Victoria Bitter: The Jaidyn Leskie Story

The Trial

Colin Lovitt is a formidable man, a barrel-chested barrister likened by some in the press to the fictitious Rumpole of the Bailey and is known as one of the most capable defense lawyers in all of Australia. The way Lovitt saw the case, the cops may have been convinced that Domaszewicz was the killer, but he was certain that 12 jurors would not be. To that end, he argued, the Crown's case was riddled with holes and he tried to shift the focus from Domaszewicz to the Pig's Head Crew. Kenny Penfold and the others, particularly Raymond "Tubby" Hopkinson who claimed that he had not even joined his friends when they went on the attack were as likely suspects as anyone, and he assumed the jury would see things his way. As Lovitt put it at trial, they all had "personalities that would make them appropriate targets for attack is cruel, unplanned spiriting away and disposal of a child was considered."

Although he never explicitly stated it in court, he adhered to the same theory that Bowles had developed during her investigation of the case, that someone, perhaps members of the Pig's Head team had taken the child away from Moe, possibly to a relatives house in New South Wales. Perhaps, Lovitt had speculated, the child had been injured in the bizarre pig's head attack or perhaps his arm had been broken later, perhaps the child had been killed accidentally before his body was disposed of at Blue Rock Dam, a place that would link the crime back to Domaszewicz. "If they took the child from that housepossibly injured, possibly upset, crying, making a noise, needing to be quietened downone is left to speculate what happened."

It didn't help the prosecution's case that when Tubby, a man with a lengthy criminal record, was called to the witness stand he became threatening and abusive to Lovitt, at one point referring to the distinguished but quietly provocative barrister as "a spaz." In a final coda to his testimony, Hopkinson stalked out of the courtroom in such a rage that police officers had to surround him and calm him down in a courtyard outside.

But there was more controversy to come when Lovitt suggested that the relationship between Yvonne Penfold and Sgt. Fraser of the Moe police was more than friendship. Though both Fraser and Yvonne Penfold denied it, the allegations raised a specter of doubt among the jurors that, as the Sydney Morning Herald would later report "there was therefore 'indecent anxiety by police to clear Penfold and her 'crew' before they even knew what happened."

There was also the question about DNA evidence, or the lack of it. No forensic evidence from Jaidyn had ever been found in the trunk of Domaszewicz' car, which Grishka surely would have used to dispose of the body, and no trace of Domaszewicz's DNA was found on any of the clothes Jaidyn was wearing when his body was found or on the waterlogged bandage that had been placed on his arm.

On December 3, 1998, nearly a year after Jaidyn's body was discovered, Greg Domaszewicz was found not guilty and was released.