Legal experts say there’s a slim chance convicted baby killer Keli Lane will be granted parole when a new law is tested later this week.
The 47-year-old has served more than 13 years behind bars for the murder of her newborn baby Tegan, who disappeared just two days after she was born in secret at Auburn Hospital in 1996.
Lane has maintained her innocence, saying she had arranged for the father, Andrew Morris or Norris, to take custody of Tegan.
Despite extensive searches, the man and child were never found and Lane was found guilty before a jury in 2010.
The former water polo champion was convicted before New South Wales introduced the ‘No Body No Parole’ – legislation which could now decide her fate at a private meeting of the State Parole Authority on Friday.
The 2022 law requires the parole authority to refuse parole to offenders who do not cooperate to identify the location of a body missing in homicide cases, according to the NSW Government.
“Keli has been caught up in this and it’s going to be a really interesting test to see how the parole board view this case in light of these new rules,” University of Newcastle Criminologist Doctor Xanthe Mallett said.
Lane’s chances of being released are “vanishingly small”, University of Sydney’s Law School senior lecturer Doctor Andrew Dyer said.
The parole decision will largely come down to the interpretation of Lane’s cooperation with police in finding Tegan.
Detectives haven’t spoken to Lane since the early 2000s and have no plans to again unless she has information for them.
“It might be open for Keli Lane to say that she did not have the capacity to give the information because she was not responsible for the murder of which she was convicted,” Dyer said.
If authorities aren’t convinced, Lane will likely remain behind bars for the remainder of her 18-year maximum sentence.
“To retrospectively apply this and basically double punish somebody is, in essence, unfair,” Mallett said.
