The family of a Melbourne teenager Isla Bell say they have been let down by the justice system after murder and manslaughter charges laid over her death were dropped.
Isla, 19, went missing in October 2024, sparking a huge response from the local community and a widespread search, but her body was found six weeks later inside a fridge at a Dandenong rubbish tip.
Police then charged the last person to see Isla alive, 55-year-old Marat Ganiev, with murder, and charged Israeli national Eyal Yaffe, 59, with attempting to pervert the course of justice, alleging Mr Ganiev killed Isla in his St Kilda apartment and dumped the body with the help of Mr Yaffe.
But Mr Ganiev’s charge was downgraded to manslaughter when the case reached the Supreme Court, and on Tuesday prosecutors dropped that charge also, and said he would be charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice instead.
Mr Yaffe, who was on bail, had all charges dropped and left court a free man.
Isla’s family said they were devastated by the collapse of the case, and are calling for Victoria’s attorney-general to step in.
“My expectations in our legal system were low, but not low enough. Truth and justice are omitted,” Isla’s mother Justine Spokes told The Age.
“You may as well have just chucked me out in the bin with my daughter.”
She also revealed prosecutors told her they had a strong case against both men and confidence in the manslaughter charge just four days earlier, and warned her not to speak to the media to “protect the integrity of the case”, but said she now felt she was “led up the garden path until the eleventh hour”.
“Where is the integrity of our state justice system?” she asked.
“Let the jury decide.”
Isla’s grandfather David Spokes said he too had lost faith in the police and courts, and wanted Attorney-General Sonia Kilkenny to intervene.
“All my personal and professional life I have believed that our adversarial system of justice delivers just that – justice. No more. Our justice system is failing badly and needs reform,” he said, and said the principle of trying evidence in front of a jury seemed to have been abandoned.
“It is not the job of bureaucracy to play the role of jury and bargain away the hopes and expectations of those left behind in the aftermath of horrific crimes,” he said.
The Office of Public Prosecutions said in a statement the manslaughter charge was discontinued “because there were “no reasonable prospects of conviction due to insufficient evidence”.
Forensic experts told a committal hearing last year Isla’s cause of death could not be determined, as her remains were in an advanced state of decomposition and injuries including a fractured skull could have been caused by rubbish truck machinery.
Both Mr Ganiev and Mr Yaffe had pleaded not guilty ahead of their trial, which was set for next week but has now been vacated.
Header image: Left, Isla Bell. Right, Eyal Yaffe. Inset, Marat Ganiev in an outdated photo (Facebook).
