Case file of last woman hanged in Australia released after 75 years
SOURCE:ABC Australia|BY:Tim Callanan
Jean Lee and her two co-accused were executed for murder in 1950. Handwritten letters from the trio are among items publicly available for the first time since their trial captured the nation's attention.
Handwritten letters from the last woman executed in Australia and her co-accused are among documents publicly accessible for the first time in decades.
The capital case file of Jean Lee has been sealed for 75 years under the Public Records Act but is open to the public from today.
Lee was hanged in 1951 along with her partners in crime, Robert Clayton and Norman Andrews for the 1949 murder of William 'Pop' Kent in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Carlton.
She was one of only two women executed in Australia during the 20th century and the first to be executed in Victoria since 1895.
Her execution is still a matter of debate 75 years after she was sent to the gallows in Melbourne's Pentridge Prison.
The capital case file of Jean Lee, Robert Clayton and Norman Andrews has been sealed for 75 years. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
A life of petty crime turns to murder
Jean Lee was born in the NSW town of Dubbo to what authorities in her case file described as "respectable law-abiding parents".
Jean Lee had an extensive history of petty crime in several Australian states. (Perth Mirror)
She married at 18 and a year later gave birth to a daughter. She separated from her husband in 1942 and struggled to provide for her child as a single mother, turning to sex work and petty crime to make ends meet.
The record of criminal convictions included in her case file shows she was arrested multiple times for stealing and soliciting.
She began a relationship with Robert Clayton, a petty criminal who Lee stood by even after he was jailed for indecent assault.
The pair perfected a blackmail racket in which Lee got a stranger into a sexually compromising position before Clayton would appear, pretending to be her husband and demanding compensation.
In late 1949, Lee, Clayton and an acquaintance, Norman Andrews, flew from Sydney to Melbourne for the Spring Racing Carnival intent on separating some lucky punters from their winnings.
Police photographs of Robert Clayton are included in the capital case file. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
They targeted 73-year-old SP bookmaker William 'Pop' Kent at a Carlton pub, believing he had a large wad of cash rolled up in his trousers.
After being plied with booze, Kent invited all three back to his house where they tried to steal the bookie's cash.
When the trio failed to find the bookie's hidden fortune, they turned to violence.
Neighbours found Kent dead in his apartment and it wasn't long before their investigations led police to Lee, Clayton and Andrews.
A post-mortem examination of Kent's body found he had been severely beaten and strangled.
A controversial murder trial in Melbourne
The 436-page transcript of the trial is among the documents released today in Lee's capital case file, and details the police evidence against the accused.
After their arrest, the three were questioned separately, with Clayton being the first to crack, saying Lee and Andrews had beaten Kent.
"I am not going to take the rap for what others do," he told police, who noted his hand was swollen and grazed.
"I am completely innocent of any attack on the old man."
Jean Lee is escorted by police officers after being charged with the murder of William Kent. (Perth Daily News)
Jean Lee had remained silent but broke down when police told her that her lover Clayton had put the blame on her.
"And they call women the weaker sex! I love Bobby and I still love him but if he wants it that way he can have it," she told police.
"I sort of done my block and I hit him with a bottle and a piece of wood,"
she said.
"He fell over on the chair and then fell on the floor. I tied up his arms with a piece of sheet and then left the place."
The transcript of the murder trial of Jean Lee, Robert Clayton and Norman Andrews runs to more than 400 pages in the capital case file. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
Later, when she took the stand at her murder trial, Lee tried to recant the confession.
"I was hysterical then and I don't know why I said it, or anything. I know I said it," she testified under cross examination by the crown prosecutor.
Lee maintained in court that she was not present when Kent was killed and that he was alive and well when she left him, but the jury was unconvinced.
She, Clayton and Andrews were found guilty and sentenced to death in March 1950.
The court transcript recorded their responses when asked if they had anything to say in light of the verdict.
"I didn't do it. I didn't do it," Lee said.
Andrews declined to say anything, but Clayton let fly.
"All I can say would fill a book. You team of idiots, you," he shouted at the jury.
"May your next feed choke you, you swine you!"
Clayton spat at members of the jury after the death sentence was passed.
The reaction of the trio to their murder conviction is recorded in the trial transcript. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
Attempts to save the condemned trio fail
Just two months after the guilty verdict the convictions of Lee, Clayton and Andrews were quashed after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the statements obtained by police during their interrogation of the trio were obtained by improper methods.
Letters calling for the death penalty not to be carried out are contained in the capital case file which has now been unsealed. (Public Records Office of Victoria.)
The Crown appealed to the High Court and the convictions were eventually upheld, even though two of the five High Court judges said Lee's confession to police should not have been admitted at her trial.
Lee and her co-accused sought to appeal to the Privy Council in London, which was then the highest court of appeal in the Australian justice system, but needed government financial assistance to do so.
The government rejected their pleas for assistance, but help came from elsewhere, with members of the public opposed to the death penalty donating money to fund the appeal.
In one handwritten letter contained in the capital case file, a supporter from Tasmania told the federal attorney general of their plans to help the condemned trio.
"I have a scheme in mind for a better world order based on truth, justice, tolerance and peace," the supporter wrote.
"We can do a lot towards such a scheme by helping anyone or number of persons who are in any kind of trouble."
The condemned trio gathered enough money to engage legal representation to take their appeal forward.
The capital case file contains handwritten letters from Lee, Clayton and Andrews advising the state's Attorney General that they'd secured "the necessary finance" to proceed.
A handwritten letter from Jean Lee in which she says she will appeal to the Privy Council against her conviction. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
Ultimately, it was for nothing as the Privy Council dismissed the appeal in under an hour. The death sentence imposed on the trio would stand.
The imposition of the death penalty put the government of the day under pressure. The ruling Country Party only held office due to the support of Labor, which strongly opposed capital punishment.
Labor leader John Cain urged the government not to carry out the executions.
"The decision to hang Lee — a woman — is a course that has not been taken for over half a century and regardless of political feeling must be looked on with grave concern by most citizens," Cain was quoted as saying in December 1950.
A deputation from the Labor Women's Organising Committee petitioned the premier to grant Lee in particular a reprieve, but the attempts ultimately failed, with public sentiment very strongly against any leniency for the three convicted killers.
The Gaol Medical Officer's report on Lee, Clayton and Andrews contained in the capital case file. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
Lee, Clayton and Andrews had exhausted their final avenue of appeal and could only wait for the inevitable sentence to be carried out.
In his observations of the trio, contained in the capital case file, the Gaol Medical Officer noted Clayton and Andrews "still refuse to discuss the crime and deny any knowledge of the murder, and neither shows any remorse or regrets".
"Jean Lee made certain admissions to me but denied taking any part in the crime herself," he wrote.
"She showed some distress at this stage and reacted emotionally when I spoke of her daughter aged 12 years, and showed me a photograph of her which she had lately received."
He concluded that they all knew right from wrong.
Lee, Clayton and Andrews were ordered to be hanged on February 19, 1951. It's reported that Lee was distressed in the hours before her execution and threw her last meal at a prison warden.
A reporter from The Truth was one of a handful of people permitted to attend the hangings.
"Jean Lee's ... body was carried limp and fainting from the condemned cell at 8am by the executioner and his assistant," he wrote.
"Many of the men present at the hangings were visibly affected by the execution of Lee, who is the first woman to be hanged in Victoria for 56 years."
Lee was 31 when she died. All three were buried within the walls of Pentridge.
Norman Andrews was executed for the murder of William Kent. (Public Records Office of Victoria)
Among the more poignant items in the case file are letters written by Clayton and Andrews to the sheriff pleading for their belongings to be forwarded to loved ones.
Andrews asked that an unused airplane ticket in his possession be refunded and the money sent to his wife.
Clayton asked that his clothing, a cigarette case and 25 pounds in cash be sent to his mother.
"I trust, in all respect, you need no further inducement to do the right thing," he wrote.