Greg Lynn: Update after former pilot conviction overturned over alleged murder of Carol Clay in Victorian High Country

Former Jetstar training pilot Greg Lynn has returned to court a month after his murder conviction was thrown out on appeal.

The 59-year-old’s conviction over the death of Carol Clay, 73, in Victoria’s High Country was overturned in the Court of Appeal.

Handing down their findings on December 11, a panel of three appeal judges found a “substantial miscarriage of justice” had occurred during Mr Lynn’s trial in 2024 and ordered a retrial.

The judges upheld Mr Lynn’s appeal on two grounds, finding the trial prosecutor had breached rules that govern fair trials through an attack on Mr Lynn’s character and when dealing with the evidence of police ballistics specialist Paul Griffiths.

The move came just over a year after Mr Lynn was jailed for 32 years after a jury found him guilty of Ms Clay’s murder but acquitted him of murdering Russell Hill, 74.

The elderly couple vanished while camping in the remote Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020, with Mr Lynn charged by police 20 months later.

At trial, Mr Lynn maintained he was innocent of murder, putting forward an account of two accidental deaths and a panicked effort to avoid being wrongly blamed.

Mr Lynn was remanded in custody to return to court in late July.

During Mr Lynn’s appeal, his barrister Dermott Dann KC submitted there should not be an order for a retrial. The three Court of Appeal judges found the “interest of justice require a new trial”.

“There is a powerful public interest in ensuring that a fair trial is held for alleged wrongdoing of this high order,” the judges wrote.

“There is no reason to think that the fundamental unfairness which permeated the first trial will carry over to the new trial.”