In
pleading the Crown case to oppose a bail application by Mr Rogerson,
who appeared in the court via audio visual link from Silverwater remand
prison in western Sydney, Mr Maxwell said Rogerson 'had control and
access to the scene of the killing'.
Mr
Maxwell said a prison phone call between Rogerson and his wife, Anne
Melocco, since his arrest suggested Rogerson would be arguing that he
had only intervened in whatever had happened between Jamie Gao and
McNamara in the storage unit after the shooting to give some
'grandfatherly advice'
He
said Rogerson told Ms Melocco 'well they'd been there a fair while
Anne. I thought I'd go over there and see what's happening.
'I thought i might be able to give a bit of a hand, a bit of old grandfatherly advice.'
Rogerson, dressed in prison greens, sat shuffling papers and reading notes in the prison during the evidence.
In
part of the footage - which shows McNamara and Gao enter together the
door of one on a row of cream coloured storage units, later followed by
Rogerson - the three men are inside the unit for nine minutes.
Following this, McNamara can be seen taking a surfboard bag into the unit.
Rogerson - who appears to hobble or limp each time he moves on foot - emerges to move his vehicle.
'Mr
Rogerson ... brings his car over to shield them bringing the dead body
out,' Mr Maxwell said, showing footage of Rogerson parking his car
behind Mc Namara's outside the unit.
 |
| Back of storage facility |
Rogerson,
73, and Glenn McNamara, 55, are charged with murdering of university
student Mr Gao, whose body was found wrapped in a tarpaulin floating in
the sea of Cronulla in southern Sydney on May 26, a week after he was
reported missing.
Police
allege the University of Technology Sydney student was shot in a storage
facility by McNamara and Rogerson during a botched drug deal involving
3kg of methylamphetamine on May 20.
The application was before Magistrate Les Mabbutt.
Barrister
George Thomas, for Rogerson, suggested a struggle between McNamara and
Mr Gao might have ensued before Rogerson entered the storage facility.
He said there was between three and four minutes that the two were in there, 'enough time for a killing to take place'.
On
August 8, Magistrate Mabbutt refused a bail application by McNamara,
who offered $580,000 in a surety to be effectively 'under house arrest'.
Jamie
Gao was already dead and on the floor following a struggle with a
firearm by the time Roger Rogerson entered a storage unit on May 20,
Rogerson's barrister told Central Local Court.
George
Thomas said Rogerson had been called to the scene of a proposed 'ice'
drug deal between Mr Gao and former detective Glenn Mc Namara to deal
with alleged triad associates.
CCTV footage shows Mr Gao arriving at the Padstow storage unit with two young Asian men.
In
submissions to the court distancing Rogerson from both the drug deal
and what he described as the 'unintended' killing 'in self defence' of
Mr Gao by McNamara, Mr Thomas said Rogerson had made no attempt to
conceal his activities on the day.
He
said Rogerson's presence at the scene 'related to McNamara's concerns
Jamie Gao had associations with people said to be triad related.
McNamara wanted to be sure he wasn't being followed'.
He
said in the three to four minutes McNamara was with Mr Gao inside the
storage unit - which was dark and had no light - there was a struggle
involving a pistol which may have been carried by Mr Gao.
He said on
entering the storage unit, 'a man was already on the ground, deceased'
and McNamara told Rogerson there had been a struggle.
Mr
Thomas said Mr Gao's two bullet wounds - one of which was '150mm down
from the nipple' and both of which showed had been made in a ' downward
trajectory' - could not have been made by Rogerson who was shorter than
Mr Gao.
He said Rogerson had helped to remove Mr Gao's body from the unit, but had not been involved in the dumping at sea by Mc Namara.
Last month
the case was facing some delays as fingerprints, DNA evidence and CCTV
footage were still being compiled in the murder case against former NSW
detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara, a court heard.
They have also been accused of commercial drug supply.
Lawyer
Paul Kenny, for Rogerson, 73, did not require him to be videoed in from
Silverwater Correctional Centre in July, while McNamara, 55, is in
Goulburn prison.
Police
prosecutors told the court more time was needed to assemble some of the
scientific evidence in the case, and there were significant delays in
autopsy reports on the victim.
Central
Local Court heard that up to five weeks was needed to assemble
fingerprint evidence from the crime scene and DNA testing of clothing.
Evidence to be presented in the case included analysis of methylamphetamines allegedly found in McNamara's car.
However,
although a postmortem had been completed on Mr Gao, there was a
six-to-nine-month delay at the Sydney morgue on the autopsy report.
Police
allege the University of Technology Sydney student was shot in a
storage facility by McNamara and Rogerson during a botched drug deal on
May 20.
McNamara
was charged and faced Kogarah Local Court on May 26. Rogerson was
arrested amid a media frenzy outside his home in the western Sydney
suburb of Padstow the following day.
No comments:
Post a Comment