NO APPEARANCE, YOUR HONOUR

I was going to say that Melbourne’s new Lord Mayor should get a grip on himself. But I suspect, from his latest utterances, he already has. This guy is starting to remind me of a eunuch in a brothel. Can’t do anything so he just makes a nuisance of himself. He’s a headline junkie. A media whore. A poor man’s Jeff Kennett.

I call Stephen Henry Uttley to the stand. Mr. Uttley you are accused of being a violent, over-bearing alcoholic and that in October 2000 you did awaken your wife Margaret in a drunken rage and threaten to kill her. And I put to you that in a struggle your wife managed to disarm you and as you moved towards her she shot you in the face. How do you respond to that? Well, Stephen Uttley couldn’t respond to that because Stephen Uttley is dead. No appearance your honour.

All we have to go on is what Margaret Uttley said happened. And her record for telling the truth since the shooting leaves a lot to be desired.

But Supreme Court Judge Robert Osborn believed her. Believed her story that her drunken husband woke her up at 2a.m. and threatened her with a gun at their farm in Tarneit, near Werribee. She said he lost his balance and fell over the bed and as he moved towards her she pointed the gun at him. And it went off and shot him in the face.

Two of their four children were asleep in the same house but we are to believe they heard nothing.

An accident? Well, Uttley didn’t behave as if it were. What happened next were hardly the actions of an innocent person. Uttley did not call an ambulance. Did not go to police. Instead she burned her husband’s body like garbage on a rubbish dump at the farm. And told people –including I presume his kids – that he had gone to the Northern Territory with a mate.

And she kept up that masquerade for seven years. She was finally charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was jailed for a minimum of two years from a maximum of five.

Two years. Even though the judge said ‘the fact that Mr. Uttley was an alcoholic suffering from depression does not mean that his death can be treated as the loss of a life of no value.’ Well it was.

Judge Osborne called the killing ‘a tragic criminal mistake in a life that has otherwise had much to commend it’.

Margaret Uttley, despite her grisly attempts to hide her crime, may be telling the truth. Her husband’s sister doesn’t think so.

Judy Dietrich said ‘He was a quiet, gentle person. He was no angel, admittedly he did start to drink a lot more after Mum died, but he was nothing like they were making him out to be’.

Wherein lies the truth? As I said Stephen Uttley was not available for comment.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009