Reader's Digest Australia Dec/Jan 2025

78   December 2025/january 2026 reader ’ s digest that his new cover might be exposed. So he decided to kill Platt. He bought an anchor, took Platt out to sea, knocked him unconscious, fixed the anchor to his body and heaved him overboard. But he made two key mistakes: he left the watch on Platt’s wrist, which helped identify him, and he unknowingly registered the date, time and place of his move- ment on the GPS. Walker’s defence team was arguing to dismiss the case. The defendant’s lawyer, Gordon Pringle, said that the prosecution didn’t have enough solid evidence. Without an eyewitness, he said, they could not prove that Platt had been murdered. His death could well have been a suicide. Furthermore, there was no proof that the anchor retrieved from Patricia Johnson’s house was the same one that was pulled up in John Copik’s net. Nor was there any proof that the anchor was the one Walker had bought on July 8, 1996. The manufacturer had made thousands, and the retrieved anchor could have been any one of them. More important, Pringle said, the prosecution could not prove that Platt was on Walker’s boat on the day that the alleged murder supposedly took place, or that Walker himself was there that day. Pringle argued that even the date and time of death could not be de- termined satisfactorily. Although the watch had stopped at 11.35, it was not clear whether it was am or pm. life. Once Platt returned to England, that was all at risk. Walker knew his meeting with Platt had to remain a secret. Thus, Sheena’s testimony could be the prosecution’s most potent weapon. Alone in his prison cell, Albert Walker must have realised this danger. On Sunday, February 2, 1997, he tel- ephoned his daughter, who had now returned to her mother’s house in Canada, to ask her to change her testi- mony and say that she knew that Ron was in Devon with him. Not long afterward, Sheena made her own transatlantic call – to the Devon and Cornwall police, inform- ing them that her father had called her from prison and ordered her to change her testimony. It was an explosive accusation. Phil Sincock realised that if allowed into the court record, it could be a trial clincher. On March 24, at a pre-trial hearing to determine if there was enough evi- dence to warrant a trial, Walker strode into the courtroom with all the bear- ing of a trial lawyer. He wore a dark suit, blue shirt and tie. His natural- grey hair was neatly trimmed. He looked personable and, except for the handcuffs, charming. The prosecution painted a picture of him as a calculating man who in- duced Platt to go to Canada, then stole his identity. When Platt could not make a go of it and returned to England, Walker, a wanted man, saw readersdigest.com.au   79 Bonus Read Justice Neil Butterfield began to instruct the jury. He reviewed the law and the evidence and in the end said, “Please take with you your common sense and your knowledge of the world.” The jury went out at 1pm. They returned at 3pm. Albert Walker was asked to stand up and face the jury. “We find the defend- ant guilty,” the jury foreman pronounced. A l b e r t W a l k e r blinked twice as though he wished to adjust his vision. He was told to remain standing. “This was a callous, premedi- tated killing designed to eliminate a man you had used for your own selfish ends,” said Justice Butterfield. The judge commended the detectives for painstaking police work, then looked to the prisoner’s box and said, “You may go down.” Albert Johnson Walker was going down, going down for life. According to the government’s own evidence, the last time anyone had seen Platt and Walker together was July 10. Death by drowning was estimated to have occurred approxi- mately ten days later. The judge, however, was not convinced by Pringle’s arguments. “It is my considered view,” he said, “that there is sufficient evidence to commit the case to the Crown court.” The tr ial was set for June 22, 1998. The evidence was simply overwhelming. Walker could not account for the whereabouts of the anchor that he had purchased on July 8; he could not explain why the GPS reading from the Lady Jane showed the date, time and place that it did and how he had come to be using Platt’s driver’s licence, his birth certificate, his bank accounts. Finally, he had no plausible explanation for where he was on the night of July 20. Added to all this was Sheena Walk- er’s painful testimony about the call from prison, which exposed her father for what he was: a supreme manipula- tor capable of doing anything to save his skin, including telling his own daughter to twist the truth. On the morning of July 6, 1998, A HAND IN THE WATER: THE MANY LIES OF ALBERT WALKER © 1998 BY BILL SCHILLER, HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Without an eyewitness, he said, they could not prove that Platt had been murdered. His death could have been a suicide After serving seven years of his life sen- tence for murder in a British prison, Walker was transferred to a Canadian prison. In 2007, he was further convicted of 20 Ca- nadian fraud and theft charges relating to 23 Ontario victims (many elderly) and sentenced to a four-year term to run con- current to his life sentence. It is estimated that he stole Canadian $3.2 million from his victims.