Conviction Overturned for Man Previously Serving Life Sentence for Young Footballer’s Murder

A man who rated himself “10 out of 10” honest at trial and claimed his fatal stabbing of a young footballer was provoked has successfully challenged his murder conviction.

Birdsall Fa’apepele died after being stabbed 42 times at a caravan park at Paget, in central Queensland, in the early hours of December 14, 2021.

Steven Dean Michael Walker-Ely pleaded guilty to his manslaughter but denied the charge of murder at the start of his trial in 2024.

A Supreme Court jury found Walker-Ely guilty of murder after a four-day trial and he was jailed for life.

But in a judgment handed down yesterday, the Queensland Court of Appeal accepted Walker-Ely’s argument there had been a miscarriage of justice while he was giving testimony in his own defence.

He told the jury he had been living at the caravan park and he stabbed the 25-year-old Mackay Magpies player after being provoked by an attempted sexual assault.

The prosecutor improperly asked Walker-Ely during cross-examination at trial to make a self-assessment of his own general honesty, defence barrister Ruth O’Gorman told the appeal court.

The jury should not have heard the question and answer because it was not limited to the events surrounding Fa’apepele’s death, O’Gorman argued during the appeal hearing.

“What about as a general matter? Do you regard yourself as a perfectly honest man, 10 out of 10?” the prosecutor asked Walker-Ely during the trial.

“Yes, I do,” the accused murderer replied.

Walker-Ely’s trial defence counsel objected at the time, describing the question as inadmissible and “not something I’ve ever seen”.

The prosecutor argued the questions were necessary to establish if Walker-Ely was a bad witness when he claimed Fa’apepele had tried to rape him and then threatened to kill him.

Appeal judge Thomas Bradley found the prosecutor’s questions were improper as Walker-Ely had not previously claimed to the jury he was of good character.

The other two appeal judges agreed with Justice Bradley.

The appeal court ordered Walker-Ely’s murder conviction be set aside and that he face a new trial.