of this event became known as "The Swan's Crossing Incident", the second incident in which Roseanne was accused of trying to kill her husband.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  Another supposed attack took place two months later on the morning of Saturday, May 6. Roseanne had been at home with the cat children when the two boys discovered they needed stationary supplies to complete their schoolwork.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Believing their father was out, they went over the road to his office to find some. But Barry was there, and he confronted them aggressively. Roseanne heard the children scream and ran over to see what was the matter. According to Roseanne, Barry grabbed a bottle of eucalyptus oil from his desk and threw it at her, hitting her in the face. Her eyes burned from the oil. Barry's son had been hit with the oil as well.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Roseanne and the two boys fled from the building, with Barry hurling more items at them as they ran. He was subsequently arrested and held in custody for the rest of the weekend. He pleaded guilty to assault and to breaching his AVO and was ordered to pay a fine. Barry later reframed this incident in court, stating that Roseanne had been the aggressor and had struck him with a cricket bat.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Almost three months later, at the end of July, Barry Cat had a committal hearing regarding the 15 counts of sexual assault he had been charged with. After two days in court, he was committed to stand trial on Tuesday, August 1, 1989. At the same time, Adrian Newell was seeking to have Roseanne Catt investigated for attempted murder and suspected poisoning.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Rather than report his concerns to the local Tari police, Adrian made allegations that they were compromised and sought to have an outside investigator look into the case. The problem was that the investigator who was assigned was anything but an impartial outsider.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Detective Peter Thomas first joined the New South Wales Police in 1970. When he was tasked with investigating Adrian Newell's allegations in 1989, he was stationed in Newcastle, but just a few years earlier, he had been working in Tare. He already knew Adrian Newell and Barry Cat. In fact, Detective Thomas and Barry Cat were friends. Barry had come to the detective's aid after the detective caused the car accident that damaged another vehicle. Barry had repaired the damaged vehicle and helped strike a deal with its owner that would prevent Detective Thomas being held responsible for the crash.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Not only was Detective Thomas on good terms with Barry Cat, but he knew Roseanne Catt as well. They had crossed paths some years before Roseanne met Barry, in late 1983. By then, Roseanne had been running her delicatessen in downtown Tare for two years.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  At 3am on Christmas morning of that year, she received a call informing her that her business was on fire and had been severely damaged.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  Initially, it was indicated that the fire was due to an electrical fault. But Roseanne soon fell under suspicion for arson, and the detective investigating her was Peter Thomas.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  There was very little evidence to indicate that Roseanne had burnt her business down. She had actually cut back on her business's insurance policies just two months earlier. And, there was an alternative suspect. It turned out that the owner of the building where the delicatessen was located had recently been ordered by the local council to undertake renovations to comply with fire regulations. These renovations would have cost $60,000. The owner didn't take any steps to bring the building up to fire code. Instead, they took out two new insurance policies,

• 56:34Speaker 00

  one that covered the building and another for loss of rent.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  The security guard who'd first noticed the fire also reported that he'd seen something unusual while doing a patrol at 2am. The building's security light had been out, so the guard went to take a closer look. Drawing near to the building, he saw the owner was there with another person he didn't recognise. The security guard had offered to fix the broken light, but the owner refused his offer, explaining that they'd just come down to the building to pick up something they'd left behind earlier that day. This seemed strange to the security guard, given the late hour, but he left without further questions.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Half an hour later, he had been driving down Taree's main road when he saw smoke coming from the building. The security guard reported this to the police, but Detective Thomas still arrested Roseanne. According to Roseanne, Detective Thomas had behaved inappropriately towards her during the investigation, calling her persistently and repeatedly at home. He sexually harassed her by making suggestive remarks and saying that the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers duet Islands in the Stream could be our song. At one point during an interview, he made lewd remarks about Roseanne's body before

• 58:07Speaker 00

  pulling out his wallet and running his fingers across the cash inside. Roseanne took this to mean that to make the case go away, she would either have to sleep with him or pay him off. Roseanne also noticed that Detective Thomas often reeked of alcohol. Roseanne and her business partner were ultimately charged with arson and subsequently received no insurance money for the damage. However, the building's owner received a full payout.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  While on bail, Roseanne managed to repair the delicatessen and reopened it with support from family and friends. Eventually, there was a committal hearing for harassment charges. The prosecution's case fell apart when the owner gave evidence, and it emerged that they had been seen outside the building immediately before the fire started. The owner also struggled to answer questions about why they had increased their insurance immediately preceding the fire. Ultimately, the attorney general opted against indicting Roseanne, and the charges against her were dropped.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  Not long after the fire, a man named Errol Taylor paid Roseanne a visit at the delicatessen. He explained he'd also had a problematic encounter with Detective Thomas. Errol had been accused of growing and supplying cannabis after a plantation was discovered in a state forest near his home. Errol had been arrested and taken into custody, where Detective Thomas handcuffed him to a desk for sixteen hours. He also punched Errol in the face several times. Errol could smell alcohol on the detective's breath. Furious about the way he had been treated, Errol Taylor began putting together a report

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  for the New South Wales Ombudsman, an independent integrity officer responsible for investigating complaints against the government. Errol had heard of other incidents Detective Thomas had been involved in, including Roseanne's case, and invited her to join him in filing a complaint. Roseanne agreed. Roseanne's job at the delicatessen made her well-known and trusted in town, and she soon found that other locals began disclosing their own stories about Detective Thomas to her. There were reports that he had assaulted people and engaged in corrupt practices, such as paying witnesses off.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  He had also been in several car accidents when he drove police vehicles while drunk. As people in Taree learnt that Errol and Roseanne were filing official complaints, more and more joined in with concerns of their own. In the end, between twenty and thirty complaints were included in Errol Taylor's report, which led to an inquiry being held. The inquiry was ultimately inconclusive, but it did lead to Detective Peter Thomas being transferred from Taree to Newcastle.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  While he wasn't demoted, his promotion to Detective Sergeant had been delayed by two years. The fact that he'd been investigated at all would make any further promotions more difficult to come by.

• 1:01:37Speaker 00

  After Detective Thomas was relocated to Newcastle, Roseanne didn't see or hear of him for a couple of years.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  When she first married Barry Cat, she had no idea how close he was with the detective.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  After she left Barry and he was charged with abusing his children, Barry began making threats that directly referenced Detective Thomas. By early August 1989, Barry had been ordered to stand trial on the abuse charges. Roseanne retained custody of Barry's children, as well as control of Caddy's body repairs. She was made trustee of the auto repair shop and given permission to remain living at the family home with the Cat children.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  A couple of days later, Roseanne received a call from Barry, during which he stated: "You're sitting on a time bomb. Tomo and I have got it all worked out. We're gonna change the charges from me to you."

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Roseanne knew that "Tomo" was Barry's nickname for Detective Peter Thomas. Some of Roseanne's friends warned her about the connection between the two men as well. Errol Taylor, who had filed the complaint against the detective, encouraged Roseanne to leave Taree in mid-August. He had often heard Barry Cat boast about how Detective Thomas owed him a favour and would do anything he asked.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  On Thursday, August 24, just two weeks after retaining custody of the children and being made trustee of the auto repair shop, Detective Thomas turned up at Roseanne's front door armed with a search warrant and accompanied by a large group of police officers.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Roseanne Catt found herself charged with fourteen offences, including assault, malicious wounding, solicitation to murder, attempted poisoning, and possession of an unlicensed pistol. Around the same time that her husband Barry would be facing court for sexual assault, she would be going to trial for trying to kill him. Barry Cat's trial began in November 1990. Roseanne's testimony was attacked by the defence, who introduced evidence aimed to undermine her credibility, such as photographs of Roseanne at parties, and witnesses set to testify against Roseanne at her own impending trial.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  It was suggested that Roseanne had been the mastermind behind the sexual abuse allegations, hypnotising or brainwashing Barry's children into believing they had been abused as a way of commanding control over his business and other asserts. Detective Peter Thomas testified in defence of Barry, and other witnesses who had initially provided statements in support of the charges, suddenly changed their stories.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  One such witness was a woman named Marie Whelan. She had known Barry Cat for a long time and had worked as his housekeeper. In late July 1989, Marie had signed a statement confirming that she had witnessed Barry abuse his children. A few days later, she'd also obtained an AVO against Barry. But in court, more than a year later, she changed her story, saying that her signed statement was a forgery and that she'd never witnessed any abuse of the children. In a memoir Roseanne later published, she described Barry's trial as a farce.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  "We had this ridiculous situation where if the Crown won, it would destroy their upcoming case against me, in which I was supposed to be an evil manipulator. I was a Crown witness in this case, and Barry was a Crown witness in mine. Only one could win."

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  The trial lasted two weeks. In closing, the Crown Prosecutor informed the judge that they would not be encouraging the jury to convict Barry due to unsatisfactory evidence. This led to Barry Cat being found not guilty of all charges.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  Roseanne's trial began five months later. Barry was the star witness, testifying for days on the stand about how Roseanne repeatedly threatened, verbally abused, and assaulted him. He said she had told him that she planned to have him killed, despite the fact that he loved her and thought she was fabulous. Barry accused Roseanne of separating him from his children, claiming he hadn't seen them in eighteen months. Other witnesses supported Barry's claims, including several people who had previously made statements to the contrary. Jack Harris, one of Barry's apprentices, had originally supported Roseanne and her son's

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  version of the rock-throwing incident during the initial police investigation. But in court, he took Barry's side and also claimed Roseanne had asked him to kill Barry. Then, there were the charges related to attempted poisoning. Barry's friend, Adrian Newell, had said he suspected Roseanne was drugging Barry because of how strangely Barry was behaving. When Adrian took several beverages from Barry's office fridge and had them tested, it was found that they had been spiked with lithium and clonazepam. Yet, during the period when Roseanne was supposedly drugging Barry, he was having blood tests every three weeks

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  as part of his psychiatric treatment. His levels for lithium and clonazepam always came back as normal.

• 1:07:40Speaker 00

  As for the pistol found in Roseanne's home, the defence alleged that Detective Peter Thomas had planted it there as part of a conspiracy to frame Roseanne. The pistol had been dusted for fingerprints, but had none on it at all. The rifle recovered from Roseanne's wardrobe had actually belonged to Barry and one of his children had stored it there.

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  The defence argued that Roseanne was the victim of collusion between many of the prosecution witnesses and presented her version of events. Roseanne testified about Barry's fits of anger and violent rages. She provided a different perspective on all of the incidents she had been charged for, asserting that she was the victim, not Barry. All of Barry's children supported Roseanne at her trial. One of his daughters detailed how her father had always been abusive, punching his children and sometimes swerving his car at them while they walked to school.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  She also said that when she was younger, police officers had visited her family home to watch pornographic films with her father. Detective Thomas had been one of them.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  The teen went on to state that she and her siblings regularly drank the beverages stored in her father's office fridge, and they never noticed anything strange about them, nor had Roseanne ever warned them to steer clear of them. A doctor testified that orange juice or milk spiked with lithium would have tasted very bitter and unpleasant. At the end of the four-month trial, the judge advised the jury that they would need to decide whether Roseanne Cat was an evil, manipulative woman, or the victim of a monstrous conspiracy.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Seemingly convinced by the number of witnesses who had testified against Roseanne, the jury opted for the former, finding her guilty of eight of the nine charges.

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

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• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  Roseanne appealed her conviction in 1993, but lost. She stopped using her married surname and reverted to her maiden name, Roseanne Beckett. Meanwhile, Barry Cat and Detective Peter Thomas went on with their lives. In 1993, Barry applied to the state's Victims Compensation Board for damage caused by Roseanne. He was ultimately paid eighty-nine thousand dollars for his injuries, even though the evidence he'd provided was inconsistent with medical evidence.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  Barry Cat's children continued to support Roseanne in the years immediately following her conviction, and resided for some time with Roseanne's sister. Their world had been upended by Roseanne's conviction. After she was first arrested, Adrian Newell had taken custody of them. Detective Thomas refused to tell the Department of Family and Community Services where the children were staying. Social workers also reported being subject to ongoing intimidation and threats from Detective Thomas. One even gave evidence that Barry Cat had threatened to rape her.

• 1:13:33Speaker 00

  This prompted the Department of Family and Community Services to file a complaint against Detective Thomas, which led to another internal review by New South Wales Police. What the jury at Roseanne's trial hadn't known was that in the months before Thomas took the stand to testify against Roseanne, he had been under investigation for misconduct and violation of child protection orders. There had also been another allegation made against him related to a drug case. Thomas had reportedly said he would destroy evidence in exchange for thirty thousand dollars. Internal Affairs was just about to charge Thomas with a disciplinary offence

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  when he suddenly resigned in January of 1991. Once he left the police, Thomas was no longer under their jurisdiction and the investigation was dropped.

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  It had been the fourth such adverse finding into Thomas's conduct during his 21-year career, in addition to the dozens of complaints he'd been the subject of. Facing no consequences, Thomas relocated north to the neighbouring state of Queensland and entered the private sector. He became a private inquiry agent hired by insurance agencies to investigate fires they had received claims for. Investigating arson had been Thomas's specialty while employed as a police officer, even though his work there had been "chequered" at best. In addition to the 1983 fire at Roseanne's Delicatessen, which Thomas charged her for

• 1:15:14Speaker 00

  despite a total lack of evidence, there had been several other controversial investigations he was responsible for. In 1987, Thomas arrested a hotel owner for arson. This charge was later dropped due to the extremely weak circumstantial evidence. In another case from 1989, Thomas charged a couple with planting a firebomb at their restaurant. Covert recordings later revealed that Thomas had promised the wife she could walk if she helped implicate her husband, stating: "In the long run, we will shake the life out of both of you."

• 1:15:56Speaker 00

  The couple was acquitted after Thomas left the force, with a judge describing his evidence as "patently insufficient" and his conduct as "reprehensible". Despite Thomas's history of problematic arson investigations, he did well in the insurance industry, which was far more lucrative than working for the police. Because insurance companies had a vested interest in not paying out policies, Thomas received $10,000 every time his work led to a customer's claim being rejected. He quickly climbed the career ladder, and from 1993 to 1995, he served as president

• 1:16:39Speaker 00

  of the Queensland Association of Fire Investigators. But, just as it had in New South Wales, a familiar pattern of complaints and concerns about Thomas's methods soon emerged.

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  In 1993, Brisbane couple Bruce and Beth Gutteridge suffered a terrible tragedy when their beautiful heritage home burnt down. The grand residence had originally been built in the 1860s and the couple had spent fifteen years restoring it. Beth had been home alone when the fire broke out and she escaped the blaze unharmed. But the house was destroyed with damages estimated at $2 million. As Bruce Gutteridge was a Vietnam War veteran, the property had been insured with Defence Service Homes, which was owned by the federal government.

• 1:17:39Speaker 00

  They engaged the agency Peter Thomas was working with at the time to investigate the fire, and Thomas led the investigation.

• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  Thomas soon became convinced that Beth Gutteridge had deliberately lit the fire.

• 1:17:55Speaker 00

  Years earlier, Beth had suffered a skiing accident that left her with chronic pain. To manage this pain, her doctor prescribed her a strong tranquilizer, which was primarily used to treat mental illnesses. Thomas decided that Beth was unstable and had lit the fire because she hated the house. He pressured witnesses to agree with him, prompting at least one person to warn the Gutteridges about Thomas's methods. There was no physical evidence to corroborate Thomas's theory, which Beth's loved one said was ridiculous. She had adored her house.

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  But Thomas was so certain that he even took the matter to Queensland Police and managed to convince them to look into it. This led to an inquiry by the coroner, who found the Gutteridges had no case to answer. Regardless, the process had been traumatic, with Beth's private medical history made public. The Gutteridges later sued their insurer and settled in the Supreme Court. Bruce Gutteridge said he had been fortunate to have the financial resources to pursue the matter. Those who didn't might not have been as lucky.

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  In a subsequent case, Peter Thomas accused an invalid pensioner of burning down his home. The pensioner faced criminal charges, which he was acquitted of, but he didn't receive his insurance payout. The same happened to another homeowner in 1997. In 1998, a baker in central Queensland had his business satellite after burglars broke in, attacked him, and tied him up. Firefighters had to use bolt cutters to set him free. Thomas was tasked with investigating and concluded that the baker was responsible.

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  This led to a police inquiry and insurance money once again being denied. In another case where a pub burnt down, a woman who was friends with its owner said Thomas had offered her $10,000 if she would say the owner had admitted to lighting the fire himself. She refused, and there was no evidence the pub owner had lit the fire. In fact, one month before the blaze, he had spent almost $100,000 refurbishing it.

• 1:20:30Speaker 00

  The fire was thought to have been caused by an electric blanket a guest had admitted to using. It later emerged that Thomas had paid the guest $1,000 to say he'd never used the electric blanket.

• 1:20:46Speaker 00

  Eventually, Thomas's antics caught the attention of the press. On Saturday, October 21, 2000, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Wendy Bacon published a story about Peter Thomas's work as a private fire investigator. This was followed, three days later, with a feature article about Roseanne's case headlined, “Should This Woman Be in Jail?” That same week, the ABC's current affairs programme Four Corners released an episode called Burnt, in which a number of witnesses spoke openly about their dealings with Thomas, calling him slime, a con man, and a liar.

• 1:21:28Speaker 00

  Roseanne Beckett's friend, Errol Taylor, was one of these witnesses, telling Four Corners about his own experiences with Peter Thomas almost 20 years earlier.

• 1:21:40Speaker 00

  The episode also explored Roseanne's case, with the show's host Sally Nebar stating: "The arrest and conviction of Roseanne Catt was the crowning achievement of Detective Peter Thomas." It was announced that a new defence attorney had taken on Roseanne as a client, and he was requesting a new inquiry into the case.

• 1:22:06Speaker 00

  In addition to the countless complaints of corruption and misconduct against Peter Thomas, Roseanne's defence team had uncovered a new witness who was willing to provide a sworn statement. When Peter Thomas first started working as a private arson investigator in Queensland, he had worked alongside a man named Peter Caesar. Peter Caesar told Roseanne's attorney that Thomas had boasted about his days in New South Wales Police, bragging about occasions where he had people bashed and kneecapped.

• 1:22:39Speaker 00

  But the topic Thomas seemed most fixated on was that of Roseanne Beckett. He had an open fixation with her, speaking about her often, and still carrying her case file with him despite having left the police. He even admitted to framing Roseanne, telling Peter Caesar:

• 1:23:01Speaker 00

  "It's common knowledge I planted the gun on the bitch."

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  This act of planting a pistol in Roseanne's home was something Thomas boasted of frequently. He'd also bragged: "If you get three or four good guys around you, basically plan your attack in court, everyone sticks to their story, and the person's charged and jailed."

• 1:23:27Speaker 00

  Peter Caesar had seen firsthand how intimidating Thomas could be. Once, he clashed with a woman who worked in their office and threatened to do her in. After a female coworker filed a sexual harassment claim against Thomas, he told her he would set her up, like he did that bitch.

• 1:23:48Speaker 00

  Peter eventually fell out with Thomas after Thomas attacked him while drunk, then later threatened to send the police after him.

• 1:23:58Speaker 00

  Peter Caesar's statement was fresh evidence that could be used to reopen Roseanne Beckett's case. It was filed alongside dozens of other affidavits from witnesses who were prepared to give evidence in Roseanne's defence. After reviewing the evidence, the New South Wales Attorney General referred the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a review. On Monday, August 6, 2001, Roseanne was released from prison, having served 10 years of her 12-year sentence. The judge who released her addressed the new evidence that had been submitted, noting

• 1:24:37Speaker 00

  that it could indicate something went very wrong with this trial. The review of Roseanne's case didn't begin until early February 2003, a year and a half after her release. Many shocking revelations came to light, such as the fact that the Internal Affairs Department at New South Wales Police had found that Peter Thomas should be charged with misconduct before Roseanne's trial even began. At one point, Thomas had been ordered off the case by his superiors. He protested, claiming the order was unlawful, and was ultimately permitted to continue

• 1:25:19Speaker 00

  leading the investigation. Multiple judges had also called out the fact that the case's lead detective had a history with Roseanne and felt intense acrimony towards her. A judge who had granted Roseanne bail prior to the trial had said that the case should be handed over to a more neutral investigator in the interests of justice. The trial judge had remarked: "If there was any member of the New South Wales Police who should not have been assigned to the case, it was Peter Thomas, due to his history of antagonism with Roseanne Catt."

• 1:25:58Speaker 00

  Evidence suggested that Peter Thomas hadn't even conducted the investigation at the local police station. He had based it out of an unoccupied house owned by Adrian Newell, Barry Cat's close friend. Multiple witnesses had been taken to this house and interrogated for hours at a time, with no official oversight from New South Wales Police. A woman named Marie Whelan had originally supported Roseanne's case, providing a sworn statement that she had witnessed Barry Cat abuse his children. She also took out an AVO against Barry, whom she had previously been involved with.

• 1:26:38Speaker 00

  It was alleged that on Wednesday, August 23, 1989, the day before the police would raid Roseanne's house, Detective Thomas and one of his colleagues picked up Marie and escorted her to the residence owned by Adrian Newell. They spent three and a half hours interviewing her, then wrote up statements for her to sign. These statements reneged on the initial version Marie had provided, and instead claimed that Roseanne had told Marie of her plans to buy a gun. Roseanne denies any such conversation ever took place. After this incident, Marie Whelan told at least four people that she had been taken

• 1:27:22Speaker 00

  away by the police and made to sign statements that weren't true. She was terrified. Jack Harris was taken to the same house. He was a witness to the rock-throwing incident, a violent altercation at the home of Barry Cat's sister, which had led to Barry being charged with assault, and Roseanne accused of attempted murder. Jack's version of events initially aligned with Roseanne's and that of her son, Peter. The same day that Detective Thomas and a colleague took Marie Whelan to the deserted house, they picked Jack Harris up from his workplace and drove him to the same property.

• 1:28:06Speaker 00

  Thomas told Jack, “If you are telling lies and we find out, you will be charged with perjury.” After that, Jack changed his story. He also suddenly claimed that Roseanne had tried to solicit him to kill Barry.

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  There were questions raised when it came to the solicitation of murder charges Roseanne was convicted of. Aboriginal liaison officer James Morris had been one of several men who'd accused Roseanne of trying to hire him to kill Barry. He said Roseanne had proposed the idea to him while they were both out at the local RSL. Although Morris knew Barry well, Roseanne didn't know Morris and completely denied that the conversation had ever taken place.

• 1:28:58Speaker 00

  Another witness who had seen both Roseanne and James Morris at the RSL on the night in question said that Morris had been extremely drunk and there had been no conversation between him and Roseanne. Barry's friend Vernon had also accused Roseanne of asking him to kill Barry for money. While he never reported this alleged solicitation to the police, he made a statement about it after Detective Thomas and others visited him at his home. Allegations that Roseanne poisoned Barry were also found to be questionable. The levels of lithium and clonazepam found in the drinks Adrian collected from Barry's work office were so high

• 1:29:42Speaker 00

  they exceeded the amount of drugs Barry had been prescribed. Whoever had spiked the drinks had access to more pills than Barry was ever given.

• 1:29:54Speaker 00

  At Roseanne's trial, a detective had testified to having found two pill bottles in Roseanne's purse when her home was searched. One was labelled lithium and the other was labelled Revitrol, a brand name of clonazepam. This was presented as proof that Roseanne had access to the medications and was using them to spike Barry's drinks. The problem was, photos from the search showed no images of the purse or the bottles. Neither were they recorded in the police exhibit book.

• 1:30:31Speaker 00

  The defence's position was dealt a major setback when the cat children, now adults, denied any abuse had occurred and claimed Roseanne had influence to their earlier accounts. They had vehemently supported Roseanne for years after her conviction but gradually lost contact with her. In 1993, just before Roseanne's unsuccessful appeal, the Crown prosecutor, Patrick Power, and police spoke to one of Barry's children. He subsequently withdrew his previous allegations of sexual abuse and adopted the Crown's case that Roseanne had brainwashed him and his siblings. So did one of Barry's daughters.

• 1:31:18Speaker 00

  The cat children gave evidence at the inquiry claiming that back in 1989, Roseanne had ordered them to crush tablets and pour them into Barry's food and drinks. The defence argued that the cat children were unreliable witnesses due to having changed their stories. There was also a problematic factor when it came to Crown prosecutor Patrick Power. In 2006, Power was found to have a large amount of child abuse material in his possession. He was charged for this crime, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to 15 months. Roseanne's advocates pointed out their inappropriateness of such a man speaking with alleged survivors

• 1:32:03Speaker 00

  of child sexual abuse.

• 1:32:09Speaker 00

  Although it had likely been clear to the jury at Roseanne's trial that Peter Thomas had disliked Roseanne, they hadn't known the extent of it. Nor had they known just how renowned the detective was for bribing, threatening, and intimidating witnesses into providing the testimony he wanted.

• 1:32:29Speaker 00

  In 2004, it seemed clear to many that this corrupt approach was persisting to the present day. Several defence witnesses reported being threatened after they had agreed to give evidence at Roseanne's new inquiry. A Tari woman named Patricia testified about Barry Cat's pattern of violent behaviour towards women. After Patricia rejected Barry's romantic advances in the late 1990s, he stalked her for two years, attacked her with an iron bar and punched her in the face. Patricia had Barry charged with assault, but the Tari Chamber magistrate, who was friends with Barry, refused to take the case further.

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  Barry also made incessant phone calls to Patricia, calling her 70 times in a five-day period. Terrified, Patricia recorded many of these calls, which frequently featured angry rants and threats of violence. Sometimes, he spoke of Roseanne. After Roseanne was released and granted a new inquiry, Barry told Patricia: “I set her up, sent her to jail for 11 years.” He mentioned that he, Peter Thomas, and some other acquaintances would fix it up so that Roseanne would be returned to prison for an even longer sentence.

• 1:33:56Speaker 00

  After Patricia returned home from testifying at Roseanne's inquiry, she found her pet dog hanging dead at her property. Some documents and tapes she needed for an upcoming court case were missing. Another Tari witness said that Barry Cat had once asked him to obtain a gun so that Barry could arrange for Roseanne to be shot in prison. After word got out that he would be testifying at Roseanne's inquiry, two men approached him and handed over a bullet, which he took as a threat. Phone records revealed that key prosecution witnesses had been in near-constant contact

• 1:34:38Speaker 00

  with one another throughout the inquiry, despite a judge's orders that they not speak. These included Peter Thomas, Barry Cat, and another detective.

• 1:34:52Speaker 00

  It took more than a year for the inquiry to conclude and for the judge to deliver his findings. On Wednesday, October 27, 2004, Judge Tom Davidson found that Roseanne Beckett might have been falsely convicted on unreliable evidence provided by Barry Cat, Peter Thomas, and others.

• 1:35:15Speaker 00

  Judge Davidson believed there was evidence that Roseanne had been framed by prosecution witnesses, including that the pistol in her home was likely planted by Peter Thomas. The judge determined that Thomas pressured witnesses in a way that encouraged them to give false evidence. He described Barry Cat as verbose, rambling, and at times irrelevant to the point of incomprehensibility.

• 1:35:44Speaker 00

  This finding paved the way for Roseanne to lodge a new appeal, and the following year, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal quashed most of the charges Roseanne had been convicted of. These included attempting to poison, possession of an unregistered firearm, assault, perjury, and solicitation of murder.

• 1:36:06Speaker 00

  The charges of malicious wounding and assault, which related to the rock-throwing incident and the alleged stabbing at Swan's Crossing, were upheld due to no new evidence being admitted for those convictions.

• 1:36:21Speaker 00

  Despite being cleared of almost all of her convictions, Roseanne wasn't offered any financial compensation by the New South Wales Government. Individuals who have been victims of government wrongdoing can be offered payment as an acknowledgement of their pain, suffering, and losses. However, the Crown still insisted Roseanne was guilty.

• 1:36:44Speaker 00

  In turn, Roseanne sued the New South Wales Government for malicious prosecution. Her legal team set out to prove that Peter Thomas had acted with malice and had no reasonable cause to charge her with a crime. Roseanne had lost a decade of her life due to her wrongful conviction and she had no income or retirement savings. Her children’s lives had been significantly impacted as well, and a personal tragedy only increased the family’s suffering.

• 1:37:16Speaker 00

  In 2007, Roseanne’s daughter was in a terrible car accident in Canada which left her quadriplegic. Roseanne became her primary carer, which made receiving compensation even more important.

• 1:37:31Speaker 00

  Suing the state government was her only avenue. The government fought back against Roseanne, and in 2010 even issued her a bill for $89,000 for Barry Katz’ victims’ compensation payout. It took another decade for the matter to be resolved, but Roseanne ultimately won her malicious prosecution case in August of 2015.

• 1:37:59Speaker 00

  After ruling in Roseanne’s favour, the presiding judge spoke of just how much Roseanne had lost due to the Crown’s wrongful prosecution, stating: “The enormity of this loss is made still more staggering by the significant period of time for which that loss was suffered.” The drawn-out process Roseanne had been made to endure was made even worse when it was revealed that New South Wales Police had held doubts about her conviction as far back as 2000.

• 1:38:31Speaker 00

  They had revisited the case after receiving media inquiries, which led to senior police officers referring the matter to the Police Commissioner due to their concerns that Roseanne might have been framed. Despite this, Roseanne had been held in prison for another 10 months.

• 1:38:51Speaker 00

  More than a quarter of a century after Roseanne Beckett was first arrested, the New South Wales Government was ordered to pay her more than $4 million in damages and interest, plus legal expenses.

• 1:39:07Speaker 00

  Peter Thomas and Barry Cat were never held accountable for their roles in having Roseanne Beckett imprisoned. They weren’t called by the Crown to testify during the malicious prosecution case, which meant Roseanne’s team couldn’t cross-examine them either.

• 1:39:24Speaker 00

  On Sunday, August 24, 2014, while Roseanne’s malicious prosecution case was still before the court, Peter Thomas died of prostate cancer at the age of 65. His death coincided with the 25th anniversary of his raid on Roseanne Beckett’s home. Barry Cat died later that same year. He had remained living in Taree and a number of other people had taken out AVOs against him over the years. Roseanne Beckett credits her faith in God with helping her survive prison. While incarcerated, she formed strong relationships with religious volunteers who visited the

• 1:40:08Speaker 00

  prison, including a female chaplain and an administrative manager who made it their mission to help Roseanne find justice. This support, and the support Roseanne received from her family, friends, and legal team, provided counterpoints to the persecution she’d experienced at the hands of her former husband and Peter Thomas. In 2005, Roseanne published a memoir about her experiences titled “Ten Years,” which was named for the time she spent serving her sentence. In the book’s final chapter, Roseanne detailed the anger she has lived with for decades as a result of Peter Thomas’s actions and the failure of the authorities to stop him

• 1:40:53Speaker 00

  or hold him accountable. This anger only compounded when Roseanne saw how others who came forward to speak in her defence were threatened and harassed as well.

• 1:41:05Speaker 00

  Following her vindication in court, Roseanne knew she had to find a way to move forward. She wrote:

• 1:41:14Speaker 00

  "This matter has consumed not only my every moment, but those of my two beautiful children, my family, and now my supporters. It is going to take all my concentration to let it go, to realise that I don't have to fight anymore. I've got to dust myself off and pick up my life where I left it, the day I met Barry Cat."

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

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