Falsely Convicted

Nine wrongful imprisonments. Nine innocent men and women freed.

Australia has a robust legal system. According to conventional wisdom, only the guilty end up behind bars. The reality is far more complex and, for First Nations Australians and other minorities in particular, the law can become a trap—one that has condemned completely innocent people to years, even decades, of wrongful imprisonment.

Impeccably researched and compellingly told, Falsely Convicted exposes shocking injustices in all their devastating detail. These cases reveal how fragile truth can be, how easily lives can be destroyed, and how freedom—when it arrives—often comes only after everything else has been lost.

There's teacher Josephine Greensill, whose life was upended by allegations from two former students from three decades before. Henry Keogh, who discovered his fiancée dead in the bath, only to be accused—and convicted—of her murder due to catastrophic forensic failures. And Gene Gibson, an 18-year-old Aboriginal man from one of Australia's most remote communities, convicted of a killing by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, hindered by language barriers and entrenched prejudice.

In Falsely Convicted, Walkley Award-winning crime reporter and bestselling author Neil Mercer turns his investigative skills towards the most chilling crimes of all: the ones committed by the system itself.

'A meticulous unravelling of Australia's most horrendous judicial failures, Mercer's book reads like a thriller, but at its heart is the devastation wreaked on innocent victims of the legal system. Falsely Convicted will make your blood boil—a must-read.' Kate McClymont, Chief Investigative Reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald and author of Dead Man Walking

'Neil Mercer—one of Australia's finest investigative journalists—has in Falsely Convicted crafted a thrilling and unputdownable compendium of miscarriages of justice. There is genuine horror here too—knowing that beneath these tales of concocted confessions, false allegations, skewed forensic evidence and the misdirected motivations of some investigators, sits a judicial trapdoor that could at any moment spring open and swallow anyone. This is true crime at its brilliant best—measured and analytical yet embracing all the dramatic tragedy and redemption of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. It also raises a flag in tribute to the media and its unending battle to secure justice for the wrongfully convicted. These are not just cases from the past. Falsely Convicted rightly suggests that injustice never sleeps. And you just know that the still shocking, life-altering mistakes made here will strike a tuning fork that'll be heard well into the future. Mercer concludes, "The good fight goes on", as does his own ascension as one of our most trusted true crime chroniclers.' Matt Condon, author of Three Crooked Kings