dispute with a neighbour on 17 December 1987; and Eastman was charged with assault. He led a determined campaign to convince police that he had been wrongly charged and that it was his neighbour who had been the instigator. On 16 December 1988 Eastman met with Colin Winchester, the Chief Police Officer of ACT Policing, in an attempt to review the assault charge. The meeting was brokered by Neil Brown, the shadow attorney-general, who also met with Peter McAulay, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police. On 21 December 1988 Winchester advised Eastman that he would need to face the assault charges in court; and an appearance date was set for 12 January 1989. Eastman was advised by letter that the AFP would not interfere with the conviction. The letter arrived at Eastman's flat on the morning of 10 January 1989. It was alleged that Eastman had made threats against Winchester's life in the period preceding Winchester's murder. Death of Winchester On 10 January 1989, at about 9:15 pm, Colin Winchester was shot twice in the head with a Ruger 10/22 .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle fitted with a silencer. Winchester was murdered as he parked his police vehicle near his house in Deakin, Canberra. Winchester parked in his neighbour's driveway; his neighbour was an elderly woman who felt safer with a car parked in her driveway. Winchester is Australia's most senior police officer to have been murdered. The day following Winchester's murder, police interviewed Eastman as a murder suspect. Legal proceedings After two years of investigations that included an inquest by the ACT Chief Coroner, Eastman was summonsed to appear before the Coroner, but failed to do so. A warrant for Eastman's arrest was issued on 23 December 1992 and on the same day he was arrested and charged with the murder of Winchester. Eastman was subsequently committed to a trial. Murder trial During the 85-day trial that commenced in 1995, Eastman repeatedly sacked his legal team and eventually chose to represent himself. Eastman also abused the judge during his trial, and during later legal proceedings and appeals. A report written for Eastman's murder trial stated that he previously had "six charges of threatening to kill, 128 charges of making harassing or menacing phone calls, 11 charges of assault and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm". Also "He has been charged with assaulting police on three occasions." During the trial