Waterstreet dips in and out ... NSW's land titles registry on the block ... Law & Justice Foundation being starved to death ... Another trial for David Eastman
Waterstreet dips in and out … NSW’s land titles registry on the block … Law & Justice Foundation being starved to death … Another trial for David Eastman
THE Rogerson-McNamara murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court proceeds apace, despite the fact that barrister Kara Shead has departed unexpectedly from Glen McNamara’s defence team.
She has been replaced by seasoned defence counsel Gabriel Wendler. In the interim before Wendler had been briefed to appear Charles Waterstreet, in a surprise move, turned-up for McNamara.
Waterstreet originally appeared for McNamara before Justice Geoffrey Bellew in July last year discharged the jury after two days of openings in the first Rogerson-McNamara trial.
The media cannot publish the reason the first trial was aborted, however Waterstreet said there was no reason he could not now re-appear for McNamara, and did so as a holding measure.
The trial is now in its 13th week. Both accused have pleaded not guilty to murdering Jamie Goa and supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.
A major restructure of the land titling and registration services is underway and around 50 redundancies are expected by June 30.
KPMG and Boston Consulting are busily packaging the largest centralised land title registry in Australia to be operated as a business concession by the private sector.
It is understood Macquarie Bank for years has been interested in getting its paws on the registry, which returns around $60 million a year to the state treasury, after contributing to the funding of LPI’s valuation services and information sourcing.
Baird & Co are on a crazed privatisation binge, and handing over the operation of the land titles registry to corporate concessionaires is as bad as it gets. The integrity of the system is at stake and not only is the Public Service Association opposed to it, so too is the Law Society.
Lawyers should be on the barricades.
At its current level of funding the NSW Law & Justice Foundation will be out of business in two years, according to chairman Paul Stein in the latest annual report.
The foundation’s noble mission is to “advance the fairness and equity of the justice system, and to improve access to justice for socially and economically disadvantaged people”.
Set up under statute in 1967 it makes grants to worthy causes, engages in community education and undertakes research studies on justice related issues.
Most of the money comes from the public purpose fund, which has been steadily shrivelling.
The foundation says it needs a bare minimum of around $2.1 million a year to fulfil its statutory mandate. For the last two years it managed to squeeze $1.25 million out of the PPF, supplemented by crumbs from the Commonwealth AG’s department and Legal Aid.
To keep operating on a starvation financial diet it has had to start dipping into its modest reserves. Staff have been shredded and there has been a move to cheaper digs in Pitt St.
Stein, who is a former member of the NSWCA, says that since the foundation has a statutory responsibility it should be funded to properly do the job.
In the good old days, when Terry Purcell was the foundation’s director, there was plenty of spare loot to splash on round-the-world study tours, even taking former Labor AG Terry Sheahan along for the ride.
The steady financial strangulation of the foundation is similar to what the government has done to the Law Reform Commission.
Shadow AG, Paul Lynch, says the Baird government seems “restricted to the myopic view of merchant bankers”, who are driving much of the government’s agenda.
There’s to be another prosecution of David Eastman on a charge of murdering the assistant federal police commissioner Colin Winchester, who was shot dead in the driveway of his Canberra home in 1989.
Eastman was convicted in the ACT Supreme Court in 1995 and given a life sentence. He did nearly 20 years before acting justice Brian Martin’s board of inquiry found in May 2014 that Eastman did not receive a fair trial.
The prosecution failed to give important material about the forensic evidence to the defence team and consequently Martin found that the accused had been denied a fair chance of acquittal.
Martin recommended his conviction be quashed and that a retrial would not be feasible or fair – although he had a bob each way, saying:
“I am fairly certain that the applicant is guilty of the murder of the deceased, but a nagging doubt remains. There is also material pointing to an alternative hypothesis consistent with innocence, the strength of which is unknown.”
The prosecutor at the trial was Michael Adams, now Justice Adams of the NSW Supremes. The crown’s main expert witness was Robert Barnes, who provided gunshot residue analysis linking the accused to the murder scene.
Barnes’ work was tested by other experts from the UK, Israel and the US. To varying degrees they disagreed with his analysis, but the dispute among the forensic experts was not disclosed to the defence.
Martin found the prosecution’s forensic material “deeply flawed”.
Adams admitted to the board of inquiry that the prosecution failed in its duty to make information available to the defence, but he claimed this was either inadvertent or because it was mistakenly assumed it had been passed on.
In August 2014 the ACT Supremes said that it was open to the DPP to commence a new trial. Eastman sought a permanent stay on further proceedings, arguing that another trial would not be fair because of the extended delay, that many of the witnesses had died and that he had already served enough time.
The DPP believes there is still a strong circumstantial case against Eastman.
During the stay hearing the court heard from John Ibbotson, who was responsible for gathering the prosecution’s forensic evidence. He was asked why a crucial letter written by Barnes, which revealed the divisions between the forensic experts, was not disclosed.
Ibbotson replied that it was Adams’ responsibility.
“I was the bricklayer, he was the architect. He decided what would go and what wouldn’t go.”
Earlier this month former Yarraside appeals judge David Ashley decided that a new trial should proceed. Tony Whealy was meant to have decided the stay application, but he was challenged because he had served on the NSWCA with Adams.
Whealy’s decision to reject the apprehended bias application was overturned on appeal.
Here we go again. Eastman is now 70.
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