Evidence placing David Eastman's car near AFP assistant commissioner Colin Winchester's home two nights before he was murdered cannot be relied on, Eastman's counsel has told jurors.
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George Georgiou SC said none of the witnesses identified Eastman, now 73, as the car's occupant, with one describing the person as a man in his mid to late 20s.
Continuing the defence address to the jury, Mr Georgiou said no witnesses were able to specify the make of the car, its colour or its registration number.
He said the prosecution said the car seen near Mr Winchester's house that night was Eastman's.
"In our submission the evidence just does not bear that out. It doesn't withstand close scrutiny," he said.
Eastman, a former treasury official has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Winchester, who was shot twice in the head as he parked on the driveway next to his Canberra home about 9.15pm on the night of January 10, 1989.
In evidence, Anne Newcombe she saw an aqua-turquoise coloured car parked outside the home of Mr Winchester's neighbour when she and her daughter went for a walk on the evening of January 8.
She thought the occupant was acting suspiciously and noted the car registration number. But, returning to her home, she was distracted by a phone call and plans for a trip to Sydney the next day and never wrote it down.
Questioned by investigating police on January 11, she said she nominated a number which, she said, popped out of her memory - YPQ038. The car was a medium-sized Japanese vehicle, probably a Mazda or a Datsun.
Eastman's car was a blue Mazda 626, registration number YMP028.
The prosecution said that number closely resembled Eastman's car registration number and he may have been conducting surveillance of the Winchester house.
Mr Georgiou said the number Mrs Newcombe nominated also resembled many other number plates in the ACT.
She later told the Winchester inquest the only thing she was certain of was that the number plate started with Y. All ACT number plates begin with Y.
To try to recall the number, Mrs Newcombe underwent hypnosis but that produced no results.
Mr Georgiou said another witness described a car sighted near Mr Winchester's home on January 8 as a small light aqua blue sedan, which might have been a Ford Capri or a Holden Torana.
"We suggest the evidence supports the proposition that the car they saw....is not Mr Eastman's car," he said.
The trial is continuing.
Australian Associated Press
