The Australian’s podcast Shadow of Doubt led to a delay of 10 months for the sex offence trial of a “sadistic” paedophile already serving a 48-year jail term for abusing his daughter, court documents have revealed. William “Rob” Gilfillan, a former physical education teacher, was to stand trial in Victoria in February last year on five counts of indecent assault and sexual penetration of a person under 16, relating to two schoolgirls in his care in Gippsland in the 1980s. Due to the presumption of innocence the jury could not be told about Gilfillan’s convictions for child abuse in New South Wales.
The Shadow of Doubt podcast, launched in March 2023, claimed the conviction for the rape and torture of his daughter in 2016 may be a “grave miscarriage of justice”. Gilfillan and his ex-wife Karen, who was also jailed for sexual abuse, told The Australian from jail: “We’re innocent … these things just did not happen.” An editorial in the newspaper in 2023 said the victim’s story was “manifestly implausible”. Neither the podcast nor other reporting named the Gilfillans, because there were suppression orders in place until a jury returned a verdict in the Victorian courts.
But details such as the family’s involvement in high-level athletics and teaching meant people recognised them. the eve of the empanelment of the jury in the Victorian case last year, the defence barrister, Paul Kounnas, told the court his client’s name and criminal history was easily discoverable online. Kounnas said the reporting of the jail interview by the journalist Richard Guilliatt had sparked feverish speculation on internet forums such as Reddit. The prosecutor, Sandra MacDougall, said the publicity had “created an irredeemable prejudice to the conduct of this trial”.
Justice Michael O’Connell denied a stay but ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to attempt to remove the prejudicial material from the internet before the trial could go ahead. He delayed jury selection until 1 December 2025. When the trial went ahead in December the jury found Gilfillan guilty of “brazen and forcible” sexual crimes and he was sentenced in June to seven-and-a-half years in jail, to be served concurrently with his record 48-year term.
The Australian did not respond to a request for comment. In April, Corrective Services NSW said it was investigating how Guilliatt had been able to interview the couple in jail. After legal restrictions were lifted, the victim in the NSW case agreed to be identified by news.com.au and said the podcast had been highly detrimental to her mental health.
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