Every year thousands of young Australians pack their backpacks, book their EuRail passes and make for Europe, leaving their parents to worry and fret about their wellbeing and their ability to cope with foreign languages and customs.

God forbid anything should happen to them.

Two days after Christmas in 2007, Australian pathologist Simon Palfreeman got the call any parent would dread. His 21 year old - Jock - had been in a fight, another young man was dead and the Bulgarian criminal justice system had swallowed his son.

A year and a half on, with legal machinery groaning and Jock Palfreeman locked on a murder charge in Sofia Central Prison, Foreign Correspondent travels to Bulgaria with a father desperate to prove his son's innocence but growing ever more doubtful about the ability of the Bulgarian system to deliver justice.

The dead man, 20 year old Andrei Monov, died from stab wounds on the way to hospital. Jock Palfreeman admits wielding the knife that killed him, but claims it was in self defence.

He says he tried to break up a gang attack on some gypsies when the gang turned on him.

The Foreign Correspondent story is reported by Belinda Hawkins. It's the first time that either Jock Palfreeman or any of his family have spoken to the media since his arrest.