R v White

Judgment 1HIS HONOUR: Rodney Boyd White was found guilty by a jury on 30 April 2012 at the end of a seven week trial at Lismore. The essence of the prosecution case against him was that he had robbed and killed a drug dealer. 2Mr White was tried jointly with Jessica Birkensleigh, who was found guilty of being an accessory before the fact to robbery, and Todd Serone, who was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder. Another man, Ricky Humphries, had earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Facts 3Whilst the evidence in the trial was quite complex, the facts may be succinctly stated as follows. 4The deceased, Saaid ("Sid") Zaiter, was a person who White described in his evidence as "a big [drug] dealer on the Gold Coast". On Tuesday 16 December 2008 Mr White lured Mr Zaiter to Mr White's cabin in a caravan park at Chinderah on the pretext of doing a deal with some buyers from Melbourne. Within that cabin Mr White assaulted him to the point of rendering him unconscious (at least). He then bound him with cable ties and taped over his mouth and nose (this was a disputed issue but I am satisfied of it beyond reasonable doubt) so that if Mr Zaiter was not dead already, he soon would be. 5Mr White had duped a man named Orams into driving him to the caravan park and waiting for him in the car outside. He had also enlisted Mr Humphries to come along for support. When White returned to the car he was asked by Mr Orams how it went and he replied, "Not very good, I've just bashed the cunt and I think he's dead". Mr Orams asked, "What have you done with him?" to which White replied that he had tied him up and put tape around his mouth in case he woke up. He was not being completely truthful. 6In the ensuing hours White oversaw the transporting of Mr Zaiter's car to a clearing just off the Murwillumbah-Kyogle Road at Barkers Vale where packages of drugs were retrieved from it before it was torched. He also arranged for Serone and others to collect the body from the cabin at Chinderah. Ultimately the body was taken to Pinnacle lookout in the Border Ranges National Park where Mr Zaiter was unceremoniously stripped naked and thrown off into the bush. 7White later made jokes about the killing of Mr Zaiter. A witness said that he referred to Mr Zaiter as "the bushman" because that was where his body was, and he also referred to him as having reached "the pinnacle of his life". 8White, and his girlfriend, Jessica Birkensleigh, hurriedly left the Northern Rivers region and travelled to Victoria. There they established a new life for themselves which was funded by the proceeds of the drugs that had been stolen from Mr Zaiter. 9A long and difficult police investigation eventually established what had occurred. Mr Zaiter's remains, 12 bones, were located a year after the murder. They would probably never have been found but for the co-operation with the authorities of one of the people Mr White had enlisted to help recover the drugs from Mr Zaiter's car and then to dispose of the body. 10Mr White disputed significant aspects of the Crown case but did not deny that he had killed Mr Zaiter. His version was that he had acted in self-defence, a claim the jury obviously rejected. He also disputed the contention that he had stolen some three pounds of speed from Mr Zaiter. The jury found Ms Birkensleigh guilty of being an accessory before robbery, so they were clearly satisfied that the robbery by White of Mr Zaiter had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Whether the quantity stolen was as much as three pounds seems to me to be unnecessary to resolve. It is clear enough that the quantity was not insignificant; police identified expenditure by White and Birkensleigh in Victoria amounting to some $130,000. I am satisfied that whatever was the quantity of drugs stolen from the deceased, it must have been substantial.