SUPPRESSION CITY

Last week, in the wake of self-appointed arbiter Jeff Kennett’s bully boy censorship of 60 Minutes, I pointed out that Melbourne has replaced Adelaide as the suppression capital of Australia. News editors are bombarded daily with streams of suppression orders from Magistrate’s Courts, County Courts and the Supreme Court.

 As I said last week: Some even threaten you if you mention that the order even exists. And that’s why trials go merrily along in secret, like in some Police state, and you are not even allowed to know the name of an accused murderer or drug dealer. I thought justice not only had to be done but had to be ‘seen to be done’?

Well, a court in Suppression City has struck again. This time, a last minute legal clamp on Channel Seven. Last night, the network had planned to show a new episode of its crime series Beyond the Darklands.  It focused on one Peter Dupas, a truly evil serial sex offender and killer.

 Yesterday, only hours before the program was due to go to air, the Appeals Court injuncted Channel Seven and stopped it from putting that story to air in Victoria. People in Sydney and Brisbane could still see it but not here where a judge said Dupas had terrorized Melbourne women for 30 years.

And I believe the court was wrong. It’s not as if Dupas is awaiting trial. Hasn’t been found guilty. He has. He was jailed a number of times for rape but never received the maximum sentence. Then he killed and mutilated 28-year-old Nicole Patterson in 1999. She had her breasts cut off.  Next he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 40-year-old Margaret Maher, 40, whose near-naked body was found dumped in long grass at the side of a road in Somerton on October 4, 1997. One of her breasts had been severed.

Most recently he was found guilty over the murder of Mersina Halvagis. The 25-year-old was stabbed to death in a cemetery in 1997 while putting flowers on her grandmother’s grave. Dupas was also suspected of murdering 95-year-old Kathleen Downes.

So why would a court block a TV program about such a loathsome creature who is already convicted and behind bars?  Because, presumably using Legal Aid, your money, Dupas is trying to appeal his conviction in the Halvagis case.

Hasn’t been granted an appeal mind you. As the Appelate Court judges put it ‘until the determination of the application of Peter Norris Dupas for leave to appeal against his conviction for the murder of Mersina Halvagis, Channel Seven Melbourne Pty Limited shall not whether by itself its servants agents or otherwise howsoever:

‘Cause or permit the programme ‘Beyond the Darklands: Peter Dupas’ or any part of the programme, or any of the facts events or opinions referred to in the programme, to be broadcast in Victoria, whether on television, radio, the internet or otherwise howsoever’.

Why? What harm can the program do? We know you can’t influence a judge. And there’s no jury involved. What are they afraid of?  That one of them might be influenced by flicking on the telly? It’s preposterous.

Nicole Patterson’s Mum, Pam O’Donnell, hits it on the head. She says:
‘Gosh that bastard has a charmed life. Is he a protected species?????

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009