Retired prison governor Ian Grindlay said that Ryan told him "straight out" that he had shot but not meant to kill Hodson. Sister Margaret Kingston of the Good Shepherd Convent in Abbotsford, said Ryan told her that he had shot Hodson, but had not meant to kill him. Eyewitness Twenty-five years after being a witness in Ryan's trial, where he gave evidence claiming to have seen him commit the murder, a man broke his silence, for fear that the alleged killer was becoming a latter-day Ned Kelly. Les Watt wrote to The Australian: "Let me assure you and your readers that Ryan did kill Hodson." Watt spoke out after reading Philip Opas' comments and the latter's autobiography. Watt was one of four witnesses to testify seeing Ryan fire a shot. Watt said that it might well be proper for Opas to leave the bar as his emotional involvement with the case had certainly distorted the facts, leading as it had to the suggestion that Ryan might not have fired the shot that killed Hodson. Watt, on the contrary, said that he saw Ryan take aim and fire and then saw Hodson fall flat on his face and not move. "It was a sickening sight. I also witnessed a slight puff of smoke come from the carbine Ryan used. This was probably as a result of a bullet passing through a well-oiled barrel bore." Case for innocence An Australian criminologist, Gordon Hawkins, the director of Sydney University's Institute of Criminology, doubts the damning validity of the "unsigned confessions" of Ryan in a television film documentary, Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Although verbal confessions are not permissible in court, in the 1960s the public—and therefore the jury—were much more trusting of the police. As to whether as a result an innocent man was hanged, there is at least a reasonable doubt following revelations of police corruption uncovered by various Australian police royal commissions. Australian police have to record or tape all interviews they carry out in connection with a crime. The police had no evidence of these unsigned verbal confessions. Ryan signed only a statement saying that he would not be giving any statements, verbal or written, to anyone except his lawyer. Hawkins questions why Ryan, a seasoned criminal, would suddenly feel the need to tell all to the police. In 1993, a former Pentridge prisoner, Harold Sheehan, claimed he had witnessed the shooting