The Western Australian Innocence Project ("IPWA") was founded on the 7th of July 2006 after the wrongful conviction of Salvatore Fazzari, Carlos Pereiras and Jose Martinez. The necessity to establish an organisation focused on freeing innocent persons became apparent after the convictions of these men.
Growing community concerns drew together a team of dedicated volunteers and supporters committed to overturning this evident miscarriage of justice and others like it.
Spearheaded by co-patrons Mr Malcolm McCusker QC and the Honourable David Malcolm ACQC, the Innocence Project WA strives to free other innocent men and women, provide support to their families and raise public awareness on this very live issue of innocent people wrongfully convicted in Western Australia.
John Button (who was wrongfully convicted), his wife Helen Button, Estelle Blackburn (author of Broken Lives), Maria DiBenedetto (a law-student from your ECU) as well as Mirella Scaramella (the driving force behind the Walsham case) are the founding members of our organisation while our current volunteers are made up of both members of the public and interested law students from universities around Western Australia.
Since its inception, IPWA has experienced steady and increasing support from various bodies and members of both our legal community, local law universities and the general public, who all recognise the Innocence Project’s purpose and importance within the community.
Our website provides some insight into the background of a few of the numerous miscarriages of justice cases in Western Australia.There are however many more wrongful convictions, some which have not received the same media publicity (as the ones listed) and are harder to find information on and some cases which are yet to formally succeed in having their convictions overturned.
Our website then provides information and a list on some of the wrongful convictions in Western Australia but by no means are the ones listed the only ones.
