Tony Koch; 11/11/09
Robbie Kina, 50, an Aboriginal woman whose 1988 conviction for murder is widely regarded as one of the greatest miscarriage s of justice in Australia’s legal history, died at her Brisbane home last Thursday. Kina served six years in Boggo Road prison in Brisbane for the stabbing death of Tony Black, her violent and jealous non-indigenous partner who had beaten and raped her for years. Her Supreme Court trial, at which she pleaded not guilty to murder, took three hours and 50 minutes – including swearing in the jury, the crown case, the defence case, counsel submissions, the judge’s summing-up and consideration by the jury of the evidence that led to the guilty verdict. Kina, a small, shy woman, was brought up at Gympie, north of Brisbane, one of 14 children of alcoholic parents who were raised on church-run missions. As an 11-year-old girl in Gympie, she went to a local doctor to get a prescription for the contraceptive pill because she was being sexually abused by a relative.
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Womens Rights