in March 1984 a witness testified that Crabbe had been rude and aggressive in the bar. This witness reported she had later seen Crabbe on the floor of the bar, being held down by three men. A second witness corroborated that a man had been involved in a scuffle with three men. The witness testified that after the truck crashed into the bar he saw the man who had been involved in the scuffle leave the truck's cabin and exit "very quickly" towards the rear of the truck via the gaping hole the truck left in the side of the building. The witness had been knocked down by the truck. Crabbe offered no reason for his actions. At trial he pleaded memory loss from his removal of the second trailer until waking to the sound of the truck's exhaust amid the damaged bar room after impact. He was convicted of all five counts of murder by a jury. The judge sentenced him to the mandatory term of life imprisonment on each count of murder, each term to run consecutively. Asked if he had anything to say, Crabbe replied "No, nothing." Crabbe later appealed to the Federal Court of Australia, which found that the judge at the original trial had erred in his summing up to the jury and the convictions were set aside and a retrial ordered. The Crown then appealed that decision to the High Court of Australia, but this was dismissed. Crabbe pleaded not guilty at his second trial which was held in the Darwin Supreme Court in 1985. This trial concluded on 7 October 1985 when a second jury convicted him on all five counts of murder. Crabbe was again sentenced to five consecutive terms of life imprisonment. In 2004, the Northern Territory's mandatory 'life means life' legislation was repealed and an automatic 25-year non-parole period was fixed under the new laws. Later that year, the Northern Territory DPP applied to fix a longer non-parole period, and the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory increased that to a thirty-year minimum (the longest in the Northern Territory's history) backdated to 18 August 1983, the day of the murders and his arrest, to be served at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre. In early 2005, Crabbe was moved to a prison in Perth, Western Australia after strong pleas from his family, including his sister, Flo. Crabbe became eligible for release