Speaker 1: You're listing to a Mumma Mea podcast. Mamma Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was
Speaker 1: recorded on it's early August in Sydney in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and the city is gearing up to host
Speaker 1: the Olympics. Two year twelve girls aged seventeen and eighteen
Speaker 1: are at Chatswood shopping center chatting to a group of
Speaker 1: teenage boys. They're offered a lift home, so they accept.
Speaker 1: Hopping into a white van with the group, they're taken
Speaker 1: to Greenacre in the city's west, where they're slacked, threatened, pushed,
Speaker 1: and raped by a total of eight males. Two days later,
Speaker 1: the group strikes again, giving a sixteen year old girl
Speaker 1: a lift into the city. Taken to a park and
Speaker 1: ambushed by a group of fourteen the teenager is raped
Speaker 1: by two of them while the others watch on and laugh.
Speaker 1: On August thirty, an eighteen year old woman is approached
Speaker 1: by the group on a train to Bankstown. She's persuaded
Speaker 1: to get off with them, tricked into entering a public toilet,
Speaker 1: and raped over and over. Both there and in two
Speaker 1: other locations. She's sexually assaulted by fourteen men and boys
Speaker 1: in total over the course of six terrifying hours. As
Speaker 1: a final humiliation, they hose her down and throw her
Speaker 1: into the street near a train station. In early September,
Speaker 1: two sixteen year old girls are picked up from another
Speaker 1: railway station in the city's southwest. They're repeatedly raped by
Speaker 1: three males over a period of five hours. This series
Speaker 1: of horrific crimes becomes known as the Scaff Gang rapes,
Speaker 1: named after the gang's ringleaders, brothers Bellal and Muhammad Scaff.
Speaker 1: The magnitude of the horror they subjected their victims to
Speaker 1: left our country in a state of shock and outrage,
Speaker 1: with a judge which describing the offenses as events that
Speaker 1: you hear about or read about only in the context
Speaker 1: of wartime atrocities. The group, aged between sixteen and twenty,
Speaker 1: consisted of up to fourteen boys and men, but only
Speaker 1: nine were convicted, sentenced to a total of more than
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty years in prison. Only one of
Speaker 1: them remains behind bars. I'm Jemma Bath and This is
Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations Amoma mea podcast exploring the world's most
Speaker 1: notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
Speaker 1: most about them. Our guest today led the prosecution of
Speaker 1: the two thousand Scaff gang rapes. Margaret Kneen sc has
Speaker 1: enjoyed a long career as a Crown Prosecutor and Deputy
Speaker 1: Senior Crown Prosecutor, leading hundreds of judge only and jury
Speaker 1: criminal trials and appeals in the New South Wales Court
Speaker 1: of Criminal Appeal and High Court of Australia. She's recorded
Speaker 1: a long succession of convictions against rapists and murderers, including
Speaker 1: the butcher of Beager and pedophile Robert Dolly Dunn, and
Speaker 1: has served as Commissioner of the New South Wales Special
Speaker 1: Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation
Speaker 1: of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Roman Catholic
Speaker 1: Diocese of Maitland Newcastle. She's had her fair share of
Speaker 1: controversy too. At the end of twenty fourteen, she was
Speaker 1: investigated by the New South Wales EYEKAC, who were pursuing
Speaker 1: her for corrupt conduct. She was accused of perverting the
Speaker 1: course of justice for advising her son's girlfriend to fake
Speaker 1: chest pains to avoid a breath test after a car crash.
Speaker 1: She was fully exonerated and her involvement in the inquiry
Speaker 1: at all was revealed to be a big misunderstanding. Retiring
Speaker 1: from public office in twenty nineteen, Margaret embarked on a
Speaker 1: brand new chapter, doing the complete professional opposite of what
Speaker 1: she's done for so long, defending the accused instead of
Speaker 1: prosecuting them. Her career is outlined in a chronicle called
Speaker 1: The Boxing Butterfly, which explores some of her biggest cases
Speaker 1: and moments. Margaret joins us, now, Margaret, you've had a
Speaker 1: very big career. Do you have a proudest moment? Is
Speaker 1: that something you're even able to do with so many achievements.
Speaker 2: I do have one, and it's fairly recent, and it's
Speaker 2: in my time as defense counsel. Because my career is
Speaker 2: now forty eight years old at the end of this year,
Speaker 2: forty eight years of full time work. My goodness, no wonder,
Speaker 2: no wonder, I feel tired. The big moment for me,
Speaker 2: the biggest achievement was winning a case that perhaps most
Speaker 2: people wouldn't have seen the success in. And it's the
Speaker 2: case of Coulwynda Singh, who was charged with burning his
Speaker 2: wife to death. And I sensed very much a bit
Speaker 2: of a racist persecution going on and even that the
Speaker 2: Crown was going to get an expert to say that
Speaker 2: Indian men burn their wives and on her short list
Speaker 2: to prove that this expert, who had never been to India,
Speaker 2: by the way, she already had mister Singh's name on it,
Speaker 2: and he hadn't been convicted. And as it happened, there
Speaker 2: was plenty of evidence in that case, plenty of forensic evidence,
Speaker 2: and it all pointed to the deceased woman having set
Speaker 2: her self on fire, but not to burn herself. It
Speaker 2: was a mistake. She used petrol instead of kerosene. She'd
Speaker 2: prepared herself, she'd put a hair up that she usually
Speaker 2: had down in a wet towel. She prepared everything, and
Speaker 2: hers were the only fingerprints in DNA on the petrol
Speaker 2: can and on the lighter. But poor mister Singh, who
Speaker 2: is who I could faithfully say to the jury, has
Speaker 2: never had a drink, smoke, gambled, didn't have anyone on
Speaker 2: the side, so to speak, never been to a brothel, casino, nothing,
Speaker 2: Just a hard working guy with a lovely family. It
Speaker 2: wasn't him, but he was. He was treated so badly
Speaker 2: by everyone who assumed it must have been well that
Speaker 2: he did it to her. So it was hard won
Speaker 2: victory because the first trial was conducted in a way
Speaker 2: which wasn't allowed the second time by the prosecution desperate
Speaker 2: for a conviction and breaking it up. Well, even if
Speaker 2: she did it, you forced her to and all these
Speaker 2: different permutations. But finally, and that was a hung jury.
Speaker 2: The second time, we were able to keep the crown
Speaker 2: to admissible evidence and the jury very quickly came back
Speaker 2: with a not guilty verdict. But he spent a lot
Speaker 2: of his own money, he did four months in jail,
Speaker 2: and he's just suffered so much. And it just shows
Speaker 2: that investigators ought not to jump to conclusions and that
Speaker 2: the legal process testing all the evidence is there for
Speaker 2: a good reason.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you pick a proudest moment from your
Speaker 1: I'm going to call it second act, because you spent
Speaker 1: so much time on the other side prosecuting cases. What
Speaker 1: has it been like spending the last few years in defense?
Speaker 2: Yes, six years now. I didn't know whether anyone would
Speaker 2: brief me. I left the Crown at sixty and thought, well,
Speaker 2: that's the sort of where the super comes to a
Speaker 2: sort of stop. So let's see what it's like. Will
Speaker 2: anyone brief me, But I didn't get any briefs from
Speaker 2: the prosecution none, And so I was briefed by many
Speaker 2: different defense solicitors, most of whom I'd never worked with.
Speaker 2: But there's just so much work, and I'm still turning
Speaker 2: it away and booked out well towards the end of
Speaker 2: next year. So it's true that I did some wonderful
Speaker 2: cases as a Crown prosecutor, and I'm still in contact
Speaker 2: with dozens of families, especially bereaved parents of children who
Speaker 2: were killed, such as Lindsay van Blanken, whose body was
Speaker 2: found in a cricket bag. I'm still friends with her
Speaker 2: mum and her sister. But in a sense, Jemma, I've
Speaker 2: got to say that it's a bit more of a
Speaker 2: challenge on the defense side. It's generally more straightforward on
Speaker 2: the prosecution side. If you're on the correct side, and
Speaker 2: you should be by the time a trial gets up,
Speaker 2: the Crown prosecutor should be very confident of the evidence
Speaker 2: and very confident of the way the matter should go
Speaker 2: by having made sure that it's all been tested to
Speaker 2: some degree and everything checked before someone is put on trial.
Speaker 2: But from the defense point of view, being against the
Speaker 2: zeitgeist against the publicity and the tendency now it seems
Speaker 2: to me for people to make up their mind before
Speaker 2: someone is convicted, and so that's a very negative influence
Speaker 2: carrying through the trial. And it's very hard for people,
Speaker 2: especially people in the public eye, who get put on
Speaker 2: because so often it's as though they've already been convicted
Speaker 2: just when they're charged, and people forget that as they
Speaker 2: would want if they were charged, they'd want the evidence
Speaker 2: to be tested and proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Everyone is innocent until they're not.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So is that a welcome challenge for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I was daunted by it and thought it might
Speaker 2: be difficult to change because I used to be criticized
Speaker 2: a lot for this. I get very close to the
Speaker 2: people I work with, and I was criticized very much,
Speaker 2: and I think, perhaps in a somewhat sexist fashion for
Speaker 2: decades for being just affectionate with young women who'd been
Speaker 2: terribly assaulted or parents who'd lost a child. And I
Speaker 2: warmed to those people and thought it would be easier
Speaker 2: for them if they knew how much it meant to
Speaker 2: me for them to get justice. And so I've been
Speaker 2: criticized for hugging people and having my arm around people
Speaker 2: and so forth, showing oh that's it, yes, Oh, yes,
Speaker 2: we must have none of us be kind. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 2: even if we were you know, mothers and grandmothers and in.
Speaker 1: The worst moments of their lives.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is the worst moment of anyone's life to
Speaker 2: go through a court process, and the more serious the
Speaker 2: case that the worse it is for all parties. And
Speaker 2: so you can see that people need kindness. But then
Speaker 2: when I was a prosecutor and I saw a woman
Speaker 2: just quietly crying, and I knew it was the mother
Speaker 2: of the man who had just been convicted of murder.
Speaker 2: And I saw her crying there, and she was a mum,
Speaker 2: and I just I asked the defense counsel could I
Speaker 2: just go and see her? And I ended up holding
Speaker 2: her and hugging her because no one else was. So
Speaker 2: we have to have humanity in our justice system, because
Speaker 2: it's very, very much a part of it. It's not
Speaker 2: it's not a mathematical calculation. It's even the determination of
Speaker 2: these cases has so much it relies on so much
Speaker 2: knowledge of human nature, and.
Speaker 1: Court is scary if you haven't been in one. I've
Speaker 1: covered them as a court reporter. They're really intimidating places.
Speaker 1: And so these families have often never set foot in
Speaker 1: a court before, and suddenly there's judges, there's prosecutors, there's defense,
Speaker 1: there's criminals, and it's very overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Yes, in a bit of an arcane language too, perhaps
Speaker 2: deliberately set so that people don't quite know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: And the intimidation is deliberate too, to try to scare
Speaker 2: people into telling the truth. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: really works like that anymore. That, like many other of
Speaker 2: the trappings of the criminal justice system, have changed a
Speaker 2: lot in the forty odd years I've been in it.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good segue to bring me to a
Speaker 1: sentence in your book that really stood out to me
Speaker 1: right at the start in the introduction, and it said,
Speaker 1: she has been trenchantly attacked by some colleagues in the profession.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they mistook her niceness for weakness. It was an
Speaker 1: observation by your co author. What would you say to that,
Speaker 1: because that kind of speaks to what you've just been
Speaker 1: saying about people looking at you showing empathy and kindness
Speaker 1: and positive emotion as a weakness.
Speaker 2: For a few decades. I think it was ago I
Speaker 2: noticed that people thought that if you're quite pleasant and
Speaker 2: polite with people and nice to people, polite with the
Speaker 2: other side, you can't be taking it seriously enough. You've
Speaker 2: got to walk in there with a stern look and
Speaker 2: don't get too close to people, and be a bit
Speaker 2: of an object rather than a person. But well, I've
Speaker 2: just continued to do it my way, and if people
Speaker 2: don't like it, well, many of the people who don't
Speaker 2: like it aren't there anymore, so it doesn't matter, and you've.
Speaker 1: Got your achievements to show. You have spoken before about
Speaker 1: your own experience of sexual abuse in your childhood. Did
Speaker 1: that help to inform your why when you entered this career,
Speaker 1: And also, I guess the empathy that you.
Speaker 2: Have it certainly did infor me, because because I knew
Speaker 2: very well from when I first started working in the
Speaker 2: prosecution of child sexual assault in the nineteen eighties, I
Speaker 2: knew things that other people who only had a theoretical
Speaker 2: knowledge didn't appreciate. And one of the main things is
Speaker 2: how child sexual abuse can happen virtually under the noses
Speaker 2: of parents. And so it's not really an answer to say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the parents were there, and how could this have happened?
Speaker 2: Because so much of it is furtive grooming behavior. And
Speaker 2: I also understood that a long time ago, and in
Speaker 2: the sixties, when I was a child, there was very
Speaker 2: little ability to say something about a respected adult and
Speaker 2: be believed. And especially if a child, a small child,
Speaker 2: was talking about parts of the body or something that
Speaker 2: was regarded as rude or shocking for a child to say,
Speaker 2: it was very hard for them to get the message across.
Speaker 2: And I remember getting very very sternly treated when I
Speaker 2: was trying to tell people who should have known, and
Speaker 2: I used, at about the age of six or seven,
Speaker 2: use the word penis to try to tell the message,
Speaker 2: and I got hit really using that word. So I
Speaker 2: didn't bother to tell anyone sell the same people again
Speaker 2: until I was an adult.
Speaker 1: Just goes to show, though I would hope that nowadays,
Speaker 1: you know, young children, I'm teaching my two year old
Speaker 1: about consent or trying to yes, teaching him about body parts, like,
Speaker 1: we're just so much more knowledgeable.
Speaker 2: We are so much more knowledgeable there seem to be
Speaker 2: in that generation of people. They weren't all like this,
Speaker 2: but there was such a people just take a sharp
Speaker 2: intake of breath at the mention of anything sexual. It
Speaker 2: was also behind the curtain, and so I think it's
Speaker 2: so much more healthy that everyone just takes sexual matters
Speaker 2: in their stride and it's not something that only people
Speaker 2: of a certain age can talk about it in hush tones.
Speaker 2: So good for you with your little boy.
Speaker 1: You've been involved in so many high profile cases during
Speaker 1: your time as a prosecutor and crime prosecutor, too many
Speaker 1: to touch on in this episode, so I want to
Speaker 1: hone in on one the scaff gang rapes. Would you
Speaker 1: say that it's among one of the cases you're asked
Speaker 1: about the most.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm asked about that the most, really the most.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: There's a few reasons. Those offenses took place in August
Speaker 2: two thousand, so it was kind of a change of
Speaker 2: history in a sense, and it was just before the Olympics.
Speaker 2: The occurrence of the crimes was a bit concealed by
Speaker 2: authorities at the time, so that there wasn't a huge panic.
Speaker 2: But there were fifteen men in a gang, not always
Speaker 2: all all together, but easily able with the relatively new
Speaker 2: invention of mobile phones to get together and to have
Speaker 2: sort of a military type operation, just so that there'd
Speaker 2: be literally shifts of men coming in to assault a
Speaker 2: young woman or two. It was really shocking. The mobile
Speaker 2: telephones gave us a lot more detail, and so too
Speaker 2: did the victims were extremely articulate and well able to
Speaker 2: give so many descriptions of what happened. One victim in particular,
Speaker 2: who was involved with this gang over six hours and
Speaker 2: four locations. Her memory of it was so impressive because
Speaker 2: not just because there was a lot of detail in
Speaker 2: a statement that can happen anytime and a prosecutor or
Speaker 2: a police officer isn't sure whether it's true or not,
Speaker 2: but so much of the detail was able to be
Speaker 2: checked because of the other relatively new thing of CCTV
Speaker 2: on a railway station. But even details like the one
Speaker 2: in the yellow jumper had something to do with his
Speaker 2: private area, and that turned out to be true, and
Speaker 2: so she was. So she just took it all in,
Speaker 2: even through the stress of probably believing at the end
Speaker 2: she might be killed, just going through something so terrible,
Speaker 2: but remembering so accurately because mobile phones backed up what
Speaker 2: she said about he left and he came back, and
Speaker 2: so forth, and mobile phones I suppose that this was
Speaker 2: the first case where mobile phones were used so much
Speaker 2: in the detection of the offenders. And I learned things
Speaker 2: like a mobile tower being able to say not just
Speaker 2: that it's picked up on that tower, but which of
Speaker 2: three sectors the direction of the call comes from. So
Speaker 2: even if some of the offenders lived close to the
Speaker 2: mobile tower, their home wasn't in the correct sector, and
Speaker 2: so they were they were found out that way. And
Speaker 2: the other interesting thing about the mobile telephone that I
Speaker 2: learned then and we'll never forget, is during the offenses,
Speaker 2: Miss c as she was called by the court, heard
Speaker 2: her own ring tone her phone had been taken from her,
Speaker 2: and heard her ring tone, which was the real slim
Speaker 2: shady eminem two thousan. Yes, that's right. She saw one
Speaker 2: of the offenders at his phone with that and saw
Speaker 2: it was her phone. But in the end they gave
Speaker 2: her back her phone. But he had put his SIM
Speaker 2: card in there because he liked the phone ring tone
Speaker 2: or both and used it that night. Perhaps he used
Speaker 2: it to ring people and didn't want it on his phone,
Speaker 2: or was or who knows, probably as simple as wanted
Speaker 2: to try that phone out. But then, as I learned
Speaker 2: for the first time in the preparation for that case.
Speaker 2: Every phone, even then the old Nokias, the phone sends
Speaker 2: a message of the call, and the SIM card sends
Speaker 2: a separate message of the call, so it could be
Speaker 2: proved that the call was made with his sim card
Speaker 2: and her phone, so that linked them so that he
Speaker 2: couldn't get out of it at all, even though of
Speaker 2: course he said I was at home, it wasn't me,
Speaker 2: someone who looked like me, and so forth.
Speaker 1: So this kind of technological side of investigation that was
Speaker 1: fairly new.
Speaker 2: Yes, it really was. It was the first sexual assault
Speaker 2: case I'd ever done that was investigated like a murder.
Speaker 1: Because I've heard it said that the brief of evidence
Speaker 1: that you got was as good as you would get
Speaker 1: from a murder, which is impressive in a sexual assault case.
Speaker 2: It really was, And it was such a big strike
Speaker 2: force of about a dozen fantastic detectives who many of
Speaker 2: whom had homicide experience. They did it like that, So
Speaker 2: it was not just a usual case of at that
Speaker 2: time of alleged sexual assault, where there'd be a statement
Speaker 2: from the complainant and perhaps a statement from a doctor
Speaker 2: and a statement from a police officer saying, we arrested
Speaker 2: the guy and he wouldn't say anything, and that's that,
Speaker 2: and that was all you got. But in this case
Speaker 2: there was so much more CCTV and all the phone evidence,
Speaker 2: which was fascinating.
Speaker 1: Which makes your job easier, right, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: an easier case, but you want as much detail as possible.
Speaker 2: That's right. And as much as we know that it
Speaker 2: still doesn't prove whether sexual intercourse is rape or not.
Speaker 2: In a case like this, it sure does. In the
Speaker 2: back of buildings, with men coming and going, different cars
Speaker 2: coming and going, and more and more offenses taking place,
Speaker 2: it was obvious that that complainant and all the other
Speaker 2: complainants were there against their will and certainly not consenting
Speaker 2: to these waves of men who were arriving.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: names that people might remember, and it's the reason it's
Speaker 1: called the Scaff rape. So the Muhammad and Blal scaff
Speaker 1: who were the kind of ring leaders or Balal was
Speaker 1: the ring leader?
Speaker 2: Yes, what was the setup?
Speaker 1: They were the brothers that were kind of running it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they were in a sense. Bill Al was
Speaker 2: always involved and Muhammed was a bit of a runner
Speaker 2: for him. Muhammed was only sixteen at the time and
Speaker 2: he well he's still in the news, Yes he is.
Speaker 2: He's still in the news. But he was sixteen and
Speaker 2: bill Al was eighteen. I'm not trying to take away
Speaker 2: from their crimes, but there was something. There were a
Speaker 2: few features in their upbringing that seemed to scream out
Speaker 2: that they weren't necessarily brought up to respect young Australian women. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was very clear from their supporters and members of
Speaker 2: their family and the way that they would harass the victims,
Speaker 2: well at the time complainants, but imagine that that women
Speaker 2: associated with them were harassing.
Speaker 1: Well, you're kind of touching around the edges on the
Speaker 1: racial motivation side of this case, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what the media ran with. You know, it got this
Speaker 1: huge This is a racially motivated attack and it kind
Speaker 1: of was stemming from the fact that the victims were
Speaker 1: being called things like ossie pigs. You deserve it because
Speaker 1: you're Australian. How did that side of things overtake this case,
Speaker 1: particularly in the media.
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, as I've always said, I wouldn't have ever
Speaker 2: mentioned any racial aspect of it, except that those were
Speaker 2: the words that were said by some of the offenders
Speaker 2: during the rapes, and so they brought it on themselves
Speaker 2: in a sense. But that was very bad for the
Speaker 2: Lebanese community, very bad because they wore it all and
Speaker 2: every Lebanese person you know, felt like that the finger
Speaker 2: had been pointed at them, and that was most unfair,
Speaker 2: most unfair, because this is a very tiny proportion of
Speaker 2: people who would act like this, and it's very very unfair.
Speaker 2: And in the book I do tell the story about
Speaker 2: naming the offenders because.
Speaker 1: They were under suppression because they were kids.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, and even the naming bill Al's name
Speaker 2: would have would have named Muhammad or in a sense
Speaker 2: because brothers and everything like that. But I made the submission.
Speaker 2: In the end, I didn't know whether I should or not,
Speaker 2: but I made the submission to name them after a
Speaker 2: young Muslim law student who I was teaching at the time, lecturing,
Speaker 2: said they've got to be named otherwise our whole community
Speaker 2: has to wear it, that it should be put the
Speaker 2: blame should be put on the people who did it,
Speaker 2: not on the whole community, and that you can't argue
Speaker 2: with logic like that. And the judge agreed, and so
Speaker 2: they were all named, and whilst their names now are
Speaker 2: so well known, but it is better than blaming a
Speaker 2: whole racial group.
Speaker 1: Definitely. It's a shame we don't really know the other
Speaker 1: names as well, you know, we just know the Scaff brothers.
Speaker 2: Yes, well they were named. But because there were two
Speaker 2: Scaffs and Bill al was in all the trials, they're
Speaker 2: the ones that have worn it.
Speaker 1: How were they caught in the end? Was it with
Speaker 1: the mobile phones that did.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was the main thing, the mobile phones. But
Speaker 2: not all were caught. Only nine of the fifteen were caught,
Speaker 2: and one or two of them did got almost nothing
Speaker 2: really because certain proofs weren't available against them. There are
Speaker 2: five or six who got away with it.
Speaker 1: And so we will never know.
Speaker 2: No, probably not, probably not. I don't think there's DNA,
Speaker 2: but you never know. There was so much DNA taken
Speaker 2: and methods of DNA keep coming back.
Speaker 1: There ended up being a number of trials in this gaff.
Speaker 2: Yes, gang reps.
Speaker 1: Were you involved in all of them?
Speaker 2: Yes? I was, and so in fact in the end
Speaker 2: there were trials involving four complainants, two in one trial
Speaker 2: and two separate other ones, and there were other complainants
Speaker 2: where there were pleas of guilty entered that they were
Speaker 2: a little less serious. But by then the offenders knew
Speaker 2: that they were going to jail anyway, and they might
Speaker 2: as well fess up to some of the others. And
Speaker 2: the point had been made and long sentences were imposed.
Speaker 2: Bill E's still in None of the others.
Speaker 1: Are He's the only ones still in prison? Yes, because
Speaker 1: something that stands out to me when you look back
Speaker 1: at this case is how they acted in court. There
Speaker 1: was no remorse, was there?
Speaker 2: Oh no, they were laughing. They were terribly badly behaved.
Speaker 2: But it must be said that that they weren't very bright.
Speaker 2: You know, they were tested and their IQs were exceedingly low.
Speaker 2: You know, that's something that has to go into the
Speaker 2: mix about whether they it was almost borderline on whether
Speaker 2: they should be sentenced as hard as people with average
Speaker 2: at least average intelligence.
Speaker 1: But like laughing in court and falling asleep.
Speaker 2: Throwing things at people and yes, laughing and disappearing and
Speaker 2: being on the ground and screaming out things, and they
Speaker 2: clearly had no respect for the judicial system. Do you
Speaker 2: know that something happened to me only about a month
Speaker 2: or two ago and I didn't even expect to tell
Speaker 2: you this today because it just came back into my
Speaker 2: mind thinking about the other offenders. One of the other
Speaker 2: offenders who was right in there with and his name
Speaker 2: was MG. It was and it became I was taken
Speaker 2: off a retrial in relation to him because of a lecture,
Speaker 2: so he ended up and because that trial didn't succeed,
Speaker 2: even though he did time for one in which it
Speaker 2: did succeed. I do believe that he was involved in
Speaker 2: the other case that he was acquitted of because he
Speaker 2: had very distinctive hair. But anyway, I digress. Two months ago,
Speaker 2: I was walking in Park Street, Sydney. I just got
Speaker 2: out of an uber with some friends who were going
Speaker 2: a different way and I was just going to peel
Speaker 2: off and I was crossing Park Street to go and
Speaker 2: get a cab or bus or whatever. It was dark,
Speaker 2: and there was a beautiful white Ferrari purring at the lights.
Speaker 2: And I do like cars a lot, and it had
Speaker 2: gone old trim and it was really new and I'd
Speaker 2: never seen such a beautiful Ferrari and it was making
Speaker 2: this beautiful noise. And I must confess that as I
Speaker 2: walked across in front of it, in the dark. I
Speaker 2: was looking for it and looking at it, looking at everything,
Speaker 2: and did not looking at the driver. When I got
Speaker 2: to the other side, the window wound down and said Margaret,
Speaker 2: and I said hello, and he said do you know
Speaker 2: who it is? And I said no, but I like
Speaker 2: your car and he said it's it's MG and he
Speaker 2: sped off. And I wasn't frightened or anything, because he
Speaker 2: had a big smile on his face. And my goodness,
Speaker 2: he's got a Ferrari and I haven't.
Speaker 1: But that's so many decades later as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but I suppose my face is still about.
Speaker 2: And I am told as recently as yesterday that criminals
Speaker 2: in jail's talk about lawyers a lot.
Speaker 1: That's so eerie.
Speaker 2: Though, yes, it was so eerie. Idn't even believe it.
Speaker 2: And I texted my friends and I said, you can't
Speaker 2: believe what just happened. I'm just telling you in case
Speaker 2: anything happens now. But he wasn't menacing, but he wanted
Speaker 2: you to know he was there. Though he was pretty
Speaker 2: triumphant well.
Speaker 1: As you were mentioning. And I want to dig into
Speaker 1: it because he was acquitted of one OF's charges. Tell
Speaker 1: me about being taken off the retrial.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, it is an interesting case, and I think
Speaker 2: a wrong case. I do think it was a wrong
Speaker 2: case because I was invited to give a prestigious lecture
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five to the University of Newcastle.
Speaker 2: It's called the Sinninian Stephen Lecture, and I was one
Speaker 2: of the few people more lowly than a judge who'd
Speaker 2: ever been invited to do it, and the Dean paid
Speaker 2: me a great honor in asking me, and so I
Speaker 2: prepared a lecture. It's a lecture very carefully and most
Speaker 2: of it wasn't about any cases at all. Most of
Speaker 2: it was to try to be in s firing to
Speaker 2: the first year law students who were the target audience,
Speaker 2: about the power that that one gets from being a
Speaker 2: lawyer and how to be good with it and how
Speaker 2: you know. I even said such things as it would
Speaker 2: be the worst nightmare of a prosecutor to think that
Speaker 2: he or she had prosecuted someone who was actually not guilty.
Speaker 1: But she's a pretty obvious thing, you would think, I
Speaker 1: would think.
Speaker 2: So I hope that that always is the case. And
Speaker 2: so I thought it was good. But the Dean had
Speaker 2: asked me to comment because he said, so many of
Speaker 2: the students wonder why all the scaff cases are still
Speaker 2: limping on through the system, and it just hasn't come
Speaker 2: to an end, and there's more trials and then there's
Speaker 2: an appeal, and then there's a re trial and all
Speaker 2: that business. So I just gave a bit of a
Speaker 2: background of the allegations and the way it's gone through
Speaker 2: the courts. And I didn't even mention their names. I
Speaker 2: don't know if the names were public by them, probably not.
Speaker 2: I didn't mention their names. I mentioned them by initials
Speaker 2: so as to differentiate the cases and make it clear.
Speaker 2: And this is a university lecture, and it's pretty normal
Speaker 2: for lawyers to be able to lecture student lawyers about
Speaker 2: cases even though they're still ongoing. When you're just mentioning
Speaker 2: the things that are in the public domain, about the
Speaker 2: course of the trials and the appeals, and why they're
Speaker 2: still going five years after the offenses and we're still
Speaker 2: going for years after that. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: when the fellow, now he's now got a ferrari, was
Speaker 2: up for trial again, some lawyers who didn't want me
Speaker 2: in the case. That's all it was about. They've told
Speaker 2: me since thought they'd take a point that they didn't expect,
Speaker 2: but they thought it'd buy some time with the Court
Speaker 2: of Criminal Appeal, saying that I should never be as
Speaker 2: a prosecutor. I should never be talking about cases that
Speaker 2: I might be in the future, publishing something, they said publishing.
Speaker 2: Actually I didn't publish anything.
Speaker 1: So you're a Crown prosecutor. You're going to know if
Speaker 1: you're doing something that's legally dubious.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. But this point was taken and a
Speaker 2: judgment was given by the court, and leading judgment was
Speaker 2: then a judge who later went on to have some
Speaker 2: experience in sexual assault, but who said since I didn't
Speaker 2: know how bad it was for victims for years, but
Speaker 2: he took me off it. He took me off the
Speaker 2: case and said I shouldn't be in it because I've
Speaker 2: made public comments about a case I might be in.
Speaker 2: And so the victim didn't come back. She didn't want
Speaker 2: to come back again, and they changed the legislation so
Speaker 2: that her evidence could be read and so forth. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't.
Speaker 1: She didn't come back again because you were taken off.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, And I promised her that I would
Speaker 2: stay with her through it always and I couldn't keep
Speaker 2: my promise, but I'd go to anyway, and someone else
Speaker 2: did the case, not with the same knowledge. I'm not
Speaker 2: being at all critical, but there are things that had
Speaker 2: to be put across to a jury anyway, it was
Speaker 2: not successful. So Ferrari man, Well, anyway, I shouldn't say that,
Speaker 2: because you have to be things have to be proved
Speaker 2: beyond reasonable doubt, and it wasn't. And that's exactly how
Speaker 2: the court, the system should should prevail. But that's just
Speaker 2: my thoughts, and maybe I've gone too far yet again, but.
Speaker 1: So well, as far as we know, none of them
Speaker 1: are doing appeals right now, so if fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I think we're allowed to talk about
Speaker 2: it now. And that's just my view, no one else's view.
Speaker 1: It's well known though that it's very hard to get
Speaker 1: a rape conviction, and even looking at this case, you know,
Speaker 1: the amount of appeals and the amount of charges that
Speaker 1: weren't able.
Speaker 2: To it was much harder than than it is now.
Speaker 1: But why do these cases struggle so much compared to like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think they do really really, yes, I think there's
Speaker 2: plenty of people being convicted nowadays. Oh, yes, plenty of
Speaker 2: people being convicted, and in fact there's few people being
Speaker 2: convicted where perhaps you know an appeal will produce a
Speaker 2: different result. And if one looks at the raw statistics
Speaker 2: about how many convictions there are, and I don't even
Speaker 2: think that's changed a lot. If it is said that
Speaker 2: there's any slight reduction in conviction rates, it's because there
Speaker 2: are so many more complaints now. And I don't want
Speaker 2: to offend anyone, and I hope that everyone understands what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, but that in terms of seriousness objectively, and
Speaker 2: I know that for every victim it's their subjective feeling.
Speaker 2: But there are so many cases now in relation to
Speaker 2: well relationships sex that is, one person thinks it's been
Speaker 2: agreed to and one person doesn't, and perhaps it could
Speaker 2: be in the context of consensual sex to a certain
Speaker 2: extent or a certain number of times, and then something more.
Speaker 2: I'm not diminishing anyone's experience, but they're also harder to prove,
Speaker 2: because the more aspects of things that are done to
Speaker 2: someone that are against their will, the easier it is
Speaker 2: to prove. So, just as an example, if the complainant
Speaker 2: has removed her own clothes, gone somewhere private, got into
Speaker 2: bed with someone, decided to sleep with someone. It's going
Speaker 2: to be a bit harder to prove that there wasn't
Speaker 2: consent to something happening. It's just a bit harder to
Speaker 2: prove because there are two sides to the story, and
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is no one really knows
Speaker 2: except those two people.
Speaker 1: Which is hard to hear. Like you say, but you're
Speaker 1: speaking from like a courtroom perspective, through a lawyer's eyes.
Speaker 1: It's much harder to distinguishes than say the scaff rapes
Speaker 1: that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: And there can even be each side might there might
Speaker 2: be no dishonesty from either, but each side might remember
Speaker 2: it in a different way. And that I suppose that's
Speaker 2: where where communication is so important, and maybe that is
Speaker 2: why it's a good idea to change it to let's
Speaker 2: have the specific conversation rather than the old days of
Speaker 2: just a look in the eye and things that came
Speaker 2: from Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1: You mean asking for consent.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's it, but not just generally, because many cases
Speaker 2: are cases where consent to certain acts have taken place,
Speaker 2: but there's got to be ongoing consent and continuous consent
Speaker 2: but many people say, oh, that's stupid, because you know,
Speaker 2: I'm in a relationship and we don't talk about it
Speaker 2: and all that. But well, perhaps everyone has to have
Speaker 2: ground rules with people, and every couple's different.
Speaker 1: And I would also argue that people that do feel
Speaker 1: like they've been sexually assaulted and raped in that scenario
Speaker 1: do deserve to be able to go to and fight
Speaker 1: for justice.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course they do, and they are and
Speaker 2: they are permitted to and they're given every ability to
Speaker 2: make it easier. They don't have to be in the
Speaker 2: same room. They can do it by AVL, they can
Speaker 2: have as many breaks as they like, support person, all
Speaker 2: the things, all the things that we pioneered when I
Speaker 2: was prosecuting these types of cases.
Speaker 1: Well, there were some changes in criminal procedure after scuff,
Speaker 1: weren't there.
Speaker 2: Yes, that someone doesn't have to come back time after time.
Speaker 2: So the evidence is recorded now audio and visual, and
Speaker 2: so it can be used well even if the complainant
Speaker 2: doesn't want to come back or well, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: whether she does or she doesn't. I mean, she could
Speaker 2: if you wanted to, but that recording is there for
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime conversations with me Jemma Bath.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with Australian barrister and prosecutor kneen Up. Next,
Speaker 1: I ask Margaret about the release of one of the
Speaker 1: more high profile members of the scaff Rapes. Do you
Speaker 1: still read the headlines on the scaff story because they
Speaker 1: are still popping up. You mentioned Muhammad before he was
Speaker 1: released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Yes, I like to see how everyone's going.
Speaker 1: And we you know, we had another complainant come forward
Speaker 1: a few years ago. She was all over the media.
Speaker 1: You know, it was something that was such a big
Speaker 1: part of your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, well it was for a few years and
Speaker 2: it certainly caused me well to be taken off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a lot of your own.
Speaker 2: But it's sort of embarrassing and yes, that's right. But
Speaker 2: the good thing was that in the judgment, my whole
Speaker 2: lecture is recorded, so I'm pretty proud. I'm still proud
Speaker 2: of it and it's still a great lecture. And so
Speaker 2: things happened for a reason. They might seem terrible at
Speaker 2: the time, terribly offensive, but we have to get resilient
Speaker 2: and go through that. In the course of professional life,
Speaker 2: people see things differently I'm sure that wouldn't happen. Now
Speaker 2: that's two thousand and seven. Imagine not being even given
Speaker 2: the opportunity to be represented in a case like that,
Speaker 2: which I wasn't wasn't asked question about it, wasn't asked
Speaker 2: any explanation, wasn't given the opportunity, just was done and
Speaker 2: I was off.
Speaker 1: I want to ask about one of the cases you've
Speaker 1: worked on in your second act in defense, Craig Faulbig.
Speaker 1: People will know that name. Kathleen Folbig was sentenced in
Speaker 1: the nineties or early two thousands for the murder and
Speaker 1: man sort of her four children, and you came to
Speaker 1: represent him in twenty eighteen. How did that come up?
Speaker 2: I did. I was briefed by Craig Folbick's solicitor to
Speaker 2: appear in an inquiry before Reg Blanche QC, who was
Speaker 2: the first DPP, and he appointed me a Crown prosecutor
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety and I'd worked for him as
Speaker 2: a elicitor in the DPP and since its inception, and
Speaker 2: so he was given the task of an inquiry into
Speaker 2: the convictions of missus Folbig to see whether he agreed
Speaker 2: with them, and so for the first time she was
Speaker 2: cross examined. She hadn't been cross examined in her trials,
Speaker 2: as was her right, And I was instructed by Craig,
Speaker 2: and through his lawyer, I came to know Craig very well.
Speaker 2: He's a very fine man, and on any view of it,
Speaker 2: a victim, a victim of the loss of four children.
Speaker 2: He died recently, did he. He died within the last year,
Speaker 2: and he was quite young, still only in his fifties,
Speaker 2: and he went on to have another child, a son,
Speaker 2: with a new partner. But he died after the last decision.
Speaker 1: So he saw Kathleen freed. Yes, it is something he
Speaker 1: doesn't think should have happened.
Speaker 2: That's very true. That's very true. And I have a
Speaker 2: lot of insight from his suffering, and he told me
Speaker 2: often how he kept trusting her and kept trusting her.
Speaker 2: But anyway, we know what's happened since. However, I cross
Speaker 2: examined her, and I cross examined her on her diaries.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of damaging materials there. And at the
Speaker 2: end of that inquiry, Justice Blanche decided that he was
Speaker 2: more fortified in her guilt than had been the case
Speaker 2: even up to the High Court. Really and that was
Speaker 2: on the basis of a number of well on the
Speaker 2: basis of her cross examination, and we knew about the
Speaker 2: possible genetic difficulty suffered by two out of four of
Speaker 2: the children. One of the children, he was found to
Speaker 2: be not breathing Patrick early in his life life, but
Speaker 2: he was saved for a while. He ended up blind
Speaker 2: and epileptic until he died a few months later with
Speaker 2: having stopped breathing. But anyway, there was a very big
Speaker 2: scientific campaign, and well it.
Speaker 1: Was interesting for you because you had not a small part,
Speaker 1: but you kind of played a part in the middle there,
Speaker 1: but not in the start and then at the end,
Speaker 1: so you kind of got to see it all unravel.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's right. It was very interesting cross examination.
Speaker 2: I think I cross examined this is fold big for
Speaker 2: a day and a half and.
Speaker 1: The first person to do so. Yes, I want to
Speaker 1: bring up Ikak because half free up is very.
Speaker 2: It makes me laugh.
Speaker 1: Well, it was made into such a big deal. They
Speaker 1: dug into your life. They splashed it all over the news.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, your private life, which you've made
Speaker 1: a very big deal to make leave private, was kind
Speaker 1: of put out in the media all for them. To
Speaker 1: work out that you've done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: That's right. In fact, it was totally misconceived from the
Speaker 2: start because someone told them that somehow someone found out
Speaker 2: that my son's then girlfriend had a crash and found
Speaker 2: out that as it happened, she wasn't tested at the scene.
Speaker 2: But that's because the crash was so bad the car
Speaker 2: was written off. The ambulance came and took her to
Speaker 2: the hospital where her blood was taken. Straight away. She
Speaker 2: went by ambulance with lights and sirens and her blood
Speaker 2: was taken. No alcohol, no drugs, and we knew that
Speaker 2: on the night and.
Speaker 1: For it to become part of an Eykak inquiry.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's right. And as I kept saying to them,
Speaker 2: she was tested, she was tested, and they do you
Speaker 2: know that? They is it? Well? I think they thought
Speaker 2: that the police had helped me or something, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't there and neither was my son. And her phone,
Speaker 2: the driver's phone, was left in the car with her
Speaker 2: handbag because the car writen was t bone. She was
Speaker 2: pinned by the seat belts up on the side of
Speaker 2: the car. She really did have chest pain when the
Speaker 2: ambulance came. And that's that. But the timing has always
Speaker 2: seemed very odd to me because I just completed a
Speaker 2: stint of about eighteen months as a commissioner inquiring into
Speaker 2: the investigations of pedophile priests in Newcastle historically, and I
Speaker 2: just the day before this crash, I had given my
Speaker 2: report to the Governor and so I was going back
Speaker 2: to my job. But there were all these rumors swirling
Speaker 2: about me being appointed as Supreme Court judge. Now Gemma,
Speaker 2: I swear had I been offered, I would have said no,
Speaker 2: and just by means of a little bit of proof
Speaker 2: of that. In two thousand and seven, the then Attorney
Speaker 2: John Hat's sister Goss who's now head of VIKAC, which
Speaker 2: I think he's the best head they've ever had, frankly,
Speaker 2: and things probably being done properly now there at last.
Speaker 2: But in two thousand and seven I was rung up
Speaker 2: by the Attorney General and he said, oh, well it's
Speaker 2: your turn, District Court judge. You're going to take the appointment.
Speaker 2: I said, no, what No one ever knocks us back.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh I am And he said why
Speaker 2: And I said, look, I don't think I'm really judged
Speaker 2: material because whenever I'm doing a moot or something, and
Speaker 2: one person speaks I think, yeah, that's really good, and
Speaker 2: then the next person speaks on that's really good too.
Speaker 1: And I can't do much empathy.
Speaker 2: I can't even choose, and I want to give both
Speaker 2: the prize. And I said, I really don't think that
Speaker 2: I'm very good at judging. Just leave me on a side,
Speaker 2: give me a side to work at four And that's
Speaker 2: where I'm happy.
Speaker 1: When you think about it, it's a very hard job, like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's to me. It's that typical, like everyone expects you
Speaker 1: to keep climbing the ladder and you're like, no, I'm happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah laterally, that's right. I had a great career and
Speaker 2: I loved it, and I wasn't too sure that i'd
Speaker 2: like it. And you know, I already had my own
Speaker 2: superannuation as a crawn prosecutor. A lot of people go
Speaker 2: to be judges because if you do ten years, you
Speaker 2: get superannuation, and that's why a lot of barristers will
Speaker 2: leave the bar and go and do it. I think
Speaker 2: I think that no one's told me that, but that
Speaker 2: must be the attraction. But it didn't have that attraction
Speaker 2: for me either, And everyone that I've known who's become
Speaker 2: a judge. It's like losing your best friend to the
Speaker 2: priesthood or the nunnery, because you basically never see them again,
Speaker 2: certainly not in the same way. If you see them
Speaker 2: at any function or something and you call them judge,
Speaker 2: they don't correct you, and there's no more lunches or
Speaker 2: drinks after work at the pub. They think that everyone's
Speaker 2: going to be looking at them, and to one or
Speaker 2: two I've said, don't worry, they won't be looking at you.
Speaker 2: They'll be looking at me. I won't even notice you.
Speaker 2: But no, they won't go. They sort of their lives
Speaker 2: become a little more insular, which is pretty ironic because
Speaker 2: what you need to do criminal law is to know
Speaker 2: what's going on. And I got the bus here and
Speaker 2: walk the rest of the way. I love getting public transport.
Speaker 2: I love hanging around in ordinary department stores, grocery stores, pubs,
Speaker 2: footy I love finding out what's really going on and
Speaker 2: what's the use of just going around in a shaff
Speaker 2: driven car not talking to anyone.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting and interesting that you had that foresight,
Speaker 1: And for them to be like, but why not, you're
Speaker 1: turning is down? Yes, but this all happened as Ikak
Speaker 1: was sniffing around.
Speaker 2: Well, yes see how I changed the subject.
Speaker 1: Then I did let us get back to it. But
Speaker 1: you kind of a bit of a rat there, Well.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that's right. I think that there may have
Speaker 2: been forces at work here didn't want to see me. Well,
Speaker 2: we had that in common. No one wanted me to
Speaker 2: be a judge, mostly me. I think some people may
Speaker 2: have wanted me to, but some people didn't want me
Speaker 2: to be. And this and this was all just a
Speaker 2: big distraction which had the inevitory when when it was
Speaker 2: looked at by wealthy the Ikak inspector, who the person
Speaker 2: who looks over k got hold of it straight away.
Speaker 2: I didn't even have to ask him to. And he
Speaker 2: initiated an investigation and found that they'd acted illegally, unjustly,
Speaker 2: unfairly and with great prejudice against my family and me.
Speaker 2: And so there's a very damning report and that. But
Speaker 2: then even when a person there persisted on such personal basis,
Speaker 2: someone I'd known for ages anyway and worked with for ages,
Speaker 2: but persisted and tried to get my boss to punish
Speaker 2: me for something to do with a phone by taking
Speaker 2: all these phone messages and engineering a bias against me.
Speaker 2: So it sort of kept going on, but luckily it
Speaker 2: was sent to an independent, kidding body in Victoria and
Speaker 2: the result came back there is nothing, no illegality by
Speaker 2: miss Kneen or any member of her family. And you
Speaker 2: know that some some newspapers never print that, but some do.
Speaker 1: Does it make you angry when you think back on.
Speaker 2: It a little bit, But look, everyone's everyone's life has
Speaker 2: hardships in it. And even when that was happening and
Speaker 2: I was suspended from work and I was you know,
Speaker 2: I was well, I was mainly worried because they were
Speaker 2: dragging my family through it. And that's a tactic by
Speaker 2: bodies like iye CAC because if there was actually any evidence,
Speaker 2: it goes straight to the police, wouldn't it if of
Speaker 2: criminality and the police had said, well there's nothing to
Speaker 2: see here, there's so but that put that's made I
Speaker 2: CAC go after the police there and quiz them. But
Speaker 2: so I cacks only exist when there's no evidence. And
Speaker 2: so the way one of their tactics is to put
Speaker 2: pressure on all their family only members by coming into
Speaker 2: the homes and going through everyone's stuff and surveilling family
Speaker 2: members to try to make the target go. Make it stop, Okay,
Speaker 2: I admit everything, just stop against my family. But luckily
Speaker 2: my family is a praetorian guard and we're a martial
Speaker 2: arts family and a boxing family, and they all just
Speaker 2: just keep fighting, you know, don't worry, We're all in it'
Speaker 2: all fight.
Speaker 1: Well, they picked the wrong family, but you know.
Speaker 2: And luckily they're not a family who looked at me
Speaker 2: and said, oh, you know, what have you done? Oh
Speaker 2: I'm so embarrassed by you. They just got prouder and
Speaker 2: prouder of me.
Speaker 1: But to me, it seems that you kept getting this
Speaker 1: target on your back when you would speak out about something.
Speaker 1: You would kind of question processes, or you would be like, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we do this differently?
Speaker 2: Or well, that's right, Isn't it kind of ironic that
Speaker 2: I was speaking up for victims of rape having such
Speaker 2: a hard time and having to go back to courts
Speaker 2: over and over again and being treated so badly because
Speaker 2: certain people in the system who would now totally agree
Speaker 2: with that hadn't yet come around to it, and that
Speaker 2: might be taking the credit for it when I was
Speaker 2: really pilloried for it. In fact, even down to being
Speaker 2: questioned by people who may be ashamed of it. Now,
Speaker 2: these prosecutions are just racist prosecutions because they're nice white
Speaker 2: girls with blonde hair, and so you're just for Aussies
Speaker 2: and against Lebanese people. This is terrible. I was able
Speaker 2: to say when I was asked that question by people
Speaker 2: who surprised me when they asked it, namely women's groups.
Speaker 2: I said, why do you say that they're blonde haired girl? Oh?
Speaker 2: I saw one on a current affair. Well, actually she's
Speaker 2: an Aboriginal woman who was wearing a blonde wig and
Speaker 2: green contacts to disguise her appearance. And when she was
Speaker 2: first spoken to on the train by Mohammed scaff He,
Speaker 2: noting that it's not entirely clear what her ethnic derivation is,
Speaker 2: he said to her, are you an Aussy? Where do
Speaker 2: you come from? And she said, I'm as Australian as
Speaker 2: they come, So that'll tell them yes. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that kind of quietened the group down.
Speaker 1: What's next for you?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Some people say when are you going to retire?
Speaker 2: And I say, do you think I should know? What's that? Well?
Speaker 2: Thanks for asking, Jemma, I am going to I've got
Speaker 2: a pretty full book of trials. Right into the next year,
Speaker 2: and as it keeps happening, people are still asking me
Speaker 2: for trials that will probably go into the year after that,
Speaker 2: and so I figure that the clientele will decide when
Speaker 2: I've had enough, because I've seen people be too old
Speaker 2: for this job, although it's a great job for an
Speaker 2: older person, because juries trust your wisdom, and especially if
Speaker 2: you can render the stories in the common parlance, which
Speaker 2: I think I can. From gosh, I spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time in pubs drinking beers with my kids and
Speaker 2: their mates mentees as well, and that's exactly right. As
Speaker 2: long as you keep in touch, it's still a great advantage.
Speaker 2: It's a job where being old is quite an advantage,
Speaker 2: but it starts to run out, and I hope I'll
Speaker 2: have the sense to know that I'm getting a bit
Speaker 2: past it in maybe ten years.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Margaret for helping us to tell this story
Speaker 1: and for sharing so much of her own true crime conversations.
Speaker 1: Is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by Me,
Speaker 1: Jimma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 1: And a huge thank you to all of you, our
Speaker 1: amazing listeners. We're so grateful to have you back for
Speaker 1: another year of the podcast. We'd love to hear your
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Speaker 1: much for listening. I'll be back next week with another
Speaker 1: true Crime Conversation.