Here we go again: yet another judge making the case for Judicial Responsibility laws. If, under industrial manslaughter laws, bosses can be jailed for workplace deaths even where they weren’t directly responsible or even aware, why shouldn’t judges face some sort of accountability for their often reckless decisions on bail and parole?
Decisions so obviously shocking that even the judges themselves try to keep them secret.
A Northern Territory Supreme Court judge kept secret the details of how she bailed a man – who allegedly raped a child – to a small town two days after the territory government passed the nation’s “toughest” bail laws, despite a previous judge finding it would be “inevitable” the accused would run into the complainant and her family.
There’s so much to unpack in this story that it’s ridiculous.
Former Australian Navy combat system operator Brandon Lee Shannon King, 34, has been charged with two serious sex offences against a child in the town of Katherine – which has a population of around 10,000 – but last month was granted bail to live in the same town, multiple sources have said […]
Mr King, who was also a patrolman in a Navy Indigenous development program, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 and one count of indecent dealing with a child under 10. He was granted bail in May, leaving members of the Katherine community and territory government insiders shocked by the decision.
Why shocked? Seems like just another day in the territory legal system. As I reported earlier this year, supermarket owner Linford Feick, 71, was murdered by an Aboriginal teenager of bail for a string of violent offences and child-sex offences. But then, pretty much any night in the territory will see towns terrorised by gangs of Aboriginal children, most with rap sheets a mile long, out on bail and running amok. Such as the Aboriginal teenager who attacked a baby with a metal bar, while also out on bail. Then he was bailed again, because, ‘culture’.
Supreme Court Justice Meredith Huntingford received criticism earlier this year after making orders that a Northern Territory teenager accused of a violent assault of a two-month-old be granted bail to attend an “on country” funeral on an estimated $7000 taxpayer-funded charter flight.
The teenager went on to flee custody, with specialist police flown in to capture him.
Gosh, who could have seen that coming?
Everyone, apparently, except some of our learned judges.
According to court records, Mr King last year submitted a bail application to the local court in which he would be bailed to an address just a few minutes’ drive from the alleged victim’s primary school […]
But NT Local Court judge Julie Franz said in March last year: “What the child says in the (child forensic interview) is pretty clear, but I might say my biggest concern is this bailing the defendant to Katherine, where the child lives … there really is only one main supermarket, there’s one main street.
“Unfortunately, today, I just cannot see sufficient conditions for bail that would alleviate the concerns I have in relation to the matter.”
Enter Justice Meredith Huntingford.
On Friday afternoon NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby said she had written to the office of the DPP to have it consider bringing an application to the court to revoke the man’s bail.
“I have formally written to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and asked that they urgently consider a review of this matter,” Ms Boothby said.
I have a better proposal: bail him out to live in a spare room at the judge’s house.
Let’s see how much a risk she thinks he might be, then.
