Year 10 Legal Studies: Daniel Morcombe

Serial child sex offender Brett Peter Cowan has been found guilty of murdering Queensland teenager Daniel Morcombe. After seven-and-a-half hours of deliberation, a Supreme Court jury in Brisbane found the 44-year-old guilty of murder, indecent treatment of a child and interfering with a corpse.

Prosecutor tells jury of evidence against accused murderer collected during elaborate police sting operation. Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe was almost certainly murdered within an hour of his abduction more than a decade ago, a Brisbane court has been told.

TIMELINE: Look back at the key developments in the murder case of Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe.

Coroner says more could have been done to focus on Brett Peter Cowan, who is now serving life sentence for Daniel’s murder. The early police response to the disappearance of Queensland boy Daniel Morcombe did not pay enough attention to his murderer, Brett Peter Cowan, as a suspect, a coroner says.

The High Court has dismissed an application by Daniel Morcombe's killer to appeal against his conviction. It was the last legal avenue for Brett Peter Cowan, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for killing 13-year-old Daniel in 2003.

Daniel Morcombe's killer will remain behind bars for at least another 15 years after Australia's highest court refused his application to appeal his murder conviction. Brett Peter Cowan has now exhausted all his legal avenues for appeal, after the High Court deemed there to be insufficient grounds to overturn the conviction.

THE parents of Daniel Morcombe have spoken outside Brisbane High Court following the decision to refuse to grant Daniel’s convicted killer Brett Cowan leave to appeal his murder conviction.

The 2003 disappearance of 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe in Queensland highlighted the difficulties police face when investigating a potential murder with no body and no crime scene. Ultimately, it was the application of a relatively new covert policing methodology that would lead to the arrest in 2011 and the conviction yesterday of Brett Cowan for Morcombe’s murder.

What are the problems with the Mr Big technique? Dr Kirk Luther, Professor Brent Snook and Professor Timothy Moore explain.

The “Mr Big” technique originated in Canada around the early 1990’s.The operations vary because they are tailored to the particular situation but there are common design features. The target is a person suspected of a crime and, because of the expense involved in
Mr Big operations, usually a very serious crime. There is (or is perceived to be) insufficient evidence to bring the person to trial. The aim of the Mr Big operation is to secure a confession.

WATCH THIS: 60 Minutes goes inside the biggest murder investigation in Queensland's history and the largest child abduction case in Australia. On December 7, 2003 Daniel Morcombe was last seen waiting to catch a bus on the Sunshine Coast. Daniel was a beautiful young boy - trustworthy and punctual - so when he didn't come home that night, his parents Bruce and Denise knew something was wrong. His disappearance sparked Queensland's biggest and longest police case. Detectives pursued thousands of leads but as the days turned into weeks, and then months, the hopes of finding Daniel seemed extremely remote. The months turned into years but Bruce and Denise Morcombe never gave up searching for their boy, or looking for his killer, and in 2009 they began calling for a Coronial Inquiry. Finally they succeeded, and in 2011, the inquest began. It would be the turning point in the investigation as Police switched their focus to Brett Peter Cowan. Over the next six months investigators carried out a delicate and highly secretive undercover operation. It culminated with Cowan confessing to Daniel's abduction and murder, and leading detectives to his remains. Bruce and Denise had found their son and now his killer has been put behind bars