Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life. The average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat. We've retired
Speaker 1: magistrate David Helper. Now, if you listen to part one,
Speaker 1: you would have found David is probably not the type
Speaker 1: of person who you would think occupied a magistrate's position
Speaker 1: for over twenty years. In part two, David told me
Speaker 1: about the time his family was relocated to a safe
Speaker 1: house over concerns of retribution from a man who appeared
Speaker 1: at his court. We get his surprising views on drug legislation.
Speaker 1: And we also talked about the emotional and mental impact
Speaker 1: of someone in a judicial position. I think this is
Speaker 1: something most of us had not considered, but David really
Speaker 1: opened up about it. We also talked about sovereign citizens
Speaker 1: and how AI might change the face of our legal system.
Speaker 1: It was a great chat. David. Welcome back to part
Speaker 1: two of I Catchkillers.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thanks, that's a bit underwhelming. Thanks well.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the first half, so I hope the second
Speaker 2: half is as good.
Speaker 1: Great local courts. We were talking during the break that
Speaker 1: you see all aspects of life, and the good, the bad,
Speaker 1: the ugly literally come through the local courts and you
Speaker 1: see some humor and there's you see some humanity. You
Speaker 1: see every aspect of life. Any funny things happened to
Speaker 1: you when you're on the bench.
Speaker 2: Looks so many that I'm sure I could bore your
Speaker 2: audience for dat. But I did sentence somebody who refused
Speaker 2: to stand up, and I said stand up, please, and
Speaker 2: he didn't, and I said, come on, stand up, this
Speaker 2: is serious. And then I realized he was in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2: That was not a good look.
Speaker 1: That's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: But another guy I refused bail too, and you know,
Speaker 2: as he was being led out of court very unhappy,
Speaker 2: he goes to me, oh, you fat cunt, and said,
Speaker 2: did you call me fat? And fortunately he laughed. I
Speaker 2: laughed and we left it at that. But you know,
Speaker 2: court is a funny place. It's tense, and so anything
Speaker 2: that breaks the ice can be really very funny, even
Speaker 2: though it's not so funny outside court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a certain sharpness and a wit that
Speaker 1: comes with the type of people in court. And I'm
Speaker 1: not just talking the legal for there. Some of the
Speaker 1: defendants come before the court, some of the comments that
Speaker 1: they make are quite hilarious.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's language that they don't understand, like
Speaker 2: a defense low will often call prosecutor on my friend
Speaker 2: or my learned friend or my very learned friend. And
Speaker 2: half the time you see the defendants and sometimes they
Speaker 2: jump up and go, I'm not staying here is your friends,
Speaker 2: you know, and you just think, well, you know, what
Speaker 2: hope is there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I think in that environment you've got to
Speaker 1: be able to laugh where you can. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit hard when you're sitting there as a magistrate that
Speaker 1: sees you when you're sitting in at the back of
Speaker 1: the court.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and it's even worse when everyone in front
Speaker 2: of you starts laughing and you've got to keep it
Speaker 2: straight face. Yeah, you just learn to be a good actor.
Speaker 1: And I also and no, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: acknowledge this. I can say it from my position when
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the gallery. Some court matters can be
Speaker 1: very dry and very long, and it might be after
Speaker 1: lunch and it's been a long day and you start
Speaker 1: to start the nod off or your mind drift somewhere else.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of concentration that's required as a magistrate.
Speaker 1: Now I'm always gobsmacked by I could have worked on
Speaker 1: a brief, not just magistrates, with judges as well, for
Speaker 1: a long time, intricate briefs. It's taken to the court,
Speaker 1: it's been explained once to the person sitting on the bench,
Speaker 1: and they seem the grasp of the concept. There's a
Speaker 1: real skill to be able to pick up what's important.
Speaker 2: As hard as it is to believe, I actually found
Speaker 2: it quite a relief because the vast majority of judging
Speaker 2: is actually listening. Yeah, you know, and you do get
Speaker 2: better at it over time and there's very little after
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen or twenty years, there's not that much
Speaker 2: that's new that you haven't seen before and that you
Speaker 2: can't pick up pretty quickly. But good lawyers, good lawyers
Speaker 2: make for good cases. And you know, good lawyers and
Speaker 2: never boring. They may be thorough, but they're always they
Speaker 2: always explaining things in short bites that you can comprehend
Speaker 2: and that really give a good grasp on the case.
Speaker 2: And that's why if you've got really excellent lawyers and
Speaker 2: prosecutors in front of you, then cases run smoothly.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. Did you find that your skills improved,
Speaker 1: like your skills your experience and that did you think
Speaker 1: you're a better magistrate towards the latter part of your
Speaker 1: career or when you've got like over a decade of experience?
Speaker 1: Was it something a job that you continually learn.
Speaker 2: On absolutely every day was learning experience? And I think
Speaker 2: those who stopped learning stopped being good at what they're doing.
Speaker 2: And look, I'm sure you found that in policing too,
Speaker 2: and probably in podcast making or me now being back
Speaker 2: at the university. Every day's a learning experience. But certainly
Speaker 2: I think the other thing is is that what I
Speaker 2: got much better at was recognizing that people weren't with
Speaker 2: some exceptions, people weren't generally good or bad. Their behavior
Speaker 2: was good or bad. And once I drew that distinction,
Speaker 2: which took quite a few years to get to, it
Speaker 2: really started to dawn on me that we're dealing with
Speaker 2: whole humans, some of whom are behaving badly, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't make them bad people. And keeping that in and
Speaker 2: you know, you could see that both in victims and perpetrators,
Speaker 2: in witnesses, in police and it really helped me. But
Speaker 2: I did get better at it. I think over time,
Speaker 2: certainly I was calmer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine that you're confident, and you've seen
Speaker 1: something like this before, you know how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: What you said about someone does something bad doesn't make
Speaker 1: them a bad person. I work very closely with doctor
Speaker 1: Sarah ull A forensic psychologists in homicide, and she and
Speaker 1: I valued her opinion on some really interesting, tough, tough cases.
Speaker 1: And she was great to work with because she'd be
Speaker 1: looking at things from a slightly different perspective than the
Speaker 1: looking through it from the police lens. But she was
Speaker 1: always at pain saying to me, Gary, just because someone's
Speaker 1: done something bad doesn't make them a bad person. And
Speaker 1: I've really come to accept that as you found out
Speaker 1: that we all make mistakes in life, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's what you've done before then what you do after
Speaker 1: it that doesn't sort of define you. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a good thing to hang on to when you,
Speaker 1: especially in your role when you're judging people, to be
Speaker 1: able to see that people but not necessarily bad. They've
Speaker 1: made a mistake, as we all do at some stage
Speaker 1: in our life.
Speaker 2: And as part of sentencing, would I would say that,
Speaker 2: I would say, you know clearly, you know from reading
Speaker 2: all the submissions your family care and love for you,
Speaker 2: as do many members of the community have written on
Speaker 2: your behalf. On the other hand, what you've done is
Speaker 2: behavior that's completely unacceptable in our community, and you have
Speaker 2: to be punished for it, both for you and for
Speaker 2: all of society and for the victims. But people would
Speaker 2: if if you approach people like that, you know, for
Speaker 2: a judicial officer to say to someone you're a bad
Speaker 2: person and you're evil, it takes away it robs them
Speaker 2: of an ability to reform and rehabilitate, I think, or
Speaker 2: it makes it much harder for them. Of course, there's
Speaker 2: some exceptions, and I did deal with some people who
Speaker 2: I would describe as really pathologically evil, not many, but some.
Speaker 2: Did you come across some like that as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, most definitely. There's some people that are in jail
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives that I was involved in,
Speaker 1: and I'm more than happy. I know the evil side
Speaker 1: that those people, and you're not going to change them.
Speaker 1: But there are other people and people thought as a
Speaker 1: homicide detective, like everyone that you locked up must have
Speaker 1: been a terrible human being. No, yeah, yes, done a
Speaker 1: terrible thing, and there's you know, in the scale of things,
Speaker 1: there's not much worse than murder. But some of the
Speaker 1: people have made a mistake, a huge, huge mistake, and
Speaker 1: the consequences have been devastating, But doesn't make them that
Speaker 1: evil person. There is pure evil. That's my take on that.
Speaker 1: Other people might have different opinions, but I think it
Speaker 1: would be supported with research. There's some people that just
Speaker 1: inherently evil and society does need to be protected from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I dealt with one case and when it
Speaker 2: went to the district court, he got forty eight years.
Speaker 2: That's what he said to what he did to his daughters,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm glad. I'm glad he's behind bars
Speaker 2: until after his death. For sure.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm assuming there that it must be a child's
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. And indeed, the thing that about that offense
Speaker 1: that separates it from a lot of others is that
Speaker 1: children should be protected, that there is no mitigating circumstances
Speaker 1: for a child to be sexually assaulted. And also the
Speaker 1: level of planning and the reoffending and the ongoing offending.
Speaker 1: That's not like a one punch situation of about the
Speaker 1: side of the local club in an argument. This is
Speaker 1: people that have deliberately decided to do this and then
Speaker 1: do it again and again.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and I think there's a cost in the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system. And of course I'm not taking away
Speaker 2: from the harm to the victims and the victims family,
Speaker 2: but the investigating police, the magistrates and judges, the jurors,
Speaker 2: the witnesses, for everyone. It's an incredibly grueling experience. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's at least in homicide, they're either dead or they're not.
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know that that whole process is incredibly
Speaker 2: damaging for people. I'm sure we've all seen it in
Speaker 2: our careers, people who are so harmed, not by their
Speaker 2: involvement in those cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I like there's pressure on the homicide when
Speaker 1: leading investigations, and the rare occasion that you're looking for
Speaker 1: a serial killer or a contract killer, you know that
Speaker 1: it's consequences you don't bring that person to justice. But
Speaker 1: the pressure on the investigators in sex crimes, especially child protection.
Speaker 1: Please you get a report of that. And you know,
Speaker 1: if I don't move on this straight away, maybe the
Speaker 1: child's going to be assaulted again. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure there. It brings me I jumping forward. But we
Speaker 1: can go back to what we're talking about. You write
Speaker 1: a paper on lifting the judicial veil, Vicarious Trauma PTSD
Speaker 1: and the judiciary. A personal story. I bought some quotes
Speaker 1: out there because we're talking about the impact of child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse and this is an extract from your experience.
Speaker 1: I'll read it out and I'll get you get you
Speaker 1: to comment on it. About twelve years ago, I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a series of cases involving child pornography in
Speaker 1: Bateman's Bay. In those days, it was necessary for the
Speaker 1: courts to view the pictures and the videos to determine
Speaker 1: the seriousness of the charges. Fortunately, that is far less
Speaker 1: often today due to computer classification. As is regular the case,
Speaker 1: the charges include thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: images and hundreds of videos. I'll not retraumatize all of
Speaker 1: us or revictimize the victims by describing the images. That's
Speaker 1: pretty heavy. And I think from there you've read on
Speaker 1: a quote by the Chief Magistrate and Police versus Power,
Speaker 1: who describes what you described there. To see the pale
Speaker 1: death of innocence and the trust in the eyes of
Speaker 1: so many young children is to bemoan the capacity of
Speaker 1: some members of the human race to descend into the
Speaker 1: dark and depraved side of the human condition. I pulled
Speaker 1: both those quotes out because I thought that at some
Speaker 1: point in time we would talk about that. But that
Speaker 1: is that is really what we're talking about. The heaviness
Speaker 1: of what you.
Speaker 2: See, absolutely, and let's keep in mind who Power was.
Speaker 2: It was Patrick Power, who was the Deputy DPP for
Speaker 2: the state of New South Wales who was charged with
Speaker 2: possession of that child pornography.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He was working as a Deputy DPP of New South
Speaker 2: Wales and his computer needed some repairs. He sent it
Speaker 2: in and they discovered a cash of child pornography material there.
Speaker 2: They then conducted an investigation obviously searched his home and
Speaker 2: the like, and found more. He pleaded guilty and was
Speaker 2: sentenced to a term of imprisonment several years imprisonment, and
Speaker 2: obviously that was the end of his career. That was
Speaker 2: the case that I was quoting from, which is extraordinary
Speaker 2: for a whole set of other reasons that we could
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't pick it up. He prosecuted the murder
Speaker 1: trial I was involved in. I knew him well, and
Speaker 1: I was disgusted and shocked when I heard of what
Speaker 1: happened there.
Speaker 2: So the reaction for me of having to deal with
Speaker 2: it that nest of cases was really horrific. I couldn't
Speaker 2: get the images out of my head and as a result,
Speaker 2: you know, I really went through a very difficult mental time.
Speaker 2: And again I don't you know, there's police who have
Speaker 2: to classify this every day, and of course these are
Speaker 2: real children who are being filmed. So I don't want
Speaker 2: to take away from a moment the horror of the victims.
Speaker 2: But the price of that of needing to deal with
Speaker 2: that material for me was really high. I found it
Speaker 2: very difficult to sleep. I had nightmares with those recurring images,
Speaker 2: and it became very difficult for me to do my job.
Speaker 2: I'm not ashamed of that at all. In fact, you'd
Speaker 2: think it's a sign of humanity that you can't cope
Speaker 2: with that sort of stuff. And clearly I thought I
Speaker 2: was terrifically resilient. In the first few cases I did
Speaker 2: didn't affect me. But it's a bit like a sponge,
Speaker 2: and over time that sponge got full, and you know,
Speaker 2: I realized that I had choices, so I could either
Speaker 2: stop doing cases like that or get some help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as a magistrate, you've got help. You've got
Speaker 1: professional help there to I did.
Speaker 2: I find the Chief Magistrate and said, I'm not coping
Speaker 2: with these cases. I explained what was happening to me,
Speaker 2: and so delight, you know, pleased that my colleagues, you know,
Speaker 2: I spoke to them and they said, well, you just
Speaker 2: don't do those cases for I will swap. And I
Speaker 2: did spent twelve eighteen months not doing those cases, getting
Speaker 2: some professional help, getting some therapy and talk therapy about it,
Speaker 2: and it really helped. And coincidentally, during that time, a
Speaker 2: lot of the computer classification came in and rarely after
Speaker 2: that did I need to certainly not look at the
Speaker 2: same numbers of pictures. But you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: the price. One of the prices that people don't talk
Speaker 2: about or even think about of doing that kind of
Speaker 2: work is that it can have a really significant impact
Speaker 2: deep down.
Speaker 1: It can take a time, but the fact that you
Speaker 1: put your hand up and addressed it and then could
Speaker 1: move forward from I think a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking more so with police because they understand that
Speaker 1: world more. A lot of people don't put their hand
Speaker 1: up until it's too late, and yeah, if they got
Speaker 1: just acknowledge, Okay, let me step away from this a
Speaker 1: little bit. I need to break from this type of work.
Speaker 2: Well, in the last few years we've had two magistrates
Speaker 2: in Victoria kill themselves and one family court judge in
Speaker 2: Queensland to kill himself. So you know, there's and of
Speaker 2: course we know about the rates of police suicide and
Speaker 2: suicide and the legal profession and is it any wonder
Speaker 2: when you're dealing with that kind of pressure and that
Speaker 2: kind of crime.
Speaker 1: And it is a dark world, and as we talked
Speaker 1: about in part one, you are isolated as a magistrate,
Speaker 1: Like even in policing, we see some horrific things, but
Speaker 1: you could share it with the team because invariably there's
Speaker 1: people that have experienced it. As a magistrate, you sit there,
Speaker 1: sit there on your own and confronted with all this.
Speaker 2: And you're meant to be above it all. You're meant
Speaker 2: to be Cupucantan and not affected by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think it says a lot because you
Speaker 1: would have heard it, and we all hear it with
Speaker 1: the shock jocks and the headlines in the paper about judges.
Speaker 1: If this happened to if this happened to their loved one,
Speaker 1: they'd give the person the harder sentence. I think sitting down,
Speaker 1: having a chat with you and giving it the exposure
Speaker 1: to our audience and listeners allow them to understand that
Speaker 1: there is a human sitting there. Quite often you're just
Speaker 1: this character that sitting on the bench and we don't
Speaker 1: think about that you've got emotions. You're just the magistrate
Speaker 1: or the judge. So I think it's good that we
Speaker 1: talk about it and there is an impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you realize that there's discretion. I mean, when
Speaker 2: you're sentencing someone, you've got discretion from the very minor
Speaker 2: penalties to the maximum penalties, and where you drop that line,
Speaker 2: of course, is to do with precedent and what high
Speaker 2: courts are said, what the lawyers say before you and
Speaker 2: point out what's an appropriate sentence. But you also carry
Speaker 2: your own baggage. And there weren't many chop pornography offenders
Speaker 2: who left mich court without getting really long jail sentences
Speaker 2: because of my abhorrence for the crime.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we had a brief discussion about it
Speaker 1: the other day, but I was surprised about the amount
Speaker 1: of people in prison that had been sexually assaulted as
Speaker 1: children and the trajectory that took them on their life
Speaker 1: from that point in time. And when we talk about
Speaker 1: reducing crime, and we talked about other ways of preventing
Speaker 1: crime from happening, I think we need to have a
Speaker 1: real hard look at child sex offenders and the impact
Speaker 1: that they have on society. Because the amount of people
Speaker 1: in prison that have been sexually abused as children that
Speaker 1: might necessitate them going into prison, but it's the way
Speaker 1: they live their life with a risk they might become
Speaker 1: drug dependent sorts of things because it disrupts their life.
Speaker 1: We're really got to look at going as hard as
Speaker 1: we can on it, and I don't think there would
Speaker 1: be many people that would argue against it.
Speaker 2: I think that's true, and I think the other aspect
Speaker 2: is the harm that's done to children by witnessing domestic violence.
Speaker 2: You know, over the years, I realized that young people
Speaker 2: who came before me had a lot of things differences,
Speaker 2: but a lot of things in common. And one of
Speaker 2: the really common features of young young criminals, kids who
Speaker 2: are committing crimes, who were all concerned about increases in crimes,
Speaker 2: and particularly young people, but one thing they all or
Speaker 2: almost all had in common was that they had witnessed crime,
Speaker 2: They had witnessed violence in their homes. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a price to pay for the kinds of violence
Speaker 2: that is perpetrated on children, all perpetrated around children, and
Speaker 2: it's a big price.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Certainly clearly understand what you're saying there, and
Speaker 1: I'm just processing in my mind, But that environment that
Speaker 1: those formative views as a child growing up, if you're
Speaker 1: in a safe environment, that sets you on a pathway
Speaker 1: that you're given your best chance of making the most
Speaker 1: of the life. If you've grown up in a violent
Speaker 1: household with domestic violence going on. I can see the
Speaker 1: problems that that could create, but you actually recognize it
Speaker 1: and saw that in all the years that you were
Speaker 1: on the bench and people that were coming before you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I think I better do some research on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there you go, there's the next paper. We'll
Speaker 1: bring you. We'll bring you back. How long were you
Speaker 1: taken the whole three years?
Speaker 2: It'll take me a little.
Speaker 1: We'll book you in domestic violence. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about it across the country, not just New South Wales,
Speaker 1: and how we really need to get a handle on
Speaker 1: it and the end result where partners, invariably female partners
Speaker 1: are taken to the conclusion where they've been murdered. How
Speaker 1: did you deal with domestic violence situations in the court,
Speaker 1: because in the local court and in the areas that
Speaker 1: you presided in, I would imagine that a lot of
Speaker 1: your casework would have been avios and domestic violence situations.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And it's not the most glamorous work for police either,
Speaker 2: you know, And it's frustrating. So often victims would get
Speaker 2: into the witness box and I can't remember I fell over,
Speaker 2: I was drunk. I don't know what happened. But you know,
Speaker 2: at one time in Grafton Local Court a woman her
Speaker 2: partner had been charged with beating her on several occasions,
Speaker 2: and I think it was about the fourth or fifth
Speaker 2: time she got in the witness box and we're all
Speaker 2: expecting the same again, and I saw the defeated look
Speaker 2: on the arresting officer's faces, saying here we go, and
Speaker 2: she said he hit me, and we all were just staggered.
Speaker 2: It took five times, five lots of great police work, patience,
Speaker 2: making a safe environment, and eventually she'd had enough. And
Speaker 2: it was a real lesson to me that there's a
Speaker 2: power in just bringing people to court. The outcome doesn't
Speaker 2: matter so much as getting people protected as much as possible,
Speaker 2: but it really is. I don't know if there's been
Speaker 2: an increase in domestic violence or there's just been an
Speaker 2: increase in the recognition that it's a crime.
Speaker 1: The awareness of it, the willingness to report it.
Speaker 2: But the fact that the police now are starting to
Speaker 2: I think only now really take it seriously as serious
Speaker 2: as some of the less serious crimes is a terrific thing.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a cultural shift that we just
Speaker 2: need to continue. I had recently went to a domestic
Speaker 2: violence specialist court in Queensland to have a look at
Speaker 2: how they're operating, just to find, you know, really terrific
Speaker 2: thing where people feel safe, where justice is done, where
Speaker 2: the emphasis is not so much on well lock them up,
Speaker 2: but on how we're going to change the behavior in
Speaker 2: this family and by this man, and you know, really
Speaker 2: successful programs and you know, I've got a lot of
Speaker 2: hope for change, but I don't think we need We
Speaker 2: can possibly underestimate the seriousness of the problem.
Speaker 1: I think part of and police are more aware of
Speaker 1: it because we've had some horrific situations where people looked
Speaker 1: at it and we've got to have this get a
Speaker 1: handle of this type of crime. But I think there's
Speaker 1: more accountability now like we can't. You know, when you
Speaker 1: look and sadly, quite often you see a murder and
Speaker 1: you look back and there's all these red flags. And
Speaker 1: we had an expert a criminologists from overseas and described
Speaker 1: as murdered by slaveh motion where a domestic situation there's
Speaker 1: been for falling out and I can't remember the percentages,
Speaker 1: but it was quite frightening that if you've been in
Speaker 1: a domestic situation and your partner has threatened to key you.
Speaker 1: When we're talking to men kill a woman, the likelihood
Speaker 1: of that occurring the ridiculous percentage. We've got to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that domestic violence is a red flag and indicator that
Speaker 1: something much worse can.
Speaker 2: Happen totally, and you know, the hardest decisions I think
Speaker 2: that courts have to make is bail. You know, if
Speaker 2: people are found guilty or they plead guilty. Sentencing is
Speaker 2: relatively easy, but bail is the first time. And of
Speaker 2: course we're all aware that there's situations where there's false allegations.
Speaker 2: We're aware that people are innocent until they're proven guilty.
Speaker 2: But if you locked up every man where a threat
Speaker 2: was alleged, well, the jug you couldn't do it. So
Speaker 2: it's really tough, tough call. And I think every magistrate
Speaker 2: in Australia, every judge will have released someone on bail
Speaker 2: who then commits an offense. Has refused people bail who
Speaker 2: end up being found not guilty. It's a net loss
Speaker 2: game and you can only do your best.
Speaker 1: It's a tough one. I want to thry this out
Speaker 1: because it's just something that in my simple mind it
Speaker 1: seems like a simple solution, and I saw that. It
Speaker 1: came to me when I was speaking to Hannah Clark's
Speaker 1: parents that I know you're met, and talking about the
Speaker 1: lead up to before Hannah and the three children were murdered,
Speaker 1: and the fact that she was living in fear. There
Speaker 1: was concerns. We talk hypothetically, so it's not Hannah's situation,
Speaker 1: but hypothetically man and woman in a relationship. There's domestic
Speaker 1: accusations of an assault, the person's perhaps charge on that
Speaker 1: AVOs are taken out if they breached that AVO once.
Speaker 1: Why can't we bring in I'm talking Angril bracelets, electronic
Speaker 1: monitoring of people. Now. I've raised it a couple of
Speaker 1: times and people said, well, the costing of it, we
Speaker 1: haven't got the technology. Well, when we're going through COVID,
Speaker 1: we knew where everyone, we knew how a bloke went
Speaker 1: to ten different stores to buy a barbecue. You know,
Speaker 1: we can track people. I raised this with Hannah's parents
Speaker 1: and said, would you have felt more safe if the offender,
Speaker 1: if he came within a five kilometer radius of Hannah,
Speaker 1: she would have been notified because she was limiting fear,
Speaker 1: And they said most definitely, most definitely that would have
Speaker 1: given her comfort. And if she knew that he was
Speaker 1: within five kilometers of her location, she would take certain action.
Speaker 1: And then the naysayers say, but they could cut the
Speaker 1: ankle bracelet off. Well, if they cut the ankle bracelet off,
Speaker 1: the potential victim gets notified. I see it as a
Speaker 1: way of a compromise between, as you identified, sending everyone
Speaker 1: that's in breach to jail because the Giles just couldn't
Speaker 1: deal with it, and protecting the victim and for the accused,
Speaker 1: why do I have to walk around with an ankle braceleon? Well,
Speaker 1: you were given the chance, you failed in that chance,
Speaker 1: and this is the next alternative. If you've breached it again,
Speaker 1: then you go into custody. Am I looking at things
Speaker 1: too simplistically? No?
Speaker 2: I don't think so at all. And I think it's
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be an ankle bracelet these days.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can all we can all find our phones,
Speaker 2: we'll find my and you know, this technology exists, it's
Speaker 2: there and that's where it should belong. I often think
Speaker 2: the fanciest technology seems to be stuck on offenses like
Speaker 2: major drug crimes and things like that. You know, the
Speaker 2: Australian Federal Police seem to have every single gizmo known
Speaker 2: humanity and investigating importation of drugs. If we put that
Speaker 2: same effort, technology and money into domestic violence offenses, and
Speaker 2: you're right, the geographic separation of people does two things.
Speaker 2: Of course, it protects the victim, but it also protects
Speaker 2: the perpetrator from unfair or unrealistic allegations because we know
Speaker 2: where they are and if it's false, it's clearly false.
Speaker 2: So it's absolutely win win, and there should be much
Speaker 2: much more.
Speaker 1: And the technology and you know, I'm speaking out of
Speaker 1: my era of expertise, but I'm sure the technology is
Speaker 1: available to set that in place, and I think that
Speaker 1: will give that separation because we really have got to
Speaker 1: make a difference in it because it's happening too much.
Speaker 1: There's a quote that you talked about the role of
Speaker 1: a magistrate, and I think it sort of will get
Speaker 1: you to discuss it from there. A magistrate cannot stop
Speaker 1: domestic violence or alcoholism or turn around the economy of
Speaker 1: dyeing towns. What we can do is ensure that the
Speaker 1: law is upheld and that there is humanity and consideration
Speaker 1: in its application. Do you just want to expand on
Speaker 1: what was meant there? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, the sense of sitting in rural and regional New
Speaker 2: South Wales is often a fairly depressing thing. As you
Speaker 2: see these towns that were once boyant, they're in economic decline.
Speaker 2: Often all that's left is the ragtag army of original
Speaker 2: inhabitants or older people and a lot of disaffected young people.
Speaker 2: They don't have the services, they don't have the medical
Speaker 2: or mental health or educational services that other places have.
Speaker 2: But the biggest injustice occurs when people aren't listened to.
Speaker 2: And I found that the smaller the town and the
Speaker 2: more you know, the tougher the regional environment, the more
Speaker 2: time you took, the better justice was served. People have
Speaker 2: a story that they want to tell. And you know,
Speaker 2: the worst thing I've seen in court when I was
Speaker 2: a lawyer and since is when magistrates just cut everyone
Speaker 2: off and just you know, don't allow people to have
Speaker 2: their say, win, lose or draw. If people manage to
Speaker 2: have their say, they feel that justice has been done,
Speaker 2: whether they're believed or not. If justice is seemed to
Speaker 2: be done, people will leave court not happy, but not
Speaker 2: begrudging the entire system. And I think it's really important
Speaker 2: to show that it takes a bit of time, takes
Speaker 2: a bit longer, you might get home as early, but
Speaker 2: in the end justice is done.
Speaker 1: Well saying that your day in court, you'll get your
Speaker 1: day in court, I think that very much reflects what
Speaker 1: you just said.
Speaker 2: There absolutely and you know you see this particularly you
Speaker 2: know in the masty court. As I said, there's no jury,
Speaker 2: so you're not only the person who's doing the sentencing.
Speaker 2: You're the person who's trying to determine the truth in
Speaker 2: the situation. And that often means you believe one person
Speaker 2: and don't believe the other. But if you explain why
Speaker 2: you come to that conclusion that the man really did
Speaker 2: beat his wife, that she was telling the truth because
Speaker 2: of the bruises, or the immediacy of the complaint, or
Speaker 2: his prior record or whatever. He may not be happy
Speaker 2: with that decision, but as long as as long as
Speaker 2: it's a process that is fair and open and he
Speaker 2: gets a chance to have his say, well hopefully the
Speaker 2: resentment will be less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, understandable. Now, there was one defendant that you had
Speaker 1: before you that he wasn't satisfied with the court, which
Speaker 1: resulted in you having to relocate your family. Do you
Speaker 1: care to tell a story?
Speaker 2: Because it was that was a family law dispute which
Speaker 2: had been going on for a while, and this fellow
Speaker 2: who was ex army, decided that he would go to
Speaker 2: his ex wife's house while she was at work and
Speaker 2: the children were at school, and he got the dog
Speaker 2: and nail guned the dog to the front door. So
Speaker 2: when the children came home, that's what they were confronted with.
Speaker 2: He was arrested and I refused him bail because I
Speaker 2: thought the crime was just so horrendous that he was
Speaker 2: a real d I mean, anyone, there's this whole psychology
Speaker 2: and you would know this better than me from homicide,
Speaker 2: but harm to animals is a really is a in
Speaker 2: the red flag. Definitely, I refused him bail. In their wisdom,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court granted him bail. And his response to
Speaker 2: that he didn't like me much, was to plant a
Speaker 2: bomb at the courthouse on the gas tank on a
Speaker 2: sitting day. So that then led to the police rightly
Speaker 2: saying in the sheriff's office and you know the security
Speaker 2: apparatus that we get the protective officers relocating us to
Speaker 2: a motel until he was caught, and you know, that's
Speaker 2: obviously a chilling experience. I'm sure it happens to a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the community, but it also gives
Speaker 2: you a taste of what it's like to be to
Speaker 2: have to hide.
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good if you're under threaten,
Speaker 1: your family's under threaten, and especially in your red flag.
Speaker 1: You know, someone that's prepared to commit a crime like
Speaker 1: nailing the family pet to the front door, well that
Speaker 1: tells me a great deal. And I don't think we
Speaker 1: need to be psychologists or experts in the field to
Speaker 1: know that that is a dangerous person.
Speaker 2: And there's not many magistrates, not many judges who haven't
Speaker 2: had stalkers, who haven't had threats, and you know, particularly
Speaker 2: the Sovereign Citizen movement are very threatening often to judges
Speaker 2: and magistrates. Desi Freeman sought to that's the fellows on
Speaker 2: the run sought to arrest the magistrate who originally found
Speaker 2: his decision that he didn't like, and then he sought
Speaker 2: to arrest the Attorney General and others. And obviously there
Speaker 2: would have been a fear factor, and that fear, as
Speaker 2: we now know, was well found.
Speaker 1: It's a worrying I find it worrying with this. It's
Speaker 1: an ideology that in past times, a sovereign citizen, we
Speaker 1: go back thirty years, come up on a show like
Speaker 1: a Current Affairs, someone that's declared he's seceded from the country,
Speaker 1: and we'd all have a laugh and think there's nothing
Speaker 1: in it. My take on it. Now, we've been doing
Speaker 1: a little bit on sovereign citizens and we've had actually
Speaker 1: documents served on us from the sovereign citizens and they
Speaker 1: want us to appear at the court and all that
Speaker 1: sort of nonsense. But the danger of them now is
Speaker 1: it's an ideology that is harmless in isolation, but then
Speaker 1: they can connect in the social media world where people
Speaker 1: they go down a rabbit hole and people are supporting
Speaker 1: their views. So their radical view is that's what's skeet
Speaker 1: fed back to them. And I see them as a
Speaker 1: real risk. We had someone in and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: sovereign citizen here, but just alone actor situation, someone fire
Speaker 1: and show a couple of weeks ago in Sydney and
Speaker 1: led off something like fifty shots. I see them as
Speaker 1: the real danger of the future and sovereign citizens that
Speaker 1: they're not something that we should laugh at we've got
Speaker 1: as the two police officers down there. There are other
Speaker 1: links with the police that were killed up in Queensland
Speaker 1: that there was an ideology or a link with the
Speaker 1: ideology of sovereign citizens. Have you had them before your
Speaker 1: court at the preside over.
Speaker 2: I've had them. I certainly had them a lot before
Speaker 2: my court, particularly in the later years, and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody reports there's been an exponential growth in those people
Speaker 2: appearing before court, and since joining the university it's been
Speaker 2: a area of focus of my research and publishing is
Speaker 2: on the sovereign citizen movement. And it's hard to think
Speaker 2: of any other ideology where four police have been killed
Speaker 2: and yeah at least several injured as a result of
Speaker 2: a set of common beliefs. I can't think of another
Speaker 2: example in Australian recent history where that's occurred. So we
Speaker 2: really are dealing with a dangerous edge and their numbers
Speaker 2: are growing and the gobbledygook that they come out with
Speaker 2: is just so crazy. And when they first appeared before
Speaker 2: me in court, I just couldn't believe anyone would ever
Speaker 2: spout such nonsense, you know. And when I say that,
Speaker 2: I'm not laughing at them, but.
Speaker 1: You're not ridiculing them, you're just saying you're completely wrong.
Speaker 2: And they're not ill educated. A lot of these people,
Speaker 2: they don't fit within the category of right wing or
Speaker 2: left wing either. And certainly, sitting in Lismore, I had
Speaker 2: a lot of, you know, people who were alternate healers
Speaker 2: and the like who really follow sovereign citizenship as well.
Speaker 2: So there really is a broad spectrum of people involved,
Speaker 2: and it's extraordinary and it's dangerous, and they honestly believe
Speaker 2: that the law doesn't apply to them. And when you think,
Speaker 2: if you think that through logically, that the law doesn't
Speaker 2: apply to them, of course they engage in risky and
Speaker 2: dangerous behavior because they think that it doesn't apply to them.
Speaker 2: They genuinely believe that, and that's a pretty dangerous starting
Speaker 2: point from any law enforcement or judicial determination point of view.
Speaker 1: It is dangerous and it can have impact, and you
Speaker 1: see it from your role, and I understand the sort
Speaker 1: of impact they can have. But also to the uninformed
Speaker 1: in regards to legal matters, they serve these documents and
Speaker 1: they throw in a couple of legal things and stamps
Speaker 1: and that, and I can imagine that being served on
Speaker 1: a person that isn't educated in that area, and the
Speaker 1: confusion that would create just a simple thing like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: You get the document served or they raise it in
Speaker 1: court and you can dismiss it out of hand. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine there's a lot of people that have been
Speaker 1: impacted upon by them standing over people with the so
Speaker 1: called Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well it's okay for Scott Morrison and me to be
Speaker 2: sent to jail. They senced me to five years jail,
Speaker 2: they send him to ten. I thought the worst thing
Speaker 2: could be is if we have to have a cell together.
Speaker 1: That would be that would be unfee That wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Have been a lot of fun for I'm sure, But yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to appeal. But I think you're right. You know,
Speaker 2: there's the Nagari Court that they've set up in Gimpi,
Speaker 2: which purports to be a family court and which is
Speaker 2: actually making orders for the return of children where the
Speaker 2: family court has determined the children are with person X
Speaker 2: in the In the leading case, it's it's a male
Speaker 2: the father and the mother, who is the sovereign citizen
Speaker 2: has got orders that she's serving on all sorts of
Speaker 2: agencies and places saying that she actually has custody you
Speaker 2: know there's an inherent danger in that.
Speaker 1: How can we reduce the movement or the impact of
Speaker 1: the movement. Have you got any thoughts on that? I have.
Speaker 2: Firstly, I think when people come to court and start
Speaker 2: expressing sovereign citizen views, I think we should give them
Speaker 2: an option, just like we do with anger management, just
Speaker 2: like we do with drug and alcohol counseling, just like
Speaker 2: we do with gambling. And that is some sort of program,
Speaker 2: at least a pilot, a program where you try and
Speaker 2: debunk a lot of these beliefs, explain to them that
Speaker 2: they won't hold up in court, and seek to change
Speaker 2: their behavior. I've had success with that on a one
Speaker 2: to one level, and I think it could work on scale.
Speaker 2: We haven't done it yet, but I think it's worth exploring.
Speaker 2: The second aspect is that there is people making money
Speaker 2: out of the sovereign citizen movement. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of subscription services where you subscribe and these people will
Speaker 2: get you out of your speeding fine if you just
Speaker 2: follow this script and just write these letters and just
Speaker 2: take put your names in capitals and say you're a
Speaker 2: traveler not a driver, and etc. The authorities really need
Speaker 2: to crack down on these agencies of profit because behind
Speaker 2: this movement there are people who are making a lot
Speaker 2: of money and if you go for them, like the
Speaker 2: drug trade, like a lot of crime, then if you
Speaker 2: cut the head off the snake, the rest of it
Speaker 2: really doesn't know what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a difficult area and talking danger. You mentioned
Speaker 1: Family Law Court the bomb that was placed, but we
Speaker 1: had the Family Law Court judges and that was I
Speaker 1: think it was even before my career but started in
Speaker 1: the police. But I remember we're working on it and
Speaker 1: very much aware of the recent charging of the conviction
Speaker 1: of the person for it. That's horrific. That's where society is.
Speaker 1: You know, we can all complain about the court so
Speaker 1: they made the wrong decision, but when you start to
Speaker 1: get people putting bombs in judges homes and people being murdered,
Speaker 1: that's horrific.
Speaker 2: I think it really is. And I think also we
Speaker 2: should be grateful that we've got such an independent judiciary.
Speaker 2: I know that that means sometimes decisions are made that
Speaker 2: people don't like, too soft, too hard, whatever.
Speaker 1: But in my time, David, I'm not talking about my
Speaker 1: personal case here.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm not either, But you know, look at
Speaker 2: the situation in America now where all judges are effectively
Speaker 2: political appointments and there's no break on the excesses of government,
Speaker 2: the excesses of enforcement agencies, and no one wants to
Speaker 2: live in a society like that. When I was a magistrate,
Speaker 2: I saw in that time, you know, literally hundreds of
Speaker 2: magistrates come and go, and whether they are appointed because
Speaker 2: they were prosecutors or ex defense lawyers or government officials,
Speaker 2: all of them genuinely sought to apply the law according
Speaker 2: to legal standards, not according to you know, one favoring
Speaker 2: one party or another. And we should be so grateful
Speaker 2: we've got that independent judiciary.
Speaker 1: I think it's crucial with separation of powers between politics,
Speaker 1: the courts of police. We need those separation of powers,
Speaker 1: and if they all become too aligned, I think that's
Speaker 1: where that's where problems are made, and it leans one
Speaker 1: way or the other. That doesn't do the society justice.
Speaker 1: It's so importantly. I don't like seeing politics get involved
Speaker 1: in court matters. I'm a big believer in legislation changes
Speaker 1: if it needed to be changes, but I don't like
Speaker 1: the Neederk reaction where legislations changes because it's become a
Speaker 1: popular vote winner and oh, we're going to bring in
Speaker 1: this law.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and also you know, magistrates and judges should
Speaker 2: be criticized. It's you know, when the media would criticize
Speaker 2: me saying, you know, you're at least a person and
Speaker 2: then they did a crime fair cop, you know, like
Speaker 2: I never had a problem with that in the sense
Speaker 2: that you know, you can't afford to be reactive in
Speaker 2: that situation and not cop criticism. But yes, as you say,
Speaker 2: simply changing the law because of one bad case or
Speaker 2: one bad decision, it always has implications that no one's
Speaker 2: happy with in the end, and then you have to
Speaker 2: go back and it takes time, and there's injustice.
Speaker 1: The scrutiny called. I'm a big believer in open justice
Speaker 1: as well, and I've seen it in my career times
Speaker 1: where I think that's not good that the doors are
Speaker 1: shut to the media or the public on this one,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I think there's mistakes made or things that
Speaker 1: aren't people are not accountable when there's not the public scrutiny.
Speaker 1: I get the sense through your career you were very
Speaker 1: much open to the open justice system, even in the
Speaker 1: way that you talked and you'd offer opinions on current
Speaker 1: situations and weren't afraid to voice those opinions.
Speaker 2: If I thought the law was being silly, I would
Speaker 2: certainly say so, but then I would go ahead and
Speaker 2: apply it as you must. You take an oath, like
Speaker 2: an oath to uphold the laws and usages of the
Speaker 2: State of New South Wales without fear or favor, affection
Speaker 2: or ill will. And what that means is whatever your
Speaker 2: personal view is, the law is the law. And you know,
Speaker 2: I had problems, like we've talked about with possession minor
Speaker 2: possession charges for prohibited drugs, but you've got a lot
Speaker 2: of discretion there. You don't have to send everyone to
Speaker 2: jail for it. Indeed, you don't have to convict people
Speaker 2: for it, and you know, especially first offenders, that's what
Speaker 2: I would do. But it has to be open and
Speaker 2: you have to have a good appeal system because the
Speaker 2: scrutiny that's given by the media, whether it be whether
Speaker 2: it be tabloid me or so called non tabloid media.
Speaker 2: The more intellectual approach, I honestly don't think it matters.
Speaker 2: It's good to have people in court and watching and
Speaker 2: I would love it when school kids came in and
Speaker 2: I tell the first thing I tell law students is
Speaker 2: spend as much time in court as you can. Just
Speaker 2: become a courtroom junkie. Just watch it. I still am
Speaker 2: if I still practice a little now, and if I
Speaker 2: have a case that's not going to get on till
Speaker 2: the afternoon, no better way to spend the day than
Speaker 2: watch the morning A.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you can, you can certainly learn things from there.
Speaker 1: So with the as a magistrate, you talked about the
Speaker 1: drug laws, and I think the issues that you had
Speaker 1: with people that have used let's say, what's the medical
Speaker 1: based cannabis and then being pulled over. You had a
Speaker 1: lot of people coming before the court's there with a
Speaker 1: miniscule amount of cannabis still in their system and people
Speaker 1: being charged. What's your you take on that situation.
Speaker 2: It wasn't so much problem when cannabiates was just an
Speaker 2: illicit drug, But of course we know now that it's
Speaker 2: available by prescription and there's a million prescriptions now in
Speaker 2: excess of a million prescriptions, So what we've got is
Speaker 2: a lot of people driving around who use THHC as
Speaker 2: their preferred medication prescribed by their doctor. But if they
Speaker 2: have a detectable level in their system. We're not talking
Speaker 2: about people being stoned, but just a detectable level. Then
Speaker 2: they're committing an offense and they lose their license. Now
Speaker 2: that when I was sitting as a magistrate, I would have,
Speaker 2: you know, single mums who who were getting medication for
Speaker 2: all sorts of things, be it PTSD, or who were
Speaker 2: getting THHDC prescribed by their doctors, or chronic pain or epilepsy,
Speaker 2: and they would say, you can't take away my license.
Speaker 2: How am I going to get my kids to school
Speaker 2: or to sport or all the other things. And I
Speaker 2: would say, I'm sorry, this is the law. And I
Speaker 2: just felt that that was really wrong and I spoke
Speaker 2: out about it, and I still speak out about it.
Speaker 2: And you know, the drug some we just had in
Speaker 2: New South Wales with John Brogden and Carmel Tabbitt recognize
Speaker 2: that the overwhelming view of the unanimous view as far
Speaker 2: as I know of the drug Summit, certainly of the report,
Speaker 2: was that this law should change, and hopefully we're going
Speaker 2: to see that this year.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it is something that needs to come
Speaker 1: in because I've got friends that use medical cannabis and
Speaker 1: I see them drive and that might be a week later,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, I'm no expert, but I'm thinking if
Speaker 1: you get pulled over that there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: you'd still have it in your system.
Speaker 2: Typically, how people take medicinal cannabis is they would take
Speaker 2: it after dinner. It would help them sleep, and of
Speaker 2: course the effects of that eight, ten, twelve hours later
Speaker 2: would be zero. There's no question that they are driving
Speaker 2: while they're intoxicated or anything. The other aspect to this,
Speaker 2: of course, is what's their alternative. Do they go on
Speaker 2: benzodiazepines or valium or anti anxiety medication, or do they
Speaker 2: drink a residual amount of any other prescription drug doesn't
Speaker 2: trigger this law. I jokingly said at Parliament House a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, I was speaking about this and I
Speaker 2: jokingly said, I feel like I need a T shirt
Speaker 2: that says just like any other prescription drug, and that's
Speaker 2: all people, that's how we should treat it, just like
Speaker 2: every other. Imagine if there was a new drug we'll
Speaker 2: call it weed, that came in from America that had
Speaker 2: these benefits, no one would even think about making it
Speaker 2: an offense to have a detectable level, like with desperine
Speaker 2: or alcohol or anything else.
Speaker 1: No, Well, it's again this is where I've always been
Speaker 1: of the belief that the lawsuit evolved to reflect the
Speaker 1: needs of society and the changes in society. Talking of changes,
Speaker 1: one thing that I know that caused me concerned what
Speaker 1: I saw of the effect and we're still talking drugs
Speaker 1: with a completely different drug ice in the communities. And
Speaker 1: I would imagine in the communities, even when you're a magistrate,
Speaker 1: that would would have been prevalent. And what was the
Speaker 1: impact that you saw of the prevalence of ice in
Speaker 1: the me these.
Speaker 2: And the two things, the two topics, the drug driving
Speaker 2: topic and ice are not unrelated because for ice, as
Speaker 2: we all know, it's water soluble, whereas cannabis as fat soluble.
Speaker 2: So people could use ice on a Friday night if
Speaker 2: they wanted to go out, it was cheap, they could
Speaker 2: use it. They could then drive the next day without detection.
Speaker 2: And it had a shocking impact on the operations of
Speaker 2: the court. Lismore Courthouse has been there for at least
Speaker 2: a couple of hundred years, but there'd never been the
Speaker 2: need for a walled in, glassed in or barred dock.
Speaker 2: That's where prisoners are kept while the court's on. But
Speaker 2: with ice, there was people escapes, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of violence in the court. There's people jumping over the
Speaker 2: railing and injuring themselves. We had to double the number
Speaker 2: of sheriffs in court. The impact of ice. People who
Speaker 2: are craving ice, who are addicted and have been arrested,
Speaker 2: they lose all sense of logical sense, and they're extremely
Speaker 2: strong and extremely violent, and we saw that in the
Speaker 2: court time after time. It's a really bad.
Speaker 1: Drug and it's readily available too.
Speaker 2: It's an absolute tragedy. You know. My students now tell
Speaker 2: me that, Well, if they go out, you know, for
Speaker 2: a big for a big night, as young people are
Speaker 2: wont to do alcohol all costs them, you know, and
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred dollars cannabis. Well they've got the risks
Speaker 2: of driving and it smells and whatever. Ice fifteen bucks.
Speaker 1: That's a concern, isn't it.
Speaker 2: You know? I mean, that's that is just a that's
Speaker 2: a failure of drug policy, and it's a failure of
Speaker 2: our society that the most dangerous drug is there is
Speaker 2: the cheapest and most prevalent. That's a really difficult and
Speaker 2: dangerous situation for those involved. Now I get the sense
Speaker 2: that we may have reached the peak of it and
Speaker 2: we're on the downhill slide. Is that your sense as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't like there was a point in time
Speaker 1: where it was the usage was growing exponentially and with
Speaker 1: almost and you would get the information that's hit the town,
Speaker 1: and then the town the dynamics of the town change,
Speaker 1: and maybe there is it's planted out, but it is
Speaker 1: so concerning, and the crimes can be very violent when
Speaker 1: the people have been on ice, and towards the latter
Speaker 1: part of my career, in the homicide out at the
Speaker 1: Tamworth there was someone that was affected by ice and
Speaker 1: committed a horrific murder. But I remember speaking to him
Speaker 1: and just it was chilling. It was like I was
Speaker 1: talking to a zombie, like there was no soul behind
Speaker 1: the eyes, and it was something different. I'd seen all
Speaker 1: types of people affected by drugs, but there was something
Speaker 1: not quite right when I was speaking to this person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I think the involvement of a
Speaker 2: whole lot of programs really have proven pretty successful. We
Speaker 2: have the Drug Court, which doesn't sit in enough places,
Speaker 2: but at least it's in Sydney and it's in Dubbo
Speaker 2: now and it's in Newcastle. We also have MERIT, which
Speaker 2: is magistrate's early referral into treatment, which means that drug
Speaker 2: offenders can be dealt with via rehabilitation process as opposed
Speaker 2: to know, a more punishment based process. So I think
Speaker 2: the system always a bit slow, is a bit too late,
Speaker 2: but still is effectively gearing up to deal with these
Speaker 2: problems in a much more constructive way than we were
Speaker 2: dealing with them before. Because you know, the other scary
Speaker 2: aspect is the urine samples that are taken from prisons.
Speaker 2: Amphetamines are rife in prisons, so you know, that's obviously
Speaker 2: not an answer. I think the other thing that's happened,
Speaker 2: also for good or for bad, is that cocaine has
Speaker 2: really taken over to a bigger extent than ice. And
Speaker 2: what you know, not saying one drug is better than
Speaker 2: the other, but I think that the consequences of violence
Speaker 2: are less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's far to say about putting ourselves
Speaker 1: up experts in the field, but I think I'm not
Speaker 1: saying anything. I think that, yeah, the damages from ice,
Speaker 1: that's far far reaching. There's damages. I've seen people lose
Speaker 1: track and lose path in in Cokaine, but it's more
Speaker 1: of a gradual thing with ice. It gave from a
Speaker 1: normal person to a shell of a human being in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time. You work at the
Speaker 1: UNI with the students. What are you doing there? What's
Speaker 1: your title and what's your role that you're doing there.
Speaker 2: I'm the Dean of Law, which means I'm head of
Speaker 2: the law discipline, which we have, you know, students doing
Speaker 2: law degrees, students doing paralegal degrees, students doing conveyancing. I'm
Speaker 2: in a large faculty which is the faculty Business Law
Speaker 2: and Arts, so there's compatibility with arts. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of double degrees. And you know, it's marvelous for
Speaker 2: me to be back in an environment where I'm teaching again.
Speaker 2: It's an absolute delight. And I've got a great crew
Speaker 2: of really dedicated academics. I guess we pride ourselves on
Speaker 2: producing great lawyers as opposed to other universities which focus
Speaker 2: much more on research and on higher degrees. We're a rural,
Speaker 2: a regional law school. We were based in Lismore. Now
Speaker 2: we're also at the Gold Coast and Coffs Harbor, and
Speaker 2: you know, we produce lawyers who go to small firms
Speaker 2: and practice law, who go to Aboriginal Legal Service, legal
Speaker 2: aid government departments. We have some in the larger firms,
Speaker 2: but it's you know, I've been living in the country
Speaker 2: so long that produced to produce great country lawyers is
Speaker 2: there's a shortage of them. There's not enough lawyers in
Speaker 2: the country, in the country areas.
Speaker 1: And what do you think you're saying making great lawyers?
Speaker 1: What are the attributes you're looking for or what's the
Speaker 1: finished product that comes out after they've got their qualifications?
Speaker 1: What are you looking at for a good lawyer?
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's really only two things that's
Speaker 2: actually really simple. The first is you've got to be
Speaker 2: able to communicate, and you've got to be able to
Speaker 2: communicate with an incredible range of people, from the judges
Speaker 2: and magistrates to your colleagues, the other lawyers, to the
Speaker 2: people on the street, to your staff. You've just got
Speaker 2: to have that real ability to talk to people and
Speaker 2: not talk down to people and not complicate things. So
Speaker 2: the first is communication. The second thing is you've got
Speaker 2: to have a love of the law. You've got to
Speaker 2: enjoy researching it, finding out what the latest is, seeing
Speaker 2: how it's useful for your client, or how it fits
Speaker 2: in better for the society. So if you've got those
Speaker 2: two factors, then you've got a great lawyer and an
Speaker 2: employable one and one that will be a benefit to
Speaker 2: the community. And you know, we have a lot of
Speaker 2: people who we have a lot of police who are
Speaker 2: studying law because they want to become prosecutors or join
Speaker 2: the DPP or go into private practice. At the average
Speaker 2: age of our student is not school leaver age. It's
Speaker 2: in their late twenties, so people have had a bit
Speaker 2: of a life.
Speaker 1: That's not a bad thing going into that environment. Having
Speaker 1: life experience it makes it I saw it in policing,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine that it's very much similar in law.
Speaker 2: I remember reading I can't remember. I think it was
Speaker 2: the Wood Royle Commission into Police corruption said that the
Speaker 2: older the age you employed the police, the less likely
Speaker 2: they are to be corruptible. You know, when people were
Speaker 2: brought into professions at seventeen and eighteen, and you know
Speaker 2: they were Whereas if you've got a trade to fall
Speaker 2: back on if all else fails, then you know you're
Speaker 2: less likely to be culturally influenced by negative things as
Speaker 2: opposed to positive.
Speaker 1: David, that's and I haven't heard it put that way,
Speaker 1: but it's an interesting point, the non reflection. I think
Speaker 1: it's very very true that if we had what was
Speaker 1: called cadets where you could basically go straight from school
Speaker 1: into the police, that's the only culture you knew outside
Speaker 1: of school. I worked in the building industry and got
Speaker 1: an electrical trade for six years before I joined the police,
Speaker 1: and I think that was the best thing that happened
Speaker 1: to me. And I was also in like I was
Speaker 1: age of crime before the Royal Commission and all that,
Speaker 1: so I was around that time, but I had the
Speaker 1: life experience to navigate my way through through that in
Speaker 1: that you know, I could stand up for myself. I
Speaker 1: could sense this person wasn't quite right. I didn't buy
Speaker 1: into the whole culture. And so I think that's a
Speaker 1: good idea that having that life experience before taking on
Speaker 1: the profession, that once you're in there, it gets your
Speaker 1: wholess ballus and you get caught up in the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And a lawyer, I always laugh when police are complaining
Speaker 1: how tough the job is, and I think spend the
Speaker 1: day on the jackammer and the hot sun spend the
Speaker 1: day on the jackammer and tell me what we're doing
Speaker 1: here at the crime scene is hard. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you this because I'm falling. We're talking about
Speaker 1: sovereign citizens falling down rabbit holes. I'm falling down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of AI. At the moment I had to
Speaker 1: do a talk with a lady about crime and AI
Speaker 1: the future of training lawyers. But I'm thinking the access
Speaker 1: that you've got to material case law, which is always
Speaker 1: a part of a good lawyer being able to research
Speaker 1: the cases and get the material. Where do you see
Speaker 1: the future of law with the advent of AI.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of teaching law, I think we've got
Speaker 2: to come pretty quickly to the conclusion that the bedrock
Speaker 2: method of assessment, which was assignments, is gone. You know,
Speaker 2: we can catch some now, we'll be able to catch
Speaker 2: less in five years and less five years later. So
Speaker 2: if you can't test people by writing assignments, how do
Speaker 2: you test them? Well, the other is exams. Well, then
Speaker 2: you're going to have closed book exams. Can people have
Speaker 2: their computers there? Because if they can, then AI will
Speaker 2: just take over. Are you going to go back to
Speaker 2: closed book handwritten exams, Well, what does that test? Just
Speaker 2: tests memory and we're not testing whether people are those
Speaker 2: skills that I said before, I love and passion for
Speaker 2: the law and the ability to communicate. So I guess
Speaker 2: I see the law school of the future with AI
Speaker 2: as being what I call, without being derogatory at all,
Speaker 2: the Plumber model where you go out into the field
Speaker 2: four days a week, you're working with other lawyers or
Speaker 2: judges or police or anyone within the justice system, and
Speaker 2: a day a week you come back and you learn
Speaker 2: your theory, rather than what we're doing now, which is
Speaker 2: just trying to ram it into three years or four
Speaker 2: years into a degree and it's all intellectual without very
Speaker 2: much going out into the field. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think that that model, which which ironically is what they
Speaker 2: used to call article clerks, it's how people used to
Speaker 2: go to UNI. That model of learning, I think is
Speaker 2: what we're going to have. And that's not a model
Speaker 2: that will come to any surprise for people, say in
Speaker 2: the medical profession or indeed teaching as well. You know,
Speaker 2: they do a lot of their learning in the field. Well,
Speaker 2: I think that's the way law has to move. As
Speaker 2: for AI and the practice of law, I can see
Speaker 2: situations where, for example, in sentencing, where all the factors
Speaker 2: are fed into AI, you know, just to drink, drive,
Speaker 2: charge the bread and butter of the local court tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of matters every year. Well do they really
Speaker 2: need individual assessment by a judge or should it instead
Speaker 2: be fed into a big mega computer and a proposed
Speaker 2: penalty comes out taking into account all the factors that
Speaker 2: are fed in and if you don't like that penalty
Speaker 2: you can go to the court and say, well this
Speaker 2: is why it should be different. Similarly, you know the
Speaker 2: preparation of documents. You know, the Chief Justice of New
Speaker 2: South Wales has said we're not going to use AI
Speaker 2: and affidavits and well, really, really, what you're inviting there
Speaker 2: is people to do it and then cover it up
Speaker 2: and that's even worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wondered about that because that was a big
Speaker 1: part of policing, like Affhi Davids, and I'm thinking, what's
Speaker 1: happening because I've been out of the police five years,
Speaker 1: what's happening now? Because that was to type up an
Speaker 1: Affidavid to get a Supreme Court warrant at two o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. It took skill and that was a
Speaker 1: real the skill that you developed as a detective. You
Speaker 1: could you got renowned for your skills to be able
Speaker 1: to type up in that for David, and it was
Speaker 1: a particular skill drawing all the evidence together succinctly. That's
Speaker 1: going to pass the test with a Supreme Court judge.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking at two o'clock in the morning, with AI available,
Speaker 1: you know what's happening exactly.
Speaker 2: And look, you know we set exams or assignments now,
Speaker 2: which says, here's the problem. This is what AOI says.
Speaker 2: Criticize this response.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know it's interesting.
Speaker 2: That's one way that you can get around it. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, in criminal law now we say to people,
Speaker 2: don't do an assignment on bayl law sentencing. You have
Speaker 2: to do a BAILA application and you have to do
Speaker 2: a sentencing. And so we do mock courts for assessment
Speaker 2: rather than an exam or an assignment. So look, you
Speaker 2: can do all that. But then I think to myself, well,
Speaker 2: if you really want people to learn criminal law, we
Speaker 2: aren't they working with legal aid or police prosecutions for
Speaker 2: six months that had learner.
Speaker 1: I like the way you're thinking, and until you raise it,
Speaker 1: I hadn't given it much thought on how to prepare
Speaker 1: for the future like that. But I suppose even as
Speaker 1: your career as a magistrate, you're an agent of change
Speaker 1: and pushing against some of the some of the more
Speaker 1: accepted practices of offensive behavior and different things. The future,
Speaker 1: the future of law. Do you think it's a career
Speaker 1: that you advise people to go into and what are
Speaker 1: the rewards for pursuing a career in law.
Speaker 2: One of the joys and pleasures of having been an
Speaker 2: academic and then a judicial officer is you get to
Speaker 2: see your students appearing in front of you, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was just wonderful. Occasional they'd bring books you'd
Speaker 2: written and put them on the bar table and think
Speaker 2: they're being very smart. But there is an enormous satisfaction
Speaker 2: I think in the practice of law. And the other
Speaker 2: thing is law degrees are really the new arts degree.
Speaker 2: There are no arts degrees at many universities now, and
Speaker 2: people do law as their base degree because it's such
Speaker 2: a great starting point. You know, if you didn't know
Speaker 2: what you wanted to do, you used to do an
Speaker 2: arts degree. Now I think, well, why wouldn't you do law?
Speaker 2: I guess a lot of people think to themselves, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to make more money as a plumber,
Speaker 2: and you might well, or I'm going to have bad
Speaker 2: off school holidays if I become a teacher, and you
Speaker 2: may well. But to me, at least, the satisfaction and
Speaker 2: seeing it in my students, the satisfaction and learning the
Speaker 2: law and applying it and trying to change the world
Speaker 2: to make it a better place, is enormously satisfying. So
Speaker 2: I would always encourage people to practice, to study law,
Speaker 2: and you know, if you don't like it, you'll soon
Speaker 2: know and you can go and do something else.
Speaker 1: Well, I get the sense that it served you well.
Speaker 1: You seem like you still have the joy for life
Speaker 1: and great future ahead of you. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on. I catchkillers. You're the second magist,
Speaker 1: but we had Hugh Dillon that I know you know,
Speaker 1: the coroner on there before. But I think you've given
Speaker 1: a fascinating insight because we talked about a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know who the person is sitting on the bench,
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time sitting in the courts wondering
Speaker 1: what's going on in that person's mind. But you've given
Speaker 1: us a bit of insight into that. I think. I
Speaker 1: mean this sincerely too. I'd like to thank you for
Speaker 1: the service that you've brought to the communities, because someone
Speaker 1: that's got some humanity and empathy in them, sitting in
Speaker 1: a position of power like you have as a magistrate
Speaker 1: is so important. I think you really make a potentially
Speaker 1: make a difference the fact you understand crime when these
Speaker 1: people are saying, yeah, what would they know, it's never
Speaker 1: happened to them. You understand the impact it has, and
Speaker 1: I think that's so important. So congratulations on an impressive
Speaker 1: career and a future educating lawyers in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Has been real pleasure talking to you,
Speaker 2: and obviously our shared experience in these things makes for
Speaker 2: a great base of knowledge. I've certainly learned things too,
Speaker 2: so it's been great. And I'll come back in a
Speaker 2: few years once I've done that research on children being
Speaker 2: victims of crime then committing crimes. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll booked the studio. I'll just check the calendar.
Speaker 1: We'll get that sorted out. But thanks very much and
Speaker 1: all the best, David, sincerely.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much.
Speaker 1: Cheers,