Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday April twenty five, twenty twenty five. The lawyer
Speaker 1: representing Bruce Lemon in It to Woomba rape trial claims
Speaker 1: important evidence like witness statements and CCTV footage is missing
Speaker 1: the matter who has been adjourned until late May while
Speaker 1: the prosecution and defense get organized. The former Liberal staffer
Speaker 1: hasn't entered a plea, but has indicated he'll fight the chargers.
Speaker 1: Australians are gathering to commemorate Anzac Day around the nation. Today.
Speaker 1: You can read about the last flight out of Vietnam
Speaker 1: following the fall of Saigon in nineteen seventy five and
Speaker 1: the loyal Vietnamese embassy staff left behind right now at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot Com dot au. The Northern Territory will
Speaker 1: require judges to refuse bail to alleged offenders if community
Speaker 1: safety is at risk. That's in new laws the government
Speaker 1: hopes to pass when it urgently recalls Parliament on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Following the stabbing death of a seventy one year old
Speaker 1: supermarket worker, an eighteen year old man who was on
Speaker 1: bail at the time. Is the alleged offender today? What's
Speaker 1: gone so wrong in the Territory. In the early evenings,
Speaker 1: the residents of Nightcliff in Darwin get out into the
Speaker 1: warm twilight air cycling and jogging along the beach where
Speaker 1: the land meets the team or sea. Nightcliffe's median property
Speaker 1: price is just under one million dollars. One of the
Speaker 1: territory's most exclusive places to live, and for a long
Speaker 1: time it is felt a world away from the really
Speaker 1: gritty crime that's one of the Territory's hottest political issues.
Speaker 1: Until Wednesday afternoon, while the afterwork crowd was getting out
Speaker 1: into the evening, Nightcliff's local friendly grosser, Linford Feek was
Speaker 1: living out his last moments.
Speaker 2: Laid Darwin shop owner has been fatally stabbed after confronting
Speaker 2: a man trying to steal from his store. Let's go
Speaker 2: back to Matt Cunning and he's live at the scene.
Speaker 3: Matt.
Speaker 2: Has the offender been caught? He was apprehended just after midnight, Pete.
Speaker 2: This is a shocking incident that.
Speaker 1: Will Territory Police said. An eighteen year old suspect handed
Speaker 1: himself in early on Thursday morning.
Speaker 3: The matter is currently under investigation by our major crime
Speaker 3: team with support from a myriad of other specialist areas.
Speaker 1: As the sun rose over Darwin. On Thursday, disturbing details
Speaker 1: about that alleged assailant emerged.
Speaker 4: His birthday was just earlier this week. He turned eighteen
Speaker 4: years old. Very young boy, you could say.
Speaker 1: Leah Mendez is a reporter with The Australian.
Speaker 4: Now there's a bunch of charges there. Two counts of
Speaker 4: aggravated assault, threatening injury, deprivation of liberty, to counts of
Speaker 4: sexual intercourse without consent, two counts of sexual intercourse with
Speaker 4: a child under the age of sixteen years of age,
Speaker 4: resisting police, two counts of assaulting police and possession of
Speaker 4: metham fettermin So you know, these are incredibly serious charges
Speaker 4: and there are a lot of questions right across the
Speaker 4: territory by people who are wandering why was this boy on.
Speaker 1: Bail and so what do we know about that? Why
Speaker 1: was he on bail?
Speaker 4: The interesting thing is that he was first taken into
Speaker 4: custody towards the end of December in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: There was an out of court bail hearing heard by
Speaker 4: an on call judge sign over the telephone. He was
Speaker 4: still in the watchhouse when it happened, and it appears
Speaker 4: that he's just been given bail with hardly any conditions.
Speaker 4: A lot of the time, for far less serious offending,
Speaker 4: alleged defenders are often given an ankle bracelet. You see
Speaker 4: so many children walking around the territory with ankle bracelets on.
Speaker 4: It's something that people are just accustomed to seeing.
Speaker 1: So that was December twenty twenty three when this young
Speaker 1: man was granted bail and it's now a long time on.
Speaker 1: Do we know anything about what was going on in
Speaker 1: his life between then and now?
Speaker 4: Yes, So he was essentially ordered to remain at a
Speaker 4: very small community in the territory, and he was prohibited
Speaker 4: to enter Darwin unless he had to attend to urgent
Speaker 4: medical dental treatment. Who was prohibited from approaching or communicating
Speaker 4: either directly or indirectly with the alleged victim. And he
Speaker 4: was also banned from drinking alcohol and taking drugs.
Speaker 1: Linford Fik is the seventy one year old man who's died.
Speaker 1: What do we know about him?
Speaker 4: He was born in Canada. He purchased this small little
Speaker 4: grocery store that by all accounts as a very successful
Speaker 4: and family run business that he operated with his wife Margaret.
Speaker 4: He's an Australian citizen and very loved in this very
Speaker 4: tight knit community. But this is the thing. I was
Speaker 4: talking to his son Ben, who also works at the store.
Speaker 4: You know, they had seen this increase in concerning behavior
Speaker 4: where they almost were of the understanding that something like
Speaker 4: this was bound to happen.
Speaker 1: In the territory. There's no bigger political issue than crime,
Speaker 1: and Liam has spent much of the past few years
Speaker 1: covering shocking, violent offending on the streets of communities like
Speaker 1: Alice Springs.
Speaker 4: I think this has really pushed the territory into a
Speaker 4: level where they've quite possibly never been before. There is
Speaker 4: a lot of anger there is, to be completely honest,
Speaker 4: a lot of anger which is racially motivated. Some people
Speaker 4: don't want to talk about it, but that is the
Speaker 4: truth of what's happening on the ground there. As sad
Speaker 4: as it is, it was only earlier this month he
Speaker 4: saw another elderly man who was essentially hacked in his
Speaker 4: own home by two young boys thirteen and fourteen years
Speaker 4: old who broke into this Also a seventy one year
Speaker 4: old man's home who was left in intensive care under
Speaker 4: heavy sedation after the attack, and he essentially had cuts
Speaker 4: to his bone from a machete. On my last trip
Speaker 4: to Alice Springs earlier this month, I met a gentleman
Speaker 4: named bart and he was a lovely local who lived
Speaker 4: near the hospital in Alice Springs, and there was this
Speaker 4: little riot that had occurred on his streets one evening.
Speaker 4: I arrived just about two to three minutes after police
Speaker 4: had arrived, but was standing out on the street armed
Speaker 4: with a fire poker and a large can of wasp spray.
Speaker 4: And he looks at me and just says, this is
Speaker 4: how we have to live. People are arming themselves because
Speaker 4: they're so fearful that people are going to either attack
Speaker 4: them or come into their own homes and attack them,
Speaker 4: or steal their cars. This is the reality of many
Speaker 4: people who are living in the territory.
Speaker 1: Sky News as Matt Cunningham spoke to the owner of
Speaker 1: the local barbershop, Cathie Zaviro after mister Fike's death. I'm
Speaker 1: just in shock.
Speaker 3: I'm such a shock for the family, family run business.
Speaker 1: I just don't know how they're going to move forward.
Speaker 3: Eleven million dollars to have someone murdered right in front
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: It's a joke that eleven million dollars she's talking about.
Speaker 1: Is the giant Nightcliff Police station right across the road
Speaker 1: from where Linfordfick died, but it's never been used as
Speaker 1: a working cop shop. It's the base for the territory's
Speaker 1: tactical cops and it closes each day at four pm.
Speaker 1: There are no cells or watchhouse. It's just like any
Speaker 1: other office. The territory's Chief Minister is the Country Liberal
Speaker 1: Party's Lea Finocchiaro, who was elected in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: after a tough on crime campaign. She sheded blame for
Speaker 1: the situation home to the Labor government, which had governed
Speaker 1: the territory for eight years. One of the crimes that
Speaker 1: got Finocchio elected was a shocking twenty twenty three murder
Speaker 1: a young man named Declan Lavity, who was working in
Speaker 1: a bottle shop in the suburb of Jingly, just six
Speaker 1: minutes drive from Nightcliff.
Speaker 5: Keith Keranua was found guilty of fatally stubbing mister Lavity
Speaker 5: during a brief but deadly knife fight inside the Airport
Speaker 5: Tavern BWS on March nineteen, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: There were some quite dramatic scenes here. After the verdict
Speaker 2: ash in factor, the court was locked down for about
Speaker 2: five minutes. There were angry scenes as those supporters yelled
Speaker 2: out their anger and displeasure at the verdict.
Speaker 1: Declan was twenty, his killer was just eighteen. Keith Kernawia's
Speaker 1: family and friends said he was acting in self defense
Speaker 1: when he plunged a knife five times into Declan Lavity,
Speaker 1: but the court heard he had a history of violence,
Speaker 1: including punching a thirteen year old boy just hours before
Speaker 1: he killed Declan. In June twenty twenty four, the judge
Speaker 1: gave Kerinawia the mandatory sentence life in prison with a
Speaker 1: non parole period of twenty years.
Speaker 5: During sentencing, the judge described mister Laberty's murder as a
Speaker 5: violent and unprovoked attack on an innocent member of the public.
Speaker 1: It gave some relief to Declan's family.
Speaker 5: He not only suffered, but he died in agonizing death,
Speaker 5: and I'm.
Speaker 2: So glad the jury could see that that's what happened.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people saw the case of
Speaker 4: Declan Lavity as a sort of tipping point that was
Speaker 4: a moment of change, and we saw Declan z ow
Speaker 4: come in. Declan's mother, Samara, who I've spoken to today.
Speaker 4: She did a huge amount of lobbying with the government
Speaker 4: and has really carried on Declan's legacy to have some
Speaker 4: real meaningful change. But today she's in shock that this
Speaker 4: has happened, and she feels like after everything she's done
Speaker 4: to change some of these behaviors in the territory, all
Speaker 4: of that was for nothing, just because there's been another
Speaker 4: death at the hands allegedly of a young person with
Speaker 4: a knife.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, one of Leah Finocchiaro's first acts
Speaker 1: was an attempt to reduce knife crime with an act
Speaker 1: called Declan's Law, legislation that tightened bail laws and introduced
Speaker 1: something that had been abolished, an offensive breach of bail
Speaker 1: for young offenders aged ten to seventeen. The idea was
Speaker 1: to keep more alleged defenders in custody while they were
Speaker 1: awaiting a court date. Critics of the bail law, just
Speaker 1: like critics of mandatory sentencing, have long argued title laws
Speaker 1: don't reduce offending. Lea Finocchiaro says she's toughening bail laws
Speaker 1: again and will urgently recall Parliament on Wednesday.
Speaker 6: What we want for the Northern Territory is to have
Speaker 6: the toughest bail laws in this country. This has been
Speaker 6: done in New South Wales and Victoria and we're confident
Speaker 6: it could really set a strong benchmark for community safety
Speaker 6: here in the Northern Territory. It means judges must consider
Speaker 6: the safety of the community if they're going to bow
Speaker 6: that person before they go on and consider all of
Speaker 6: those other bail factors.
Speaker 1: He's Corrections Minister Jared Mayley.
Speaker 6: We know this is going to be difficult and pressure
Speaker 6: on our prections offices, and we intend to make sure
Speaker 6: that if you commit a crime in the Northern Territory
Speaker 6: there'll be a bit for you in our correction system.
Speaker 1: Lindford Fick's wife, Margaret, said they'd been married for fifty
Speaker 1: one years and had seven grandchildren. She described Lindford as
Speaker 1: a beautiful man, a true gentleman and my soulmate gone forever.
Speaker 1: God bless him. Rip my darling man. Coming up. Will
Speaker 1: this effect the federal election? Federal politicians like to say,
Speaker 1: of course they do, that crime is an issue for
Speaker 1: state and territory governments. That's true to an extent. The
Speaker 1: states and territories handle policing injustice, but in the Territory,
Speaker 1: at this federal there'll be no getting away from crime.
Speaker 1: The territory has the safe Labor seat of Solomon, which
Speaker 1: covers Darwin and surrounds and is held by Labours Luke
Speaker 1: Gosling and Lingiari, which covers the rest of the territory
Speaker 1: and the adjacent islands. It's held by Labour's Marion Scriminger
Speaker 1: on a margin of just one point seven percent. Peter
Speaker 1: Dutton is trying hard to make crime a national issue.
Speaker 3: We will work day and night to make sure that
Speaker 3: your local community, your local suburb is safer. I've always
Speaker 3: been serious in my public life as a police officer
Speaker 3: and since i've been in Parliament in protecting people, and
Speaker 3: I'm very genuine about that.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the territory's most famous politician on the national stage
Speaker 1: is the CLP's Justiner NumPy in for Price, who's a senator.
Speaker 1: She's not up for reelection this year, but she chimed
Speaker 1: in on social media after this week's stabbing, saying we
Speaker 1: must do everything we can to stamp out this abhorrent behavior.
Speaker 1: A lot of the crime that you've covered in the
Speaker 1: Northern territory has been late night street violence in places
Speaker 1: like Alice Springs, gangs of kids who are not in
Speaker 1: their homes for a lot of complex reasons. There's family dysfunction,
Speaker 1: there's our cohol and drug abuse going on in those homes,
Speaker 1: and they don't feel that it's safe to go there.
Speaker 1: Every so often a federal politician flies in to look
Speaker 1: at the situation and sound concerned. How do you think
Speaker 1: territorians regard the causes of this crime? You spoke a
Speaker 1: little earlier about vigilante violence. What a territorian say to
Speaker 1: you about what's actually going wrong.
Speaker 4: We're talking about incredibly complex issues here. Until you've been
Speaker 4: to some of these remote communities, you're never going to
Speaker 4: get a true understanding of what is happening on the
Speaker 4: ground there. There's a lot of people that are living
Speaker 4: in what could be described as third world conditions. There's
Speaker 4: a level of disadvantage here where children are just not
Speaker 4: going to school. You know the amount of times where
Speaker 4: I've been at a town camp and in a school
Speaker 4: bus coming through and there's zero children on that bus.
Speaker 4: And when children are staying up until daybreak, you can
Speaker 4: understand why it's impossible to get them into school.
Speaker 1: They throughout a labor territory government. Both the Northern territories
Speaker 1: federal electorates are held by labor. Do you think this
Speaker 1: will have an impact on the federal election.
Speaker 4: I do, And quite interestingly, the two country Liberal Party
Speaker 4: candidates that I've spoken to wipe their hands clean of
Speaker 4: crime issues. They're saying that is more of a territory
Speaker 4: government issue. When people are being killed either at their
Speaker 4: own workplace or there's home invasions happening constantly, I think
Speaker 4: there comes a point where when is this going to
Speaker 4: really become a massive federal issue. I mean, there are
Speaker 4: some people that are genuinely worried that people aren't actually
Speaker 4: going to want to live there anymore. For the you
Speaker 4: know what they love. It's the camping, it's the outdoors,
Speaker 4: It's the beautiful bushwalks and waterfalls that you can experience.
Speaker 4: It's that life lifestyle. There is a territory lifestyle that
Speaker 4: you can't experience anywhere else in this country, and that
Speaker 4: is why people live there. And there is a real
Speaker 4: fear within the community. I know many people that are planning,
Speaker 4: genuinely planning on packing up their lives and moving somewhere
Speaker 4: else because it's just gotten to the point where they
Speaker 4: do not want to be living here anymore.
Speaker 1: Liam Mendez is a journalist with The Australian. You can
Speaker 1: read this story as well as all the nation's best news, sport,
Speaker 1: politics and business, plus of course, all our coverage of
Speaker 1: ANZAC Day at The Australian dot com dot au