Legal Aid will stop representing a man accused of murdering a Tasmanian police officer if he does not return his paperwork, a court has heard.<\/p>\n
Constable Keith Smith, 57, was shot at a North Motton property, while he and another officer attempted to deliver a court-ordered repossession notice on June 16, 2025.<\/p>\n
He died at the scene.<\/p>\n
Leigh Geoffrey Sushames is charged with Constable Smith’s murder and the attempted murder of Sergeant Gavin John Rigby.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Leigh Geoffrey Sushames is due to return to court to deliver a plea later in August. (Facebook)<\/p>\n
Mr Sushames is also facing a charge of aggravated assault, with the prosecution alleging he threatened a Tasmania Police Tactical Operator with a firearm and refused his directions, in an attempt to avoid arrest.<\/p>\n
Mr Sushames appeared in the Launceston Magistrates Court via video link on Monday, but did not enter a plea.<\/p>\n
His lawyer, Kevin Toman from Tasmania Legal Aid, told the court his client had been sent paperwork but had not returned it.<\/p>\n
Mr Toman said if it did not come back, defence intended to withdraw from representing Mr Sushames.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Constable Keith Anthony Smith died in a shooting incident in North Motton on June 16. (Supplied: Tasmania Police)<\/p>\n
Plea expected at next court appearance<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old was charged three days after the shooting while under police guard at Launceston General Hospital, where he was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n
Constable Smith’s death left the police force and the Tasmanian community reeling.<\/p>\n
The 25-year police veteran was farewelled with a police funeral with full ceremonial honours in Devonport in late June, where hundreds of his colleagues joined the late officer’s family and friends.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Constable Keith Smith was farewelled with a full police funeral in June. (ABC News: Meg Fergusson)<\/p>\n
Speaking at the service, Inspector Andrew Hanson spoke of Constable Smith’s dedication.<\/p>\n
“Keith was, really, almost a living definition of what it means to be kind, what it means to be caring, and what it means to be gentle,” Inspector Hanson said.<\/p>\n
“He clearly had strong personal values, and he knew how to show us what they looked like.<\/p>\n
“And most of the time, he brought his partners up to be the ‘good cop’ too.”<\/p>\n
In a statement, his family said they were “deeply proud”.<\/p>\n
“His commitment to protecting and serving the community will always be a source of pride and inspiration to us,” it read.<\/p>\n
Mr Sushames is due to return to court to deliver a plea later in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legal Aid will stop representing a man accused of murdering a Tasmanian police officer if he does not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,48213,48215,48216,44,4905,48214],"class_list":["post-59112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-constable-keith-smith","tag-cop-shooting","tag-leigh-sushames","tag-news","tag-shooting","tag-tasmania-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}