Other Publications
The WA Bikie Wars
An 8,000-word chapter in Bombs Guns and Knives; Violent Crime in Australia, edited by Malcolm Brown (New Holland Publishers September 2000)
Righting Wrongs
A 6,000-word chapter in Journalism: Investigation & Research, edited by Stephen Tanner (Pearson Education Australia October 2002)
The Story of Broken Lives
A 5,000-word article published in HQ Magazine March 2001. Winner Magazine Publishers’ Association 2001 Story of the Year, finalist in the Walkley Awards for magazine feature writing 2001.
Broken Lives condensed
in Encounters, published by Readers Digest in Australia and New Zealand, November 2002
Other Projects
Serial Killers
by Paul B. Kidd (Pan MacMillan 2000), as footnote to chapter on Cooke page 117. Includes: “The complete story of the ordeal of John Button……can be found in Estelle Blackburn’s superbly researched, award-winning Broken Lives.”
Bombs, Guns and Knives
edited by Malcolm Brown (New Holland Publishers 2000), in chapter on Jaidyn Leskie, page 200, referring to the Button and Beamish convictions: “…following some brilliant sleuthing by enterprising journalist Estelle Blackburn, those convictions have been thrown into doubt and are now subject to review.”
What Happened to Freeda Hayes
by Robin Bowles (Pan MacMillan 2002), page 260: “…..Estelle is a multi-award-winning former journalist and government press secretary turned investigative writer. She spent six years of her life proving the innocence of a man called John Button, who had been jailed for the murder of his girlfriend forty years before. Although another man, Eric Cooke, had confessed to the crime before he was executed (in the last hanging in Western Australia), John Button was sentenced to ten years in jail. At the time of our night at Burswood, he was still fighting to clear his name, with the help of Estelle and a team of lawyers whom she had cajoled into assisting him pro bono….”
Journalism: Investigation & Research
edited by Stephen Tanner (Pearson Education Australia 2002), references in Chapter 15 Investigative journalism and ethics – a slippery slide rule by Suellen Tapsall and Gail Phillips, including page 308: …”Blackburn…spent the next 10 years sifting through all the available evidence, speaking to witnesses, discovering new evidence overlooked in the initial police investigation, and putting together an argument in her book Broken Lives, which convinced the government to allow an appeal against the original guilty verdict. Blackburn embarked on a true crusade during which she put her professional and personal life on hold, made use of her multiple personal and journalistic networks, and persuaded, cajoled and pestered those whose cooperation was essential to revealing the whole story…..”
Rough Justice
by Robin Bowles, Five-Mile Press 2007, Chapter 6 titled Rough Justice in the Wild West, the John Button Story
The Conviction of the Innocent
by Chester Porter QC, Random House Australia, 2007, Button and Beamish injustices of the 1960s finally overturned referred to on page 15 and later pages.