Rumours scotched that Family Court CJ is shifting chambers to Hobart … Wild oysters are calling … Hobart docket … Sheriff leaves a door open at Nowra Court House – receiving more severe punishment than the escapee … Top sheriff birched … Attorney General goes schtum … Theodora reports 

News around the Yarraside traps is that Two Wigs Willy Alstergren was moving his chambers to Hobart, to be closer to his private estate on Satellite Island in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. 

Not so. Lawyers can be such beastly gossips. The official version, I am told, is that Two Wigs has been on the Apple Isle attending the farewell on November 25 of Tasmanian based Judge Barbara Baker of the Circus Court. 

Justice Robert Benjamin is also moments away from retirement as the Family Court judge in Hobart, having spent 15 years before the mast. 

Two Wigs says he’s managing a docket of cases in Hobart until a replacement is found for Justice Benjamin – which might take some time given the government’s form. 

So, this should not be seen as a permanent move of the CJ’s chambers, although being closer to his wild, breathtaking Satellite Island, even temporarily, would not be a cross to bear. 

To hire the entire island the 2021 rates start at $2050 a night for two guests, with a two night minimum stay. 

Extra guests are $300 per person, per night. This includes gourmet breakfast, “an endless supply of wild oysters”, yoga mats and so on. 

In August 2018 a juvenile detainee escaped from the Nowra Court House and spent three weeks on the lam before being apprehended. 

David Browne, the sheriff’s officer at the court house, had left a door open in the area between the cells and the car park and the young fellow made his escape.  

Browne was charged with misconduct under the Government Sector Employment Act, NSW and big-wigs at the Department of Communities and Justice decided he should be “terminated” with the option of being able to resign. 

On appeal to the Industrial Relations Commission, commissioner Damian Sloan decided the penalty was a bit extreme for poor old Brownie, who had been an exemplary sheriff’s officer for many years. 

He quashed the termination decision and said that the appropriate penalty for leaving open the door was a reduced classification in the pecking order under the  Crown Employees (Sheriffs Officers) Award and that he get his pay that had also been terminated. 

“There is a final and troubling aspect to the case that must be addressed. Ms Hall deposed that she could ‘come to no other conclusion’ than that Mr Browne left the external door open as ‘a deliberate act by him to aid an escape’. This is a breathtakingly serious allegation. As Mr Browne submitted, the Sheriff accuses him of committing a criminal offence under s. 310C of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), which is an offence punishable by a maximum penalty of imprisonment for seven years. 

When challenged in cross-examination, Ms Hall did not resile from her position. Rather, to use the term adopted by Mr Chin [for Browne], she ‘doubled down’ to the point where she expressed the strong view that Mr Browne had in fact committed the offence. However, she had taken no steps to report the alleged offence to the police. 

There is no evidence before me that would support the Sheriff’s allegation. In any event, having made the allegation, the Department seemed to suggest that I could simply disregard it. Mr Brotherson [for the department] submitted that it was not part of the department’s case that a crime had been committed or needs to have been committed for the misconduct to be established. Given this position, it is impossible to fathom why a forensic decision was made to include such a serious allegation in the department’s evidence in chief. 

In all of the circumstances, the allegation was irresponsible and an apparently gratuitous slur on Mr Browne’s character. It should never have been made. 

Which leads me to comment that I have found it difficult to comprehend why the department apparently assumed the worst of Mr Browne from the outset – that is, that he would actively and deliberately have lied, and indeed engaged in criminal conduct. None of the evidence explains why the department took such a dim view of a long-standing employee with an apparently unblemished record of service.”  

Attorney General Mark Speakman SC was asked by his opposite number, Paul Lynch MP, for his reponse to the comments made about Sheriff Hall in the judgment. Reply: 

“It is not appropriate for me to comment on the matter.” 

Browne v Industrial Relations Secretary on behalf of the Department of Communities and Justice