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Bradley Edwards Pleads Not Guilty as Claremont Murders Trial Opens in Perth

Accused of murdering Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon in 1996 and 1997, the 50-year-old denied all three charges as his long-awaited Supreme Court trial began.

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Illustration: a courtroom bench with a water carafe, a glass and tied case papers in front of empty seats. Not the actual courtroom.

Three charges were read out in a Perth courtroom on Monday, November 25, 2019, and three times Bradley Robert Edwards gave the same answer in a clear voice: "Not guilty."

Edwards, 50, is charged with the wilful murders of three young women in what has become known as the Claremont case. Sarah Spiers, 18, disappeared in January 1996. Jane Rimmer, 23, followed in June of the same year, and Ciara Glennon, 27, in March 1997. He denies killing any of them.

The parents of two of the women watched from the front row of the public gallery. Denis Glennon, Ciara's father, sat with Don and Carol Spiers, Sarah's parents. Glennon and Don Spiers have been present at nearly every court appearance and pre-trial hearing in the case, and Jane Rimmer's sister, Lee, has attended some of them.

Justice Stephen Hall is hearing the case in Court 7.2 of the District Court building at 500 Hay Street, because the aging Supreme Court building was judged unsuitable. Private rooms with live feeds were set aside for the women's families and for Edwards's family, and for the first week the proceedings were also screened in a courtroom in the old Supreme Court building for members of the public who could not find a seat. The court said that stream would stop on December 2.

Edwards was first charged with eight offences. Besides the three murder counts, five concerned the 1995 abduction and rape of a 17-year-old girl at Karrakatta Cemetery and a night-time attack on a teenage woman inside her Huntingdale home while her parents slept. At a pre-trial hearing the month before the trial opened, he admitted those five lesser charges.

The murder trial is expected to last about six months. It is the culmination of the longest and most expensive murder investigation in Western Australia's history, much of it run by the Macro Task Force, the specialist group set up to investigate the three cases. Several current and former Macro detectives were in court to hear the pleas.

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