December 2002 Volume 83 Number 12 "serving the protectors"
Rupert Maxwell Stuart: the facts
By Peter Alexander

Experts and casual observers alike have said and written much about the investigation, trial, conviction, death sentence and appeal of Rupert Maxwell Stuart since 1959.

He was, in that year, convicted in the SA Supreme Court of the rape and murder of nine-year-old Mary Olive Hattam near Ceduna on December 20, 1958.

With the recent national release of the Australian feature film, Black and White, the Stuart case has again become topical.

In June this year, the Police Journal carried the obituary of former Police Association president and chief inspector of police, Paul Turner.

Mr Turner led the investigation into Stuart. Stuart supporters have, for many years, strenuously criticized him, and other police officers involved in the case.

Neither the film nor recent articles on the case highlight either the police view or the strengths of the prosecution case.

So, for perspective, consider these points:

• Two days after the murder, Stuart was arrested and signed a typed confession.
• Two blacktrackers identified footprints at the murder scene (on the beach) as those of Stuart.
• A Ceduna taxi-driver gave evidence that he drove Stuart to the vicinity of the murder scene near Thevenard on the afternoon of the murder.

A Supreme Court jury found Stuart guilty. After his conviction, he was refused leave to appeal by the High Court of Australia. Later, even the Privy Council in London rejected his petition.

Although sentenced to death, Stuart’s penalty was commuted to life imprisonment, but a royal commission found the jury’s guilty verdict wholly justified. To the royal commission, Stuart presented an “alibi” that his defence had never raised at the trial.

One of Stuart’s previous convictions – raised at the royal commission and for an offence committed the year before the murder of Mary Olive Hattam – makes, to say the least, interesting reading.

He was convicted of the indecent assault of a nine-year-old girl in Cloncurry, Queensland. In a statement to police, Stuart admitted he had touched the sleeping nine-year-old between the legs and placed his hand over her mouth when she woke. He said he “knew this was wrong” but did not “know any big women” and that when he had liquor he could not control himself.

It is important to highlight these facts for those police officers – both living and dead – who investigated the case. The Stuart case is fascinating, and will be discussed for years to come. But most important is to remember Mary Olive Hattam, a nine-year-old raped and murdered as she played on the beach at Thevenard on December 20, 1958.

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