INTRODUCTION: Hello, I’m Belinda Hawkins, a producer on Australian Story and I’ve been following the saga of Jock Palfreeman since I first met him in a Bulgarian prison in 2009. Until very recently, Jock was serving a 20-year sentence for the murder of a young man during a street brawl. But as I’ve reported over the years, there have always been significant doubts about the evidence that convicted him. When Jock was unexpectedly granted parole a few weeks ago, his case ignited a political firestorm in Bulgaria and he was stopped from leaving the country. His situation is still precarious. This is the story of Jock, his father Simon Palfreeman and their battle for justice.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: Over the last almost 12 years now I’ve had to travel back to Bulgaria to see Jock, probably for over 40 times.

Jock has learnt to cope with the prison system. Every single day Jock has had to fight for something. It might be food, it might be clothing, it might be for a privilege or against a punishment and over time I’ve seen Jock grown into a stronger person.

(News story)

An Australian man detained for 11 years in Bulgaria has been granted parole by a panel of judges.

(Ends)

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: When I woke up that morning and I saw that Jock had been released from prison and granted parole it was a fantastic moment. It was a decision that could not be appealed. We even started planning how to bring him home and where he would stay.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: Unfortunately, it did prove to be a short-lived feeling of relief because it wasn’t long after that things really started to spiral again out of control. There were all the familiar problems that we’d experienced before with the justice system, being subject to interference by politicians and powerful people within Bulgaria.

(Man at rally): Who was released six years before his sentence had run out!

TONY PALFREEMAN, GRANDFATHER: The politics have taken over the legal system and we’re sitting here in the Hunter Valley looking at the news coming in from all directions, it’s not easy to get a clear idea of what’s going on.

(Man at rally): If my child is killed I will kill the murderer.

NIKOLAY HADJIGENOV, BULGARIAN CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER: Jock Palfreeman is a monster for some people. They don't understand what is justice. Because governments are corrupted, all corrupted. So, they have no interest for normal justice.

TONY PALFREEMAN, GRANDFATHER: Chaos remains because I can’t distinguish and nor can anyone between the politics and the judicial system. The two are so mixed up that looking at it from this direction very hard to know what the outcome might be.

Then run some vision of Jock leaving detention (as mentioned above) and talking to crowd sounding shouty or just bustle of media sound.

TITLE: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: A few days after Christmas 2007, Simon and I were having a family holiday and we received a phone call and it's that phone call you hope that you never receive.

DR SIMON PALFREEMAN: Jock was in trouble. He was in prison in Bulgaria. I got some very early information to suggest that he had actually gone to help somebody, that in the melee someone had been killed. Really it was - no, this can't be right. Why would anybody be so silly to have a knife? My initial feeling was just to go in there as a parent and get him out of there as quickly as possible.

I really had no idea what to expect. I mean it might sound absurd, but I knew very little about Bulgaria except weightlifters and poison-tipped umbrellas. I arrived in a snow-clad city. I couldn't even read the language because it was in Cyrillic. I was fearful for my own safety and I think my overwhelming sense was I'm out of my depth.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: Back in 2006, Jock had had the opportunity to go to university, but he decided that wasn’t where he wanted to go. So he packed his backpack and he headed over to Europe to have his two years of travelling around and finding the world.

GERI PALFREEMAN, AUNT: Jock was 19. He found himself in Bulgaria and just seemed to kind of settle in somehow. He just seemed to fall in love with a country that I would never have guessed.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: He developed close relationships to quite a few families there but Jock eventually he had to go back to England where he joined the British army and it was from there he went to that fateful Christmas holiday in Bulgaria.

CAPTION 1

Early on the morning of December 28, 2007 a brawl broke out on the streets of Sofia. A man died.

Jock Palfreeman was arrested.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: When I first went to see Jock I didn't know the procedures, people couldn't explain to me what I supposed to do and eventually Jock got shown into a room. I just let Jock talk and he told me his story.



JOCK PALFREEMAN: My friend convinced me that I should come to Sofia for the night. We all jumped in the car and then I went back to get my ID. Next to the ID was a knife. I still feel scared to walk around Bulgaria especially at night -time so I grabbed the knife and put it in my pocket. They're legal in Bulgaria



HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEPMOTHER: As I understand it, they went out for a night on the town. They could hear some noise coming from the subway.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: A group of football fans started walking up the street, maybe 20, even more maybe 25 and they were all singing and chanting. People were walking past them, and they were pushing them. I saw two men on the ground being beaten. One of them got up and ran across the street.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: Jock told me when he got closer that the boy was dark-skinned, he was obviously a Gypsy. He knew straight away what was happening and went in there to try and save him.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: And then I started shouting in Bulgarian, go back go back. That's when they started attacking me. More of them started coming towards me and I realized, shit, now I am in some trouble here. So, I reached into my right pocket and pulled out the knife, opened it with two hands and held it up in the air for everybody to see. When I took out the knife I thought that they would be scared into leaving me alone.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEPMOTHER: As I understand it they all end up moving away from the boy on the ground and then things started to get a bit serious for Jock.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: I was constantly turning in a circle and every time one would come to me I would lunge at them with the knife in a swiping movement to scare them.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEPMMOTHER: They picked up bits of pavement; they were throwing that at Jock.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: The rocks were aimed at my head and I was blocking them. All I remember is being hit on the head and falling down. I don't remember who or by what and I don't remember anything of what happened after that. The next thing I remember I'm on the ground the police are there.

CAPTION 2

Andrei Monov, 20, died from a stab wound in the armpit.

Antoan Zahariev, 19, received a wound to his side.

Jock Palfreeman was also injured.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: In first discussing what had happened with Jock, it became quite clear that the initiating event was Jock seeing a group of drunken young men attacking a pair of Roma boys, sometimes called Gypsies and he went to their defence and it was the subsequent melee that ended up with the death of Andrei Monov.

the story of the two Roma boys was never pursued by the police, they were never found and they were never sought for and in fact none of the boys that ever attacked Jock were also ever searched or arrested. It was only ever Jock who was searched and arrested, right from the beginning.

GERI PALFREEMAN, AUNT: He was charged with a very high- level murder charge which was called murder by hooliganism or with hooliganism. And what they mean by that, is that it was an unprovoked attack. That Jock apparently went out there with a knife wanting to kill people that night, wanting to kill Bulgarians specifically.



RUTH SHANN, PRO BONO LAWYER: It became clear that alcohol was a factor at play on the night. Jock himself had had a few drinks and had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1 but in contrast to that the boy who was injured had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.18 and amazingly the boy who died, Monov, had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.29.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: There was a double tragedy here: there was not only Jock in prison with a serious charge but another young man, not a dissimilar age to Jock – had also died.



JOCK PALFREEMAN: When you're in prison you don't want to be seen as being weak or emotional or things like this so it's actually hard for me to say - I'm trying to build up strength now as we speak to say it - I'd lie on the bed and my heart beat and it would echo back into the pillow and I would just think about Andrei Monov's heart stopping and trying to pump... I don't know... it's just very difficult for me to talk but you get the picture.

(Conversation between Simon and Jock)

SIMON: With the Monovs, I felt I've still got you. Even though..

JOCK: Debatably.

SIMON: Well, I can still, I can still come here and see you.

JOCK: Yeah, I know.

(Ends)

(Bulgarian TV News: January 3, 2008)

SUBTITLE: NEWS READER: More than 200 people came to the funeral of 20-year-old Andrei Monov, son of the famous psychologist Hristo Monov.

IVALIO ILIEV, ANDREI MONOV'S FRIEND: Everybody liked him. He was very outgoing. He was a very nice person. He was a very peaceful person. He did not fight, he did not argue.



DR KRASSIMIR KANEV, BULGARIA HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHT GROUP: At the funeral of Andrei Monov a lot of members of the establishment, of the then Bulgarian government as well as the judiciary, participated. The minister of interior was there. The head of the police was there.

(Bulgarian TV News)

HRISTO MONOV, ANDREI MONOV'S FATHER: I'm convinced that the killer of my son is a sociopath. He doesn't respect the values of our society.

(Ends)

DR KRASSIMIR KANEV, BULGARIA HELSINKI COMMITTEE, HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: The father of the dead boy was a graduate in psychology from Sofia University, we actually studied together.

Sound up: Mr Monov, do you mind if we ask you some questions… No.

Then he became deputy chairperson of the state agency of child protection. In Bulgaria you have to be politically well connected and personally also well connected to get this job.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: I had a rather rapid introduction to Bulgarian politics and the legal system. It was still an eastern bloc country in many ways and it was only since 1989 that they’d divested themselves of the communist regime. In 2007 the same year that Jock was put into prison, Bulgaria joined the EU but this was only on the understanding that the level of judicial governance was not really adequate to meet European standards and therefore they would have to undergo reform to make sure there was progress in reducing corruption and also improving their judicial system.



JULIAN MCMAHON, PRO BONO LAWYER: Simon was struggling with the legal issues and I organised a small team. Our role is limited. Simon had already employed a Bulgarian lawyer for his son.



RUTH SHANN, PRO BONO LAWYER: Interpol checks were done on Jock and it was found that he didn't have any criminal convictions or any pending charges in any of the countries that he has been in including Australia.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: We ended up having multiple trips to Bulgaria and in the March following the events finally we obtained the file with all the evidence for the trial, all the witness statements.

ALEXANDER DONEV'S POLICE WITNESS STATEMENT: There was an argument between Andrei and some Gypsies.

DR SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: The most exciting time for me was I got a translation of one of the independent witnesses, Viktor Georgiev. As his police statement unfolded I realized it was actually Jock's story.

VIKTOR GEORGIEV'S POLICE WITNESS STATEMENT: The hitting lasted for about 30-40 seconds. It was chaotic and random.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: I'm thinking, well why haven't the police taken this up? I mean this is Jock's story. Why are they saying there's no proof of anything that Jock said was true?



VIKTOR GEORGIEV'S POLICE WITNESS STATEMENT: I saw one of boys from the group come behind the boy with the knife and throwing some kind of object on him that as far as I could see, hit him on the head.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: We also found out that there was CCTV footage that was part of the evidence. Unfortunately, we didn't actually have access to this, um, prior to the trial



SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: The prosecutor has actually stated that Jock actually sought out victims to stab lethally. What I find so objectionable to that is it just flies totally in the evidence that her own experts have given her. Basically, their psychological profile of Jock is of a young man that has a strong sense of social justice, is not overly aggressive and is able to cope with stressful situations without losing control.

I do know he was a very impulsive boy, he was always the fixer who came and helped.



JULIAN MCMAHON, PRO BONO LAWYER: Jock pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder with hooliganism. If the case had happened in Australia, central to his defence would have been the claim that he was acting in self-defence.

CAPTION 3

Jock Palfreeman’s trial began in May 2008.

Andrei Monov’s parents and the prosecutor argued he should receive a life sentence without parole.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: Close family members are allowed to apply and be accepted as part of the defence team. And it was to my amazement that I suddenly found myself turned from father and friend to a quasi-lawyer.



JULIAN MCMAHON, PRO BONO LAWYER: The Bulgarian system is inquisitorial, so they don't have juries, they have a bench of judges. Simon and Jock are at the bar table together, one after another cross examining some of the important witnesses.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: It was extremely traumatic having the parents of the boy who died as the first two witnesses. I did doubt myself as to whether or not in fact I was doing the right thing for Jock.

EXTRACT FROM COURT TRANSCRIPTS OF ANDREI MONOV'S MOTHER: It is hard to talk about my only child. He made our life meaningful...

EXTRACT FROM COURT TRANSCRIPTS OF ANDREI MONOV'S FATHER: He had many various circles of friends, which I should say belong to the real elite of the Bulgarian youth.

DR KRASSIMIR KANEV, BULGARIAN HELSINKI COMMITTEE, HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: The court was called to decide whose interest it takes into consideration - a family which was well connected or somebody who came from the other part of the world and came to help a member of an ethnic minority that is almost universally hated by society.

RUTH SHANN, PRO BONO LAWYER: One after the other of the members of the group changed their version of events to now say that there were no Roma people there and there was no fight with them. The defence wanted to then bring in the original statements of the group members to the police but importantly the parents of the dead boy worked with the prosecutor to block the defence attempts.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: The time that I really noticed it and started to get very, very angry was when we were cross examining some of the policemen and we knew these three policemen had already said in their signed statements that Jock had gone to the aid of a Roma being beaten by the gang. In court they actually denied what they had actually written in their signed statements and of course I was just amazed. We knew they'd changed their story, the Monovs knew they changed their story. When we asked the judge to adjudicate, the Monovs used their right to say we're not going to have their police statements read out in court, therefore the policemen got away with it. How can we win?



JOCK PALFREEMAN: I'd like to say the things everybody knows - corruption, discrimination, racism, backwardness. My dad, Simon he sits me down and you know, no, we can't do this, we might put the court offside, da, da, da, da, da.



Saying goodbye in prison: I’ll see you in March – yes.

When is it? March 25, 26?

Both.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: And all this time I'm trying to show Jock that there is hope, we've got to go with the system. This is our big hope that the system won't fail you.

Sound up: See you in March. Be good. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: I remember the day in court when I saw the CCTV footage, and like many of those days in court, it was confusing

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: The expert had a laptop, small laptop and he showed the CCTV footage on that laptop.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: There were maybe 100 people in the room and no one could see anything and no one could understand anything and we weren’t allowed to make our analysis, we were never given a copy of the CCTV.



HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: I remember thinking this must be the kind of evidence which would throw doubt on the prosecution's case. And would, um, at least say that, uh, Jock was acting in self-defence.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: And I turned around and I noticed that the court reporter, the person who's supposed to be recording this information had left the room. None of this expert witness that we were, the cross examination had actually gone into the formal report. The judges, and they were a panel of five, were simply sitting, um, on their dais up the end, not taking notes and not listening.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: It was made very clear that, uh, that evidence was not at all significant. In December 2009 we'd been through some 18 months of court hearings. It was judgement day and it was a very simple statement. Murder with hooliganism and the sentence was 20 years.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: When my father grabbed my shoulder, I didn't want him to do that because I didn't need it and I didn't want other people to think I did, and I shrugged him off and I said I don't need support, you know, I don't need that. And my father said something to me which actually did ring home - it's not for you it's for me.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: I think part of my world fell in and my faith in the Bulgarian justice system just took a huge nose dive.

(Bulgarian TV interview outside court)

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: As far as I am concerned my son, Jock, is a courageous human being who did what very few of us would do in this community which was to go to the aid of someone. And what it led to was unfortunately a significant tragedy.



HRISTO MONOV, ANDREI MONOV'S FATHER

His father said he was proud of him. According to me from a moral aspect he can be condemned only as a father of a killer. Because I'm convinced that his son is a product of the family he was born into.





Caption 4

The verdict was upheld on two appeals despite the finding that police and witnesses had lied at the trial.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: The Bulgarian prison conditions are terrible. The biggest problem [00:27:30] are lack of activities, lack of work, lack of education and just complete and total corruption.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: In 2012 decided he would start up a union, which he called the Bulgarian Prisoners Rehabilitation Association.

Upsot in prison with prisoners: they put in isolation despite the fact he was appealing because that’s the law in Victoria.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: I have a drive to help other prisoners in the same drive that drove me to help the Roma on that night And it's because I believe that every man or woman has a responsibility to effect progressive change wherever they are.

HAMZA ACAOGLU, FORMER CELL MATE: Many prisoners don’t know what rights they have. Jock goes to them and says hey you have this right and you can make this. He try to help them. They threaten him many times the guards, the administration, they give him punishment for nothing.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: And they became quite vindictive and bitter and certainly within the last two years, that vindictive behaviour has really escalated to the point where it was becoming intolerable for Jock.

CAPTION 5

In July 2019, Jock’s parole application was rejected when authorities argued he was not sufficiently rehabilitated.

His appeal was heard before a new panel of judges.

It was successful.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: The judges felt that Jock had been a very good prisoner. That he’d done a lot of work in terms of helping other prisoners and that he had indeed met the requirement of serving parole.

KALIN ANGELOV, JOCK’S LAWYER: I looked at Jock and said to him ‘Now I will see you cry.’ He said: ‘No, you are not going to see me cry.’ At one point though, he said ‘Hang on to me because my legs are getting weak.’ He held on to the stand next to me. I saw a tear in his eyes.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: And then just to have the judges tell you that not only are you free, but we believe we have so much faith and trust in you that we’re even going to give you the highest type of freedom and that was just amazing.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: After the initial elation of the parole decision, I have to say things seemed to unravel a bit.

Very soon after, the backlash started. And the father of the boy who died Andrei Monov, led a march

(ATAKA RALLY)

Out with those who shamed our judicial system.

Who encroached on our nationality, on our country.

Thank you!

SIMONE PALFREEMAN, FATHER: And there was also a far-right wing group that actually mounted a demonstration outside the court. And this was all against the decision for parole and demanding that it be overturned.

(News report)

Far right political parties have used Palfreeman’s case to criticise the judiciary.

(Ends)

ROSSEN BOSSEV, JOURNALIST: The panel of judges was attacked by politicians, by prosecutors, even by the Supreme Judicial Council. The prosecutor general and his partners in crime, to say, saw a great opportunity to use that case for political means in order to attack judicial reform.

(News report)

Jock Palfreeman’s parole has set off a political firestorm in Bulgaria

(Ends)

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: I was extremely worried when I heard that Mr Monov had petitioned the prosecutor general, who is effectively probably the most powerful person in Bulgaria, um, to attempt to overthrow the parole decision and then the prosecutor general// petitioned the Supreme court of cassation, which is actually the highest court in the land.

(News report)

Australian Jock Palfreeman could face another two months in an immigration detention centre while a Bulgarian court decides his fate.

(Ends)

DR KRASSIMIR KANEV, BULGARIAN HELSINKI COMMITTEE, HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: Parole decisions of the Court of Appeal, are final in Bulgaria. This motion is entirely unlawful.

NIKOLAY HADJIGENOV, CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER: We have no justice in Bulgaria. The prosecutor office don’t follow the law. They make just political, Please Excuse my French, shit show.

KALIN ANGELOV, JOCK’S LAWYER: All this happen during the time of local elections and there’s a big fight in the society and Jock is somehow a victim in all this.

JUDGE EMIL DENCHEV: 48:20 We’re still not what we want to be. A real democratic country respecting human rights and rule of law.

News voice: Consular officials arrived at the Busmantsi Detention Centre but emerged without Palfreeman and without answers. Do you have an update? You’ll have to speak to Canberra.

MARISE PAYNE, FOREIGN MINISTER: We understand that this is outside Bulgaria’s normal legal process and we would be concerned Mr President if non-legal issues were seen to have an influence on this process.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: Jock was kept in detention illegally and with the mounting pressure against the Bulgarian government they eventually decided to release him.

JOCK PALFREEMAN (speaking Bulgarian)

(ABC News)

Today is the second attempt at my release.

SIMON PALFREEMAN, FATHER: But they had also declared that he could not leave the country. So now I’m not sure where we are with Jock because he’s now in this impossible situation where he’s been released into the community without any kind of identity because they’ve confiscated his passport. He’s got a deportation order at the same time and he’s got a travel ban and I do fear for his safety, I just feel that, there is still time for them to subvert the whole judicial system against Jock. If the court of cassation comes back and says, "we annul the parole decision," then Jock goes back to prison.

JOCK PALFREEMAN: The fear of going back to prison is connected with the fact that this fascist party still controls the prisons and they are very vicious and violent and corrupt and probably if I go back to prison there is not a judge in Bulgaria who would give me parole again.

You go back through all the choices you made, but also all the choices other people made and how they into connect to get to some fateful point in your life.

You know, I wasn't going to allow these guys to beat this guy to death. I mean, can you imagine if they had beaten the guy to death and everyone had just been watching?

(SIMON AND HELEN CONVERSATION)

I mean, what do you think we should do? Should we be getting on a plane or should you get on a plane or? Every day I keep saying we should go over. My presences in Bulgaria could be a bit polarising.

HELEN PALFREEMAN, STEP MOTHER: When I watch Simon, I can just see the despair. It's a terrible thing to think that, you know, you have almost been able to get your child out of Bulgaria, and then at the last minute, you've not been able to get your child out of Bulgaria.

SIMON PALFREEMAN: I won't believe that he is free until he is back on Australian soil.

TONY PALFREEMAN, GRANDFATHER: When Jock was arrested I knew from the news that it would be very difficult for him to get back home. And so we decided to keep the family together, and to keep behind Jock, is to put a light up on the hill, overlooking the valley, which would stay there for as long as he was away. And when he came back, there it would be. The light on the hill for Jock. The light on the hill will remain.

END CAPTIONS

Jock is staying with friends in Sofia and is appealing the validity of the ‘travel ban’.

The Australian Government has asked the European Commission to intervene on the basis that Bulgaria is not adhering to its own rule of law.