A former Jetstar pilot accused of killing a camper has been denied bail, ahead of an application for a permanent stay in the case.
Gregory Lynn appeared in the Victorian supreme court on Thursday, where his application for bail was denied by Justice David Beach. Lynn had hoped to walk free from custody for the first time in almost three years.
Lynn, 59, is charged with murdering 73-year-old Carol Clay in 2020 at a remote campsite in the Wonnangatta valley in Victoria’s high country in March 2020.
He was found guilty in 2024 of murdering Clay, but acquitted of murdering her fellow camper and lover Russell Hill, 74.
The Victorian court of appeal ruled in December that Lynn’s conviction be overturned because a substantial miscarriage of justice occurred in his earlier trial in which he had pleaded not guilty to murdering Clay and Hill.
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It ordered that a new trial should be held in the case.
Lynn’s bail application was based on his “character and prior community commitments”; his “vulnerability in custody”; delay and the “real prospect of further delay”; and “problems with the prosecution case”.
In his reasons for refusing bail, published later on Thursday morning, Beach said that while unique circumstances did exist in Lynn’s case, they were not so exceptional that he should be freed from custody.
“To the extent that the matters relied upon by the applicant favour a grant of bail, in considering all of the surrounding circumstances which are required to be taken into account, the matters relied upon by the applicant have to be synthesised with any factors that tend the other way (specifically in this case, the very seriousness of the allegations made by the Crown against the applicant),” Beach said.
Beach said in the decision when considering Lynn’s submission that he could face further delays that the prospects of the accused being granted a permanent stay were remote.
But he said that it was not necessary to consider these prospects further, as should Lynn be granted a stay he would be immediately released, and there would be no issue regarding a delayed trial.
“The question is more difficult when one considers his prospects of obtaining a temporary stay for any and what period of time,” Beach said.
“Much is likely to depend on whether he is the subject of any (and if so what) adverse publicity between now and the time at which he makes his application for a stay.
“Realistically, those are matters about which this Court can only speculate at this stage. Ideally, there will be no publicity adverse to the applicant or his case between now and the hearing and determination of the retrial.”
Dermot Dann KC, for Lynn, argued last week that it would be unfair to his client for a trial to be heard any time earlier than 2028 and that he should be released on bail in the meantime.
But Beach disagreed in his decision, saying he was “not persuaded that a trial of this proceeding cannot occur in the second half of this year”.
As part of the bail application, Lynn’s son Geordie offered up a surety of more than $400,000 and would allow his father to live with him, as well as undertaking to report any breaches of bail conditions to police.
The prosecution agreed Lynn did not pose an unacceptable risk of reoffending should he be granted bail, but opposed the application.
Lynn showed no obvious emotion when the decision was handed down, turning in the dock to look over his right shoulder to Geordie and his wife, Melanie.
He again turned to look at them and gave them a smile as he was led out of court.
Beach noted last week that any application for a stay, either temporary or permanent, would have to be heard by the trial judge in July.
