BACK IN COURT

I was back in court today. This time the County Court (again) over charges that I identified serial sex offenders protected by court imposed suppression orders.It’s been a long battle to get hold of court documents, supposedly public documents, to help in my defence.

 In the Magistrate’s Court I’m facing five charges of breaching a suppression order in my campaign to stop convicted serial rapists and paedophiles from having their identities legally hidden from the public.

Last year I started a Name Them and Shame Them campaign designed to get what I think is a really a bad law overturned. A law called an Extended Supervision Order which, instead of protecting the community, is being exploited by some of the worst, most violent and depraved criminals in this country. Our petition goes on. You can sign it: Name them shame them.com. One word.                                                  

At a County Court hearing earlier this month the Department of Justice and the Office of Public Prosecutions – so keen to prosecute me – didn’t even bother to turn up. To the surprise of the Chief Justice, Michael Rozenes.

They were represented today and, encouragingly, neither department opposed our application for those documents. The only lawyers to offer some opposition, surprise, surprise, represented the two paedophiles whose names and address have been suppressed.

The Chief Justice in the County Court, Judge Michael Rozenes, reserved his decision. And, if we eventually get his green light, we head to the Supreme Court to argue that those suppression orders were invalid.

Speaking of courts. In an extraordinary Supreme Court hearing this morning a teenaged girl walked free after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Jeremy Rapke, withdrew a murder charge. I would like your comments on this on 96 900 693.

Earlier court hearings were told the 19-year-old shot her stepfather in the head with his own shotgun in March 2007 to free herself from a life of sexual slavery. The 34-year-old man, sexually abused her - sometimes daily - for four years from the age of 14.

Almost 10,000 images of sexual intercourse and sex acts, taken by the man on a digital camera, were found by police on discs and memory sticks after her arrest.

The morning after the killing, she cut off his arms, legs and head with a handsaw, buried the torso in the garden, put the limbs and head in white plastic rubbish bags and took them to a camping ground 16 kilometers away. She threw the limbs down two long-drop toilets and hid the head in the bush.

The girl was charged with murder and had pleaded not guilty but Mr. Rapke told the court there was no reasonable prospect that a jury would convict her. September and had entered a plea of not guilty.

But he also said the decision should not be seen as providing an "imprimatur" for victims of sexual assault or family violence to take the law into their own hands and to kill or maim their tormentors.

Well, doesn’t it? The victim was a monster. But he is dead. His body desecrated. And his killer walks free. Unpunished. Legally unpunished. She will live her own personal nightmare for ever.

But weren’t there other legal avenues? She could have been found mentally unfit to stand trial? She would be one of the rare cases where a totally suspended sentence would have been justified.

This is a tough one. Moral justice may have been served. The law wasn’t.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009