Latest chest developments … Long Bay lock-down … Court watch … New judges galore … Bathroom emergencies … Legal aid’s bush crisis … Coronial selection capers … Theodora reports
Justinian reported on the decision earlier this year.
Turner also filmed a nine year old girl over the back-fence while she was playing in the next door property, with her underpants exposed and his camera zooming in for lengthy views of her crotch.
“The ordinary meaning of the definition of ‘private parts’ would not engage the depiction or description of the chest of a prepubescent female child. The term ‘breasts’ connotes a visible degree of sexual development.”
He also thought that filming children in their underwear did not come within the Crimes Act’s then meaning of “child abuse material”.
Basten invited the offender to withdraw his plea of guilty to producing child abuse material for sexual gratification and then reduced Judge Colin Charteris’ sentence from eight years with five to serve, to a balance of 18 months to serve.
We discover the parliament has done something to rectify Basten’s approach. The Crimes Act definition of “private parts” now provides that for the offences related to child abuse material, voyeurism, and intimate images, breasts includes breasts whether or not they are sexually developed.
The definition of private parts was also amended to extend the meaning of “anal area” to include “whether bare or covered by underwear”.
Justice Christine Adamson was in the minority in Turner, having come to the conclusion that the chest of a young girl in this context does amount to “private parts” and that filming the crotch of a nine-year-old in her underwear amounts to depicting the child in a “sexual context”, which constitutes child pornography.
See the new ss. 91FB(4)(a), 91FB(4)(b), 91(I)(1) and 91N(1) and Crimes Act, NSW.
We hear of sentencing issues in the District Court due to the lock-down of Long Bay every Wednesday – a direct response to budget constraints.
On Wednesdays nothing happens. No prisoner transfers, no rehab programs, and prisoners stay in their cells all day doing nothing much.
How should this be taken into account when a prisoner is sentenced?
As it is, prisoner programs are being curtailed across the board. The Aboriginal art program has been suspended along with a number of permanent teachers.
Like everything else, many of the prison education programs have been outsourced to a private operator, BSI Learning.
The Long Bay lock-down has gone on for 95 Wednesdays.
Earlier this month NSW AG Mark Speakman unveiled seven new Dizzo judges – between them bringing “more than two centuries of legal experience” to the court.
It was all part of of the government’s new $150 million package “to deliver swifter justice and reduce pressure on the court” – a nice change from eight years of cutting back on judicial appointments and proper staffing.
Then bingo, today (Dec, 21) as Christmas Eve loomed, there were another five District Court appointments.
The latest five new appointments involve a bit of poaching from other courts, four are for the District Court and one for NCAT. So the Dizzo ends up with a net gain of seven, not the suggested 12.
The AG also announced in December the appointment of five new beaks – all of who are filling current vacant positions – so no net additions there.
As far as courts go, the Dizzo at Parramatta is bursting at the seams and has to send some of its cases to Darlinghurst for trials.
And Newcastle court only has joint toilets, for everyone – jurors, lawyers, staff.
To top it of, an ABC journalist covering a trial at a regional courthouse faces a charge of contempt for accidentally walking into the jury room thinking it was the toilet.
Parts or regional and rural NSW are in the grip of a legal aid drought.
Where there are no legal aid offices, private solicitors are signed up to do court work on behalf of the commission.
For some time, at least since 2009, the rate has been $150 an hour. If the pay had kept pace with the CPI it would now be about $200 an hour. Other government agencies pay private solicitors $250 an hour.
Private practitioners are turning up their noses at doing this work for what they considered remuneration beneath their dignity.
Attorney General Speakman and Treasurer Perrottet are aware of the problem but nothing seems to have happened.
There was a hiatus at the Wee Waa Local Court which found itself without a solicitor prepared to do legal aid work. Other firms at Narrabri, about 40 kilometres away, also resisted the temptation of taking the lowly hourly fee.
Apparently, the problem at Wee Waa has been resolved and a firm of lawyers is on deck to do the duty roster work – but the long term problem remains unfixed.
The NSW State Coroner Les Mabbutt unexpectedly bailed out of the job less than eight months after taking up duties.
The word on the street is that health problems are an issue, although Les himself can’t be too sick as he’s returning to the Local Court at the end of January.
The State Coroner’s position is now being quietly advertised with applications closing on January 13.
Of course, the usual “rigorous and merit based” selection process will apply, the same process that saw Les jump over other better qualified applicants, including the acting State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan, Peter Singleton SC, who has experience running investigations, and retired beak and former deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon, now an adjunct professor of law at UNSW and the author of works on coronial law and practice.
Arthur Moses, as the then bar president, was on the selection panel and he backed Teresa O’Sullivan for the job.
Attorney General Speakman as good as admitted the Mabbutt’s appointment was not the unanimous recommendation the selectors.
In a question on notice, shadow AG Paul Lynch asked whether Speakman was initially advised that the decision of the selection committee to choose Mabbutt was unanimous, and whether he was later advised it was not unanimous.
The reply on October 30:
“The appointment committee recommended candidates that it considered suitable. I recommended the appointment of the current State Coroner after reviewing the selection committee’s recommendations.”
Nothing about unanimous there.
Chief Madge, Graeme Henson, is desperately keen to retain the Coroners “Court” as part of his empire, resisting recommendations for a separate jurisdiction.
In the meantime, within the gleaming new Forensic Medicine and Coroner’s Court at Lidcombe the workload piles up with six full-time coroners scrambling to organise 6,000 cases a year.
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