Foster kept notes of ‘kill confession’
TWO prison diaries kept by serial conman Peter Foster will form key evidence in the murder case against accused wife-killer John Chardon.
Brisbane Magistrates Court has heard Foster, who once shared a jail cell with the Gold Coast millionaire, kept two notebooks filled with details of alleged confessions by Chardon that he had murdered his wife Novy.
The court yesterday heard the books, with “contemporaneous notes”, would be given to Chardon’s defence team.
The notes form the basis of Foster’s explosive statement to police, claiming Chardon had told him he shot his wife Novy in the head because she wanted a divorce, the court has heard.
As part of an investigation into Chardon, a secret listening device was also used to record Chardon and Foster while they were behind bars.
Queensland Corrective Services lawyer, Andrew Lossberg, said Foster had detailed “exactly where that device was” in his statement to police.
Mr Lossberg asked the court to consider whether documents to be disclosed by QCS about listening device methodology should be redacted in the public interest and to protect the safety and welfare of inmates.
Chardon’s barrister Tony Kimmins did not object to the redacted information being disclosed to the court initially.
Novy Chardon disappeared on February 6, 2013.
Three years later Chardon, who ran a successful international lubricants company on the Gold Coast, was charged after a lengthy police investigation that had involved searches of a property owned by Loretta Sheerin, the mother of pop star Ricki-Lee Coulter, in 2015.
Neither Ms Sheerin nor her family were persons of interest. The body of the 34-year-old mother from Upper Coomera has never been located.
The prosecution has previously said there was no forensic evidence linking Chardon to his wife’s alleged murder, but the circumstantial case included an allegation that carpets in her bedroom had been cleaned with ammonia.
Chardon has previously denied killing his wife and has not been required to enter a plea to the murder charge.
The court has already heard that he did not report Novy’s disappearance to police and was the last person to see her alive.
The matter returns to court today.