Convicted murderer Sue Neill-Fraser says “huge vested interests” have tried to keep her case quiet, in her first public interview since a court struck down a parole condition that stopped her talking to the media.
“You can’t remain quiet about this sort of thing. Hide away and pretend it didn’t happen. It did happen,” she said in a preview of Sunday’s 60 Minutes.
When reporter Amelia Adams tells her she is a convicted murderer and a violent killer and asks how that sits with her, Neill-Fraser replies: “Unreal. Unreal.”
The preview also teases Neill-Fraser saying: “I did tell one lie.”
Neill-Fraser was found guilty of murdering her partner Bob Chappell, who disappeared from the couple’s yacht, Four Winds, on the River Derwent in Hobart on January 26, 2009.
His body has never been found.
She served 13 years in jail before being released on parole in 2022 and has always maintained her innocence.
Her conviction has been upheld on appeal and a bid to have her case heard in the High Court failed in 2022.
A condition of her parole prevented Neill-Fraser from communicating claims of her innocence through the media.
Last month, the Supreme Court of Tasmania ruled the condition was invalid and had been made without procedural fairness.
The court heard the Parole Board relied on a document prepared with the help of artificial intelligence that cited case law that did not exist.
Neill-Fraser was represented by the Human Rights Law Centre.
Tasmania’s Department of Justice has since begun a review of parole decisions.
The interview airs on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes and 9Now on Sunday at 8:40pm.
