Henry Keogh gets $2.5 million compensation after 20 years in prison

The family of a dead lawyer are outraged her former fiancé has been awarded $2.5 million in compensation after he spent 20 years in prison despite being wrongfully convicted of murder. 

Henry Keogh was sentenced to life imprisonment over the drowning death of his fiancée, Anna-Jane Cheney, with the conviction later quashed.

But the family of Ms Cheney have reacted with shock to news of the compensation payout and are now seeking legal advice, the Adelaide Advertiser reported.

  

Adelaide man Henry Keogh (pictured) has been awarded $2.5 million in compensation after he was wrongfully convicted of murder 

Keogh had been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty over the drowning death of his fiancée Anna-Jane Cheney (pictured)

A statement from the family via their lawyer Greg Griffin said they are looking into ‘legal advice on the options available to pursue Keogh for the matters arising from the death of Anna-Jane’. 

Keogh was found guilty of drowning Ms Cheney, then 29, in a bath at their home in Adelaide’s east in March 1994. 

He was sent to jail for a minimum 25 years, after the prosecution mounted a case based mainly on circumstantial evidence, which included more than $1 million in life insurance policies that listed Keogh as the sole beneficiary. 

Keogh was released from prison in 2014 after the Court of Criminal Appeal found flawed forensic evidence led to a miscarriage of justice in his 1995 trial. 

The prosecution dropped the case in November 2015 after former chief forensic pathologist and key witness Dr Colin Manock was deemed medically unfit to stand.

Keogh told Seven News the compensation payout meant he and his family could now put the ‘sorry chapter’ behind them. 

Ms Cheney died six weeks before she and Keogh were due to be married (the couple are pictured together)

‘Myself, and my family in particular, went through a lot of torture and anguish for nothing,’ Keogh said.

‘It means I’ve got some financial security for me and the family and we can put this sorry chapter behind us.’  

Ms Cheney died six weeks before the couple were to be married. 

South Australia Attorney-General Vickie Chapman announced the compensation payout on Monday, saying ‘let me be clear, there is no winner in this case’.

‘The view of Mr Keogh’s innocence or guilt, or otherwise, is academic in my assessment of this matter,’ she said. 

Ms Cheney’s family have expressed ‘serious concerns’ Ms Chapman oversaw the compensation payout, adding ‘any application by Keogh for compensation should have been allowed to take its proper course’.   

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