18 NT NEWS. Saturday, August 3, 2013. www.ntnews.com.au

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Easier to beat rap

Police at the murder scene in Parap where Michael Anthony Lewis was shot

Michael Anthony Lewis had a reputation — small-time drug dealer, opium addict, stand-over man, serial rapist,killer. His life of crime endedwhen hewas shot seven times on December 2, 1996.MEAGANDILLON reports

ContinuedPage 19

IT WASN’T a scene from Dar-win’s underbelly.

Lewis wasn’t killed in somerevenge attack for a botcheddrug deal, he wasn’t involvedin fisticuffs with an old en-emy and he wasn’t embroiledin a violent lovers’ tiff.

He was killed by a lovingfather who just wanted to pro-tect his family.

Lewis was a regular atcourt, attending more than 20times in eight years and rack-ing up 27 convictions by theage of 25.

But his rap sheet was com-piled of more minor crimes,such as small-scale drug deal-ing, disorderly conduct andsticking his finger up at thetraffic laws.

He had escaped serving anysubstantial jail time.

But life seemed to spiral outof control for small-timeLewis when he was chargedwith more serious crimes, in-cluding eight counts of rape.

Three of those counts madeit to the NT Supreme Court.

But the other five nevermade it out of the lower courtbecause there was insuf-ficient evidence, includingone that was dropped becausethe victim didn’t bother toshow up at court.

Two separate juries acquit-ted him of two rape counts inJune and September 1985.

Lewis was found guilty ofone count after a world expertin dentistry matched a mouldof his bottom teeth to bitemarks on the chest of the vic-tim’s boyfriend.

It was all the Director ofPublic Prosecutions had tolink Lewis to the crime.

The expert, Dr BernardSims, was flown almost14,000km from London,

England, to the NorthernTerritory to convince the jurythat Lewis was guilty andfinally secure a rape convic-tion for the DPP.

And it worked.He was sentenced to four

years prison with a non-parole period of two years.

But Lewis wasn’t stupidand appealed the decision,saying the leading evidencewas unreliable and shouldnot have been placed in frontof the jury.

He claimed it was danger-ous for the odontological evi-dence to stand alone as thecrucial component of theCrown case.

Justices Michael Maurice,Austin Asche and James Mui-rhead agreed, saying they‘‘did not consider it was ofitself a sufficient foundationfor conviction’’.

‘‘There was no other

reliable circumstantial evi-dence . . . linking him to therape,’’ they said.

They quashed the convic-tion and ordered his immedi-ate release from prison.

But Lewis had alreadyspent more than a year in jail.

The then-28-year-old triedto sue the NT Government forfalse imprisonment and hewasn’t shy about his am-bitious bid.

He told the ABC’s 7.30Report: ‘‘I’m made out to looklike some sort of animal — thebaddest bloke this side of theblack stump.

‘‘But I’m not.‘‘I would admit that I’m not

an angel but I’m not as bad asthey make me out to be.

‘‘It was a blatant set-up . . .and I want some compensat-ion. If Lindy Chamberlain isasking for $5 million, then Iwant $2.5 million.’’

But while fighting the in-justice of his incarceration,the hard-done-by Territoriangot into more hot water — hekilled his brother.

In 1988, Lewis stabbed hisbrother, Richard NelsonLewis, to death during a fightin the kitchen of their familyhome. He was charged withmurder and faced a seven-daytrial. The jury spent morethan eight hours determininghis guilt, before returning anot-guilty verdict for murder.

Instead, they believed hewas guilty of his brother’smanslaughter.

In October 1990, he was sen-tenced to six years jail to bereleased after 12 months.

But again, he appealed.His grounds for appeal was

based on a judicial error —that Justice John Naderdidn’t give the jury a third al-ternative to murder and man-

slaughter. The Court ofCriminal Appeal agreed, laterquashing the manslaughterconviction and replacing itwith a conviction for doing adangerous act causing death.

He was immediately re-leased from prison after serv-ing almost the full term be-hind bars. Lewis also spentsix months in jail for a canna-bis conviction that was laterquashed on appeal.

But was he a victim of grossinjustice or a smart man whounderstood the criminal just-ice system?

According to the man whokilled him, Lewis was notsomeone who got screwed bythe system, he was simply asmart man who knew the law.

Peter Rudge sits in thegarage of his Rapid Creekhome, cigarette in hand, chic-kens roaming freely in hisyard, as he tells the NT News

about his chance meetingwith Lewis.

He says police had been try-ing to lock up a cunningLewis for more than 15 years.

‘‘When the police lockedhim up, he would beat them,’’he says. ‘‘He was a gangsterwannabe — he wanted to bethat Underbelly sort of charac-ter. He had a reputation as akiller, a serial rapist, stand-over man, opium addict.

‘‘There’s a story that he de-cided to go to Sydney to makea name for himself and he gotshot in the foot and sent home.

‘‘I suppose he was mediumfish in a little pond here andhe thought he would go to thebig time and it turns out hewas only a little fish there.’’

Lewis and Rudge didn’tknow each other well buttheir worlds collided on Dec-ember 1, 1996 — one day be-fore the fatal shooting.

Rudge was standing in thefront garden of his Wagamanhome, watering his plants,when Lewis drove past anddecided to stop and speak tohim. Lewis wanted to knowthe location of Leon Howard,who owed him $50 and hadbeen living at Rudge’s Ade-laide River property.

The financial dispute be-tween the two men had noth-ing to do with the father-of-three but he soon exploded onto Lewis’ radar.

‘‘He saw me standing in myfront yard watering mygarden and thought, ‘oh so-and-so owes me $50’, so he de-cided to stop,’’ Rudge says.

‘‘And it just escalated tohim threatening to do me infront of my six-year-old andeight-year-old — I was shitt-ing myself. I had the hose andwas looking at the ground andthinking, ‘should I squirthim’, and then I thought, ‘nodon’t do that’.

‘‘But I ended up gettingscared and grabbing my spadeand telling him to ‘f*** off’.And he was like, ‘what are yougoing to do’ and came at me soI smashed him with it.

‘‘Then he backed off to hiscar and produced a knife anda stick and his missus jumpedout with a tyre lever so I’mfighting both of them off withmy kids in the front yard.’’

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