Kathleen Folbigg is anxious and confused as to why she remains in prison, her lawyer says, as pressure mounts on the New South Wales attorney general to release her.
Folbigg, who has always maintained her innocence, has spent 20 years of a 25-year sentence in prison since she was convicted in 2003 of murdering three of her children, and the manslaughter of one child.
The final hearing into Folbigg’s convictions last month heard there was enough evidence to suggest her children had died of natural causes.
“Kathleen is anxious and confused as to why she is being left in prison,” her lawyer, Rhanee Rego, said. “It’s also compounding her complex grief and trauma. Jail is a dangerous place, and Kathleen is now an even more high-profile inmate.”
The former NSW chief justice Tom Bathurst KC, who is head of the inquiry, is preparing a report for the governor on whether to exercise mercy.
But pressure is building on the Labor attorney general, Michael Daley, to advise the governor to pardon Folbigg or release her conditionally on parole before publication of the report.
On Wednesday, the government supported a motion that passed in the upper house calling for Folbigg to be released. The motion also included amendments that the government take action as soon as appropriate and practicable rather than immediately.
Sue Higginson, the NSW Greens’ justice spokesperson who put the motion forward, said now was the appropriate and practicable time for the state’s attorney general to issue advice to the governor that Folbigg be released.
“With this motion being carried, the calls for Ms Folbigg’s release will continue to escalate and the pressure on the attorney general will increase,” Higginson said.
“The weight of the submissions of counsel assisting the inquiry was acknowledged and the importance of the director of public prosecution’s confirmation of those. Now it is up to the attorney general to respond to the evidence and release Ms Folbigg. This is not a matter of opinion or belief, this is a matter of evidence and justice.”
The Labor MP Stephen Lawrence said during the debate the evidence given at the inquiry was the most “significant development in the criminal justice system in New South Wales [in] living memory”.
“The horror of what we are dealing with here can scarcely be understated,” he said. “It’s perhaps those horrors that make this case quite difficult to engage with on a human level, but engagement with it needs to be done.”
The human rights and criminal law barrister Felicity Graham, who is not involved in Folbigg’s case, told reporters on Wednesday she felt compelled to speak out and write to the attorney general to act on his power to release Folbigg.
“No respected lawyer thinks that the delay in action by the attorney general is justified,” she said.
The inquiry was triggered after doubt was cast over her conviction following the findings that Folbigg and her two daughters – Laura and Sarah – were found to carry a rare genetic variation, known as CALM2-G114R, which affects the calcium-binding calmodulin protein.
The council assisting the inquiry, Sophie Callan SC, said there was “persuasive expert evidence” that one of Folbigg’s sons, Patrick, may have died from an underlying neurogenetic disorder such as epilepsy. But the cause of her son Caleb’s death, who died aged 19 days, remains undetermined.
“At heart of it, we’ve got a woman who has lost her children: not one, not two, but four,” Rego said.
“She’s been ostracised by society and has been labelled our nation’s worst female serial killer. She’s been thrown in jail, with nothing to do but wait until the truth is finally revealed. She’s done that for 20 years.
“We’ve always known that there was an innocent woman sitting in prison. We are thankful and excited that people are starting to see that now.”
Folbigg’s longtime friend and advocate Tracy Chapman said Australians should be outraged that Folbigg remains in prison.
“I sat in court a month ago and I heard the words reasonable doubt and have hung onto those words, waiting, waiting,” she told reporters. “She should have been let out the day after that was announced.”
