"Vendetta or in the public interest?" you decide

DPP relents on author’s Everett biography

WA Newspapers 13 October 2009
The Director of Public Prosecutions will release the money paid to an author who wrote a book about criminal David Everett and pay the costs of the author’s 10-month legal fight.

In a case which was watched closely by Australian authors and journalists, then-DPP Robert Cock froze the bank accounts of Kingsley Flett’s company Flett Media last year over a publisher’s advance the company received for a biography Flett co-wrote with Everett.

It is understood the DPP argued the money was “crime-derived” and should be seized under WA’s criminal property confiscation laws.

But Flett said yesterday the DPP had agreed to release the bank accounts and pay his legal costs.

“Twelve months ago it seems like they made a really stupid decision and two weeks ago they made a really smart decision,” he said.

“I’m actually still a bit angry.” Mr Cock had first frozen Everett’s assets with the aim of using WA’s criminal property confiscation laws to take any money Everett had made from the book, Shadow Warrior.

But that action was dropped when Everett showed the DPP he had not received any of the advance nor made any money from book sales. Mr Cock then moved against Flett. Everett was jailed over a spree of robberies and kidnappings in the 1990s.

Flett’s lawyer Colin Chenu said it was still unclear whether the DPP wanted Flett’s money because it wrongly believed some would go to Everett or whether it claimed Flett was illegally profiting from Everett’s crimes by writing the book.

A DPP spokeswoman said the case had not yet been resolved and it was inappropriate to comment further.