Convicted murderer Greg Lynn’s interactions with police decades before the missing campers’ deaths can now be revealed after a years-long suppression was lifted.
The order, which was first made in January 2023 during a pre-trial hearing in the magistrates court, lapsed on Wednesday after media fought for it to be overturned.
The suppression prohibited media from reporting on Lynn’s criminal history, including any interactions with police in relation to his first wife Lisa Lynn.
Mrs Lynn was found dead outside her Mount Macedon property, north of Melbourne, in October 1999.
A coroner determined she died after consuming a quantity of drugs and alcohol, and no one was charged in relation to her death.
But it can be revealed she obtained an intervention order against Lynn after their relationship broke down.
On two occasions, Lynn breached the order by attending the Mount Macedon home and then having a heated phone call with Mrs Lynn.
She complained to police and Lynn was asked to return a personal organiser he had taken from the family home.
Officers took him to where he said it was located but instead of returning it to police, he just kept walking to the train station.
Lynn was subsequently charged with two counts of breaching the intervention order and escaping police.
He pleaded guilty to the offences in the magistrates court in May 1999 and was given a good behaviour bond without conviction.
During a pre-trial hearing in May 2024, prosecutors told the court they wanted Mrs Lynn’s parents to give evidence about her relationship before she died.
The mother gave a statement about travelling from Tasmania to Victoria to visit her daughter Lisa when she was trying to leave Lynn.
“As far as I’m concerned, Greg is responsible for my daughter’s death via mental torture inflicted by him, she lived in fear of him,” the court was told.
“Lisa had documented numerous instances … of the abuse.”
Crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu alleged Lisa was subjected to frequent physical and mental abuse at the hands of Lynn.
He told the court Lynn “exploded into a fit of uncontrollable rage when out in Macedon for dinner” first at a man and then redirected his rage at his wife.
“Both parents of Lisa Lynn are alive, inquiring if they are available,” Mr Porceddu said.
Lynn’s barrister Dermot Dann KC hit back that it was all “hearsay” and argued that none of this material was permitted to be aired before the jury.
The jury in Lynn’s double murder trial was not told about his prior dealings with police.
He has always denied he murdered missing campers Carol Clay, 73, and Russell Hill, 74, in March 2020, claiming their deaths were instead an accident.
The jury convicted him of Mrs Clay’s murder in June 2024 but acquitted him over Mr Hill’s death.
He is fighting his conviction and his 32-year jail term in the Victorian Court of Appeal, with a decision yet to be handed down.
