Questions of guilt and innocence in the Victorian criminal trial of Robert Farquharson and the Fact Before Theory internet campaign

Abstract

This article follows the Victorian trial of Robert Farquharson for the murder of his three sons who drowned after the car he was driving veered off the road into a dam on Fathers Day 2005. It discusses the implications of the use of forensic photographs by the prosecution at the trial, which supported the jury’s finding of guilt, on the Fact Before Theory website launched by an anonymous supporter of Robert Farquharson in the trial’s aftermath. This discussion is situated in light of recent work that considers how user generated technologies (blogging, social networking etc.) are fast becoming a key way for family and friends of victims of crime to intervene in the legal process of deciding questions of guilt and innocence. Drawing on the Internet Campaign to free RobertFarquharson as a case study, the author concludes that the narratives and representations of justice and injustice that are being mobilised by the public in this new 24/7 media landscape present a major challenge for the courts