The money spigot turned off … Legal Aid comes to the party after Supreme Court temporarily halts the Family Court bomber trial … Available dollars all spent before the massive trial began … Puzzle over transfer of property to accused’s wife … Gabrielle Hunter reports
That was on Thursday, February 28, and by this week (Wednesday, March 6) Legal Aid had sprung into action and said it will fund his defence, after having declined an earlier application for assistance from the 72-year-old former firefighter.
What seemed like a doomed trial got another breath of life thanks to Dietrich and Justice Peter Garling finding that the accused’s lack of legal representation would render his trial unfair.
It leaves Warwick’s previous solicitor Alan Conolly in the lurch. He said he knew nothing of Legal Aid “purporting to act for him now”.
Conolly told the court on Wednesday:
“It must be the case that as of today Mr Warwick can’t be confident he will be represented in a fashion that is necessary in this case.”
Warwick is accused of a string of shootings and bombings in the 1980s targeting Family Court judges in Sydney. He has pleaded not guilty to all 24 charges, which include four murders and the bombing of the Parramatta Family Court building.
Until Warwick’s arrest in 2015, the series of attacks was considered one of the biggest mysteries in the history of Australian crime.
Warwick’s trial was initially estimated to last six months from February 19, 2018. The case has proven to be far more complex than anticipated.
Pre-trial deliberations extended over 32 days and resulted in 22 separate judgments. The trial itself has, to date, occupied 103 hearing days and remains far from concluded. The transcript spans approximately 5,800 pages and includes 356 evidence exhibits. The crown has called 70 witnesses so far and proposes to call a further 155. And we’re up to judgment number 64.
Justice Garling spelled out the test in Dietrich v the Queen, laid out by the High Court in 1992. Speaking generally, in order to obtain a stay, the accused must prove:
Unsurprisingly, the complexities and length of the trial, so far, has run up quite a tab for the accused.
Justice Garling estimated that up to the present time Warwick had accrued $4,581,729 in legal fees, far exceeding the $800,000 he had available for his defence.
In fact, Justice Garling found that the entirety of the funds which Warwick had available for legal fees, was spent before the trial had even begun.
In the circumstances, Warwick’s lawyers told the court they could no longer appear for him.
Typically, an unrepresented client without assets to fund their defence would be eligible for assistance from Legal Aid. However, Warwick’s wife refused to put up their family home as surety.
The ownership of the property was a key point of contention in Garling’s consideration.
At the time of his arrest, Warwick was the sole registered proprietor of the property. Prior to his arraignment, he arranged for the transfer of the family home in its entirety to his wife.
However, through a series of administrative confusions the certificate of title recorded both Warwick and his wife as owning equal shares in the property, despite both parties believing the wife held the title on her own.
In its submissions, the crown argued that Mr Warwick was entitled to 50 percent of the value of the property. This portion amounted to approximately $500,000 which would be sufficient to fund legal representation for the rest of the trial.
HH wasn’t convinced:
“… although the legal title to the Douglas Park property has not been completely transferred by the accused to his wife, I am satisfied that it is not appropriate to regard the accused’s 50 percent legal title to the property as anything other than an interest he holds on trust for his wife … it is not an asset which is available to the accused to spend on his legal fees.”
The sheer size of the proceedings, the complexity of the evidence, and the limited resources available to Warwick would create an unacceptably low likelihood of a fair trial being achieved, without someone stumping up the money to keep the proceedings on the road.