Get over it?

There was a major topic that did not get much attention during the election campaign because of the Federal versus State jurisdiction issue. And it is huge problem that is glibly referred to in one word ‘laurenorder’.

Sadly, but typically there was yet another case of an insensitive, out of touch, even callous judge last week but that story got buried in the election coverage except for a piece in The Age on Saturday.

The case of County Court Judge Michael Kelly In my opinion Justice Kelly who is over seventy but recalled to the bench,  is a Neanderthal when it comes to handling sex crimes and should step own.

He virtually told a male victim of a sexual predator to ‘get over it’.  He said his victim impact statement was ‘a waste of time’.

“The majority of  people who suffer this kind of incident at some stage of their life simply get over it  and think no more of it’. I bet you never took it up the bum Mr. Kelly.

His shocking comments came about when Dean Woodbridge aged 30 of Churchill, Victoria, pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and one act of indecency with a child under 16.

Judge Kelly scoffed at the victim’s claim that the assaults would haunt him until he’s 40 and said ‘He wouldn’t have done well in a British public school in the 30s’ As if  being sodomised as a teenage was a part of growing up.

He even tossed in a bit of Greek culture saying ‘Greek society was founded on young men being seduced in relationships with older men’. With that attitude he should have been a paedophile priest.

In a rare and encouraging move the head of Victoria’s sexual offences prosecution unit, Michelle Williams QC, confronted the judge for comments she said were ‘clearly inappropriate’ and asked him to treat the victim with some respect ‘as you are obliged to do’.

But nothing Judge Kelly says should surprise you. Eleven years ago he reluctantly sentenced a man to two and a half years jail for digital rape when he thought six months would have been sufficient.

The idea of digital penetration was he said ‘ anatomically absurd, factually indeterminable and legally inconvenient’.

Yep having a man’s finger invade your body uninvited would be ‘inconvenient’. And in 1998 when the federal sex laws came in to stop Australian men from sexually exploiting children overseas he refused to jail a man.  That man 55-year-old Harry Ernst Ruppert, 55, tried to establish a child sex ring in Ghana by sending letters to people explaining how they could ‘train little girls’ as young as four to have sex.

I guess if they’d all gone to British public schools in the Thirties they’d understand. Judge Kelly you are a disgrace. Retire. Now

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007