Palfreeman case

  Palfreeman had a profound effect on those he met, both young and old. They are sticking by him. 

  A gently spoken gypsy called Simeon told me the Australian rescued him from knife carrying thugs at an outdoors concert in 2006.

  Engineering student and Samokov friend Didi Alexandrova wondered if Palfreeman's fatal flaw was naivety.

   "Not everybody would help a stranger, taking a risk with their own life," she said.     https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-12-02/australian-awaits-fate-after-years-in-bulgarian/1165992

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  two young people in Australia in 2004. However, despite an investigation at the time, no charges were laid against Palfreeman in relation to that incident with Australian police citing a lack of evidence. Palfreeman has maintained that he was not responsible for the people being stabbed. https://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/palfreeman-jock.htm

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Permalink Submitted by Nick (not verified) on Fri, 22/04/2011 - 9:10am

This is so fucking incorrect you massive tool.  I was there, I saw Jock run in to the house to grab a knife at the house party.  Two of the 'gatecrashers' got stabbed, you think these 'gatecrashers' started stabbing each other do you?  What kind of fucking retard are you?

And asshole, the reason why no one got charged was because all the evidence was hearsay, it was a matter of 1 bunch of boys opinions verse another, with no evidence, of course no one could be formally charged.

I was with my mate a week after he got stabbed 5 times by Jock, and do you know what he said that dog piece of shit did?  He clenched the knife so that the blade protruded through his fingers so that he could stab people, but it looked like he was only punching people.

GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT YOU IGNORANT CUNT.

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1-2-08  in December 2004 that nearly killed James Atack and his friend

Matt, both 20, the daily said.

  No charges were pressed at that time, because of insufficient evidence, but both identified him as the perpetrator at that time.

  "It just hurts to know he has done it to someone else, I was a millimetre away from dying," the paper quoted Matt, who was too afraid to have his last name published, as saying. "I had huge gashes out of my chest, I had surgery . . . I couldn't work for 10 weeks.”  https://www.novinite.com/articles/89006/Australian+Stabber+in+Bulgaria+Accused+Before

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  After arriving in Bulgaria in May 2006, Jock Palfreeman quickly made friends with Grayham Saunders, an English builder who was renovating a house in Samokov, a small town 35 miles outside the capital.

  While staying with Grayham and helping him to repair his house, Jock Palfreeman befriended locals his age, bought a motorcycle, fell in love and picked up harvesting work between travels across the countryside.  During this time, Jock Palfreeman witnessed numerous acts of violence involving Bulgarian skinheads and Roma people.  After intervening in some incidents to assist Roma, and being assaulted himself, Jock Palfreeman started carrying pepper spray as a form of defence….

  According to Hawkins, a nearby traffic surveillance camera recording,

made around 1am that morning, shows two young men starting an

altercation with what some members of

Andrei Monov’s group told police

was a Roma man.  Hawkins’s reading of the witness statements suggests 

that one of the two youths starting the fight was Andrei Monov. Very soon 

afterwards, he is joined by at least 10 other youths, who independent 

witnesses say all participated in bashing the victim.  Not long afterwards, a 

lone figure can be seen rushing across the square to aid the

Roma.  According to Hawkins, that person was almost certainly Jock

Palfreeman….

  subsequent testimony at court from police officer Asen Stoychev, which Hawkins summarises as follows: ‘He recalled that Lindsay was behaving ‘inadequately’ and seemed to be in shock.  But under questioning, Stoychev went much further than in his original statement. Now he said that at the scene he picked up two very different versions of what had transpired.  One version came from the friend holding Andrei’s head who told him that they had been ‘walking’ when suddenly someone with a knife had ‘come at them’. Other group members told Stoychev that the group had an ‘altercation’ with people from ‘the minority’ and the defendant had tried to stop it, after which they attacked him and he had ‘defended himself’. The officer added that passers-by and security guards from the Sheraton had told him the same thing.’ [page 198]

A security guard at the Sheraton Hotel, Viktor Georgiev, and a car park attendant, Lyubomir Tomov, were both situated very close to where the incident occurred. They did not know either Jock Palfreeman or Andrei or their friends and so can be considered to be independent. These crucial and objective witnesses supported Jock Palfreeman’s version of events that he only brandished the knife after being attacked.  They had given police statements to this effect but sloppy errors caused long delays in subpoenaing them to give evidence at trial which caused the defence great distress, increasing its concern that the police investigation was at best sloppy and at worse affected by undue influence from the victim’s family.

Interestingly, the police who arrived first at St Nedelya Square and took the witness statements were not called as witnesses at the trial.  Only those police who subsequently took over the investigation were asked to appear….

subsequent testimony at court from police officer Asen Stoychev, which Hawkins summarises as follows:  ‘He recalled that Lindsay was behaving ‘inadequately’ and seemed to be in shock.  But under questioning, Stoychev went much further than in his original statement.  Now he said that at the scene he picked up two very different versions of what had transpired.  One version came from the friend holding Andrei’s head who told him that they had been ‘walking’ when suddenly someone with a knife had ‘come at them’. Other group members told Stoychev that the group had an ‘altercation’ with people from ‘the minority’ and the defendant had tried to stop it, after which they attacked him and he had ‘defended himself’. The officer added that passers-by and security guards from the Sheraton had told him the same thing.’ [page 198]

A security guard at the Sheraton Hotel, Viktor Georgiev, and a car park attendant, Lyubomir Tomov, were both situated very close to where the incident occurred.  They did not know either Jock Palfreeman or Andrei or their friends and so can be considered to be independent. These crucial and objective witnesses supported Jock Palfreeman’s version of events that he only brandished the knife after being attacked.  They had given police statements to this effect but sloppy errors caused long delays in subpoenaing them to give evidence at trial which caused the defence great distress, increasing its concern that the police investigation was at best sloppy and at worse affected by undue influence from the victim’s family.

Interestingly, the police who arrived first at St Nedelya Square and took the witness statements were not called as witnesses at the trial.  Only those police who subsequently took over the investigation were asked to appear….

subsequent testimony at court from police officer Asen Stoychev, which Hawkins summarises as follows: ‘He recalled that Lindsay was behaving ‘inadequately’ and seemed to be in shock.   But under questioning, Stoychev went much further than in his original statement.  Now he said that at the scene he picked up two very different versions of what had transpired.  One version came from the friend holding Andrei’s head who told him that they had been ‘walking’ when suddenly someone with a knife had ‘come at them’. Other group members told Stoychev that the group had an ‘altercation’ with people from ‘the minority’ and the defendant had tried to stop it, after which they attacked him and he had ‘defended himself’. The officer added that passers-by and security guards from the Sheraton had told him the same thing.’ [page 198]

A security guard at the Sheraton Hotel, Viktor Georgiev, and a car park attendant, Lyubomir Tomov, were both situated very close to where the incident occurred. They did not know either Jock Palfreeman or Andrei or their friends and so can be considered to be independent. These crucial and objective witnesses supported Jock Palfreeman’s version of events that he only brandished the knife after being attacked.  They had given police statements to this effect but sloppy errors caused long delays in subpoenaing them to give evidence at trial which caused the defence great distress, increasing its concern that the police investigation was at best sloppy and at worse affected by undue influence from the victim’s family.

Interestingly, the police who arrived first at St Nedelya Square and took the witness statements were not called as witnesses at the trial.  Only those police who subsequently took over the investigation were asked to appear….

subsequent testimony at court from police officer Asen Stoychev, which Hawkins summarises as follows: ‘He recalled that Lindsay was behaving ‘inadequately’ and seemed to be in shock.  But under questioning, Stoychev went much further than in his original statement.  Now he said that at the scene he picked up two very different versions of what had transpired.  One version came from the friend holding Andrei’s head who told him that they had been ‘walking’ when suddenly someone with a knife had ‘come at them’. Other group members told Stoychev that the group had an ‘altercation’ with people from ‘the minority’ and the defendant had tried to stop it, after which they attacked him and he had ‘defended himself’.  The officer added that passers-by and security guards from the Sheraton had told him the same thing.’ [page 198]

A security guard at the Sheraton Hotel, Viktor Georgiev, and a car park attendant, Lyubomir Tomov, were both situated very close to where the incident occurred.  They did not know either Jock Palfreeman or Andrei or their friends and so can be considered to be independent. These crucial and objective witnesses supported Jock Palfreeman’s version of events that he only brandished the knife after being attacked.  They had given police statements to this effect but sloppy errors caused long delays in subpoenaing them to give evidence at trial which caused the defence great distress, increasing its concern that the police investigation was at best sloppy and at worse affected by undue influence from the victim’s family.

Interestingly, the police who arrived first at St Nedelya Square and took the witness statements were not called as witnesses at the trial.  Only those police who subsequently took over the investigation were asked to appear….

In 2011, during the appeal Sydney barrister Jonathan Cohen contacted the Bulgarian Embassy in Canberra, claiming that Jock Palfreeman had brutally assaulted him in 2006.  Cohen asked that the ‘Bulgarian Court of Appeal uphold the sentence and offering to provide more information about the assault on him.’ [pages 266-267].http://lsa.net.au/Portals/7/%27Every%20Parents%20Nightmare%27%20Study%20Guide.pdf

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  Reporter Belinda Hawkins asked Palfreeman about the night and the following is a transcript of that interview.

  "On December 30th 2004, my brother called me and asked if I was in the neighbourhood and I said yes and he said his friend was having a party and his friends wanted to see me because I see his friends all the time.

"So I went over and I was just talking and chatting with his friends.

"Just as I was about to leave, a big group of boys - maybe 10 or 15 - came.

About five ran in the front way and then others were jumping over the fenc es and stuff.  Then I grabbed one who knew me and I said hey what's up? I was happy to see him.

He said 'oh we're here to beat up one guy’.  I said 'oh who?’  And he said 'oh I think his name is Spenser'. So I went oh shit that's my brother and as I ran I pushed him and ran in the back of the garden.

They chased him.  He was walking backwards and they'd pushed him into the back fence.  I said listen, I am Spenser's brother and I'm not moving and they said just move aside we only a problem with your brother, not you.  It seemed one of them had a grudge against him because of an ex girlfriend.

"So I turned around to Spenser to tell him to jump the back wall and leave because if he left the situation it would be a lot more easier to calm down and to simmer down because with Spenser gone you know there's nothing there left for them.  And Spenser said no, I'm not leaving you here.

"I had my back to the rest of the group and then all of a sudden they just attacked me from behind and just started punching me in the back of the head. One of them had a knife but I don't know who and I was pushed against the wall and then I fell to the ground and it was all just chaotic, kicking and punching and stuff.

"Then one of the guys from the group, I don't really know who he is, was stopping them from kicking me.  And then I got up and I saw my brother's friend had been stabbed or slashed or whatever.

"So I got out my mobile and called the police and ambulance and then I took him inside and was trying to put pressure on his wound and whilst I was carrying him they were still trying to attack me and punch me from behind.

"And then the ambulance came.  They (the gang) were all out the front shouting and stuff and then when the police came they started running away out the front gate and down the street, but the police stopped them from leaving.

"It was a mix of people aged between 17 and 21 or 22 and I was 18 at the time.

"I didn't have a knife or anything at all like a weapon.

"Maybe a week later my father called me and said the police wanted to talk to me and I said no problem and he gave me the detective's number. I've forgotten his name now but then I called him up and said I'll come in and talk to you.  He said ah tomorrow and I said no that's no good for me. I think it was Wednesday.  I said what about what about Friday.  He said no problem.  So on Friday I went in and talked to them for about I don't remember, about an hour and then I left.

"I hadn't done anything other than stand between my brother and them.

"I would never have thought that night in Chatswood to have had repercussions down the line.”  http://indymedia.org.au/2011/03/30/call-out-for-solidarity-for-jock-palfreeman-11th-17th-of-april.html

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  That includes a poorly laid claim by Sydney barrister Jonathan Cohen that Jock had assaulted him—it was quickly disproved because Jock hadn’t even been in Australia at the time.  For some reason, this of all things incensed me.  That’s probably because until that point I’d considered the absence of delivered justice the Bulgarian court’s fault, and now here was an Australian inflicting further, senseless damage. Moreover Cohen, a man of the law, should have known and done better with investigating the issue before bandying around accusations.  https://blog.boomerangbooks.com.au/every-parents-nightmare-part-1/2013/06

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