Every time I think I might be over-reacting a little with my call for judicial responsibility laws, along comes another tilty headed idiot judge to remind me that I’m not.
Two teenage boys who allegedly terrorised staff with machetes in five shop hold-ups within two hours have been freed on bail a day later.
The youths, aged 15 and 16, fronted a children’s court on Tuesday where they begged to be allowed to go home to their mums after spending their first night in custody.
They wuz good boyz and dindu nuffin.
The younger boy, accused of being the “main aggressor” with a machete, wiped away tears with a tissue as he sat in the dock.
Oh, now it’s all tears and ‘I want my mummy’. I’m sure their victims aren’t exactly swayed by the crocodile tears, even if yet another judicial nong fell for it.
The court heard the pair were among five hoodlums who allegedly drove around in a stolen Subaru and wore balaclavas and brandished machetes as they stormed “vulnerable targets” in broad daylight on Monday.
Children’s Court magistrate Erica Contini granted the two teens “one chance” at bail, despite acknowledging the alleged offending was “incredibly serious”.
‘One chance’… of how many?
It comes as it was revealed in court the 16-year-old was already on summons to appear in court for armed robbery and aggravated carjacking offences.
Yeah, about these sniffly, hanky-wringing louts…
That related to him allegedly being among a gang of teens who beat a man unconscious with sticks when he refused to hand over his keys outside a gym in Cremorne about 1am on May 7.
Police vehemently opposed both boys being released on bail, arguing they were an unacceptable risk of endangering the safety of the public and committing further offences.
Senior Constable Lachlan McGrath, from the Mill Park Divisional Response Unit, said the offending had left the victims traumatised, with one staff member running away screaming and hiding in a back room when she saw the boys enter the store.
“We are not talking about a simple shop theft there,” he said. “It’s the use of intimidating weapons, cornering victims and threatening victims.
“This is a day these victims will never forget.”
But you can be sure a string of judges will.
Perhaps they’d be a little less lenient if it was them hiding from machete-wielding African thugs.
Which brings me back to my call for judicial responsibility laws.
After all, Victoria was the first of multiple states to introduce ‘industrial manslaughter’ laws, which can see employers jailed for workplace deaths. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t directly contributed to the death: the law presumes they should have known the likely consequences of their workplace decisions.
By the same token, aren’t we entitled to presume that judges should know the likely consequences of repeatedly bailing violent criminals and sex offenders? If the vicious thugs they so blithely turn loose, again and again, go on to – quelle surprise! – commit yet more crimes, why shouldn’t the bailing magistrate share the punishment?
Failing that, why not test the judge’s confidence that the poor widdle good boys won’t reoffend by making them put them up in a spare room.
Somehow, I suspect that the ridiculous judicial culture of revolving-door bail would come to a screaming halt.
