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Likely to Offend Again

Brisbane labourer Robert Raymond Day was 37 years old in 1990 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted murder of Danish tourist Hendrik Enevoldsen in December 1988. Explaining why he recommended that Day’s papers be marked ‘never to be released’, Justice Shepherdson said that a psychiatric report described Day as being capable of extremely violent behaviour.

Day was described as a ‘dangerous man’, and Justice Shepherdson believed there was an extremely high risk that he would reoffend in the same manner. The judge went on to order that jail authorities be informed of his remarks ‘for the protection of fellow prisoners’.

Two years earlier, on 23 December 1988, Day had appeared in the Cleveland Magistrate’s Court charged with the attempted murder of 21-year-old Enevoldsen. Seven days later, on 30 December 1988, he was also charged in the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court with the murder of 22-year-old Japanese tourist Noriyuki Oda. Oda had last been seen buying tickets for a bus trip to Alice Springs on 4 December.

Day entered no plea to charges of murder (of Oda), attempted murder (of Enevoldsen) and assaulting a police officer, and was remanded in custody. It was alleged in court that detectives found Japanese-brand items – including shampoo, conditioner, tissues and a pen – in a flat used by Day. A friend of Oda’s was flown in from Japan and identified the pen as similar to one she had given Oda when they worked together in Japan. The witness also identified an unusual brand of tissues found at Day’s apartment as the same ones she had sold Oda before he left for Australia. On top of this evidence, authorities found an oriental amulet, alleged to have been Oda’s, in a rubbish bin at Day’s flat. They also found a pair of handcuffs.

During the case, Hendrik Enevoldsen told the court he had travelled with Day to Redland Bay, and that Day had attacked him there from behind with a piece of timber. Enevoldsen was taking pictures of a hollow tree near a bushland swamp at the time. He said Day then tried to drown him in the swamp, but he managed to escape and flag down a passing motorist.

At his trial for the murder of Oda, it was alleged that Day had confessed to the murder to two Brisbane Gaol inmates. And there was more: it was said that he had asked one of the men who was about to be released if the man could murder another Japanese person as a way of helping Day’s defence case.

In his alleged confession to the two prisoners, Day is said to have told them he had handcuffed Oda to a tree before pouring petrol at his feet and taunting him, saying, ‘You burn, you burn.’ As Oda was set ablaze, Day said he pleaded and cried out in Japanese. Day was alleged to have buried the dead body in a 44-gallon drum full of chemicals.

During the trial, Justice Shepherdson ruled that a Japanese handwriting expert could only give evidence according to a particular basis of comparison with Japanese characters on documents accepted as Oda’s, and characters written on a cassette case found in Day’s flat. But the expert went further in his evidence.

Acting for Day, Bill Cuthbert then submitted that his case had been prejudiced because he could not cross-examine on evidence that the jury had heard, but the judge had then ruled inadmissible. The trial was aborted after 20 days of legal argument. It had heard from 20 witnesses, including 13 flown in from Japan. In discharging the jury, Justice Shepherdson said that regardless of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs incurred, if he allowed the case to continue he would be left with a strong sense of unfairness to Day.

Day was finally retried for Oda’s murder in June 1990; he was acquitted, but he remained in custody facing the attempted murder charge. On 1 November 1990, he was found guilty on that charge. This time, Justice Shepherdson said that he was concerned about similarities in the evidence about the death of Oda and the attempted murder.

‘I heard sworn testimony in that [the Oda death] trial that certainly suggested this man killed the Japanese man Oda,’ Justice Shepherdson said. ‘I realise that Day has been acquitted, but what concerns me is [that] this offence involving Enevoldsen occurred two to three weeks after Oda disappeared when it was said, in Oda’s case, the accused had killed him.’

On 7 December 1990, Day was sent to prison with the recommendation that he never be released. In the psychiatric report that played such an important role in the judge’s sentence, it was revealed that at the age of 18, in 1971, Day had entered a block of flats one afternoon and raped a 55-year-old crippled woman at knife-point. The report stated that Day had attacked and sexually assaulted the woman as she was crawling across the floor to change the television channel. Day was released in 1982 after serving 11 years for the crime.

On 8 April 1993, the remains of Noriyuki Oda were found in a bush grave in the Beerburrum State Forest on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. He had died from severe head injuries administered by an ‘instrument of some kind’. Day still maintains his innocence in relation to that crime.