A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl was raped and then flogged when she was late for dinner at a NSW foster home for Aboriginal children, an national inquiry has heard.
THE girl's story is one of six being told at a royal commission hearing into events at the Bethcar Children's Home in Brewarrina in remote northern NSW more than 20 years ago.
The state-funded home was run by Burt and Edith Gordon and their son-in-law Colin Gibson from 1969 to 1989.
The girl raped by Gibson, who was jailed in 2007 on two separate sentences of 12 years and 18 years for offences against a number of girls, was placed in Bethcar when she was two or three.
The abuse began soon after. The girl, given the pseudonym AIQ for legal reasons, told no-one until she was in her late 30s.
No case was taken against Gordon, who was old and unwell at the time of the investigation. He has since died.
Other children who went to police and NSW welfare officers with allegations of abuse were returned to the home where they were beaten, the commission heard.
As the hearing got underway in Sydney on Wednesday, the commission was told the state of NSW had for years resisted accepting liability for any abuse and disputed for four years that it had occurred - even after Gibson was jailed.
When 13 former residents came forward in 2008 to sue the state, the Crown Solicitor's office employed solicitor Evangelos Manollaras and junior counsel Patrick Saidi to handle the case.
Counsel assisting the commission, David Lloyd, said Mr Manollaras doubted the abuse had happened and at one stage wrote "... in fact, I'm having some difficulty in having understanding how a jury convicted Gibson".
There were years of delay and legal tactics. Mr Saidi was highly critical of the Women's Legal Service, which was supporting some victims, the inquiry was told.
Mr Lloyd also said that when the plaintiffs requested an acknowledgement and a modest amount of money Mr Mallollaras expressed the view that "firstly I don't ever recall the state apologising for anything, secondly as to the sexual assaults, I have a very strong doubt that anything occurred at all in most cases".
In one email Mr Manollaras raised the "possibility of undertaking some surveillance" on at least some of the plaintiffs and suggested an initial compensation budget of $20,000-$30,000.
The case was settled at the beginning of 2014, with each plaintiff getting $107,142 with the state to pay legal costs.
The state had spent almost $1 million defending it.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues.
State government solicitor planned secret surveillance of sex abuse victims, royal commission hears
NSW government lawyers pursued a tough legal strategy against 15 victims of extreme child sexual abuse at a northern NSW children's home, refusing to undertake mediation and hatching a plan for secret surveillance, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.
But a senior government solicitor is expected to tell the commission that the strategy was in keeping with the state's "model litigant obligations".
The royal commission heard on Wednesday that girls as young as two were raped and assaulted at the Bethcar children's home at Brewarrina – a state-funded foster home for disadvantaged Aboriginal children – in the 1970s and 1980s.
The main perpetrators of the abuse were the so called "parents" of the home, Burt and Edith Gordon, and Burt Gordon's son-in-law Colin Gibson, the commission heard.
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The young victims complained to police and officers from the local branch of the Department of Community Services about the abuse, but no action was taken and the children remained at the home.
Eventually, in 2006, Colin Gibson was convicted on multiple child-sex charges and given sentences of 12 and 18 years' jail for his crimes.
In 2008, 15 of Bethcar's victims sued the NSW government over the abuse on the grounds that it was responsible for funding and licensing the home.
The commission heard that, over the ensuing four years, lawyers from the NSW Crown Solicitors' Office pursued a tough legal strategy that was not concluded until last year.
After initially attempting and failing to have the entire case struck out, lawyers for the NSW Crown Solicitors officers, led by solicitor Evangelos Manollaras, allegedly pursued a limitation defence, arguing that too much time had elapsed between the abuse and the litigation.
It refused to engage in mediation with the victims and their lawyers from the Women's Legal Service until after this question was resolved, thus delaying mediation for a number of years.
On multiple occasions, Mr Manollaras allegedly expressed the view that a number of the victims were either exaggerating or even concocting their abuse claims, despite Mr Gibson's criminal convictions.
"Granted I am having a problem with fondling of breasts, but I still think it is a quantum leap, even if there was some fondling of breasts, to conclude sexual interference," the solicitor said in a letter to the barrister hired by the Crown Solicitor's Office to run the case in court, Patrick Saidi.
On another occasion, Mr Manollaras allegedly said he was "still doubtful as to whether the plaintiffs were sexually molested ... in fact I'm having some difficulty in having understanding of how a jury convicted Gibson".
On the subject of the victims' desire for an apology, Mr Manollaras allegedly said "I don't ever recall the State apologising for anything".
In an email to an officer from the Department of Family and Community Services, he allegedly raised the possibility of undertaking surveillance on some of the victims, suggesting an initial budget of $20,000 to $30,000 to make this happen.
Mr Saidi allegedly expressed doubt about whether the victims were serious about their claims for compensation, and whether they were actually entitled to it.
He declared in a letter that "a number of the plaintiffs, if not a majority of them, are nowhere near as interested in the pursuit of these proceedings as their lawyers may be".
"One would suspect that some of the plaintiffs would accept any reasonable offer made in these proceedings."
The commission heard that it was only late last year, when the state government realised that its limitation defence was going to fail, that it agreed to a mediation with the victims.
The state finally settled the case last December, agreeing to pay each victim $107,142 and issue a formal apology. By this point, the state had spent $930,000 of taxpayers' money in legal costs pursuing the case, and it was then required to pay the victims' legal costs – a further $1.24 million.
Mr Manollaras' supervising solicitor from the Crown Solicitor's office, Helen Allison, is expected to tell the commission that the victims' claims had not been properly pleaded and there was no basis to extend the limitation period.
She is expected to tell the commission that the government lawyers complied with the model litigant strategy.
The allegation that a solider threatened a female Australian spy with a handgun during a drinking session in Afghanistan in December is the subject of two Government investigations.
Scant details of the incident emerged recently in the annual report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), Dr Vivienne Thom.
The ABC confirmed the incident involved a trooper from Australia's elite Special Air Services regiment pulling a handgun on an ASIS agent. Both the soldier and the agent had been drinking and both were armed.
Appearing before a senate estimates hearing the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, confirmed for the first time that the incident involved a member of the Defence Force and was being investigated.
The Australian special forces soldier who pulled a handgun on a female spy last year in Afghanistan apparently intended it as a threat.
The ABC reported this week that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Dr Vivienne Thom, had reopened an inquiry into the use of weapons by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in the wake of an "incident overseas".
Several versions of the incident are circulating in the defence and intelligence communities, but it appears the trooper was brandishing the weapon as a threat, not a prank.
The trooper was part of a defence support team, assigned to protect ASIS agents when they were working in high-threat environments.
The Inspector General of Security and Intelligence said last night she had nothing to add to her report about an elite Australian soldier allegedly pulling his gun on an ASIS agent. But the incident has prompted Dr Vivienne Thom to reopen her inquiry into the use of weapons by Australian spies. And the way the ASIS has dealt with its watchdog has disturbed Independent Senator Nick Xenophon.
ASIO, while demanding data retention, isn't using existing powers
BERNARD KEANE Crikey politics editor This is from crickey ... consider this..........
The case for data retention has been significantly undermined by the revelation that ASIO has barely used an existing power to order communications companies to preserve metadata.
For nearly two years, ASIO, the AFP and state police forces have had the power, under the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Act 2012, to require communications companies to store information that may help in the investigation of a "serious contravention" -- an offence punishable by three years or more in jail -- for up to 90 days before getting a warrant to access the data. The only limitation on the requests apart from the seriousness of the offence is that it must be targeted at one person, but an agency can issue as many preservation notices as necessary. Data from the United Kingdom shows that nearly three-quarters of all data requests from law enforcement and intelligence agencies to communications companies involved data less than three months old, or just over 90 days.
According to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, however, during 2013-14, "there was a very small number of such notices raised by ASIO." The lack of usage, revealed in IGIS's annual report, suggests there's little evidence one of the key rationales put forward by agencies like ASIO for data retention, what's known as "going dark", is occurring for intelligence-gathering. "Going dark" is the US term for the technology-driven switch in communications company record-keeping that means information on customer usage isn't kept longer than a billing cycle, thereby -- theoretically -- reducing the amount of information intelligence and law enforcement agencies can access for investigative purposes. The preservation notice system explicitly enables agencies to require communications companies to hang on to any historical data, and newly created data, for up to three months and then access the information with a warrant.
Prominent internet service provider iiNet has repeatedly argued that there has been no explanation from the government or agencies for why an additional data retention regime over and above the preservation notice regime is needed, or what flaws exist in the preservation notice system, which is barely two years old, that render it problematic for agencies.
There are possible alternative explanations for the dearth of ASIO preservation notices: one is that agencies are obtaining information, in effect, off the books via informal relationships with communications carriers, in which ASIO, the AFP and other agencies ask telcos and ISPs to preserve and provide data on a subscriber without a warrant or even the basic paperwork required by the preservation notice system. The other is that ASIO is not providing the information to IGIS. As Crikeyreported on Monday, the annual report provides detail about an investigation into serious incidents involving firearms and alcohol consumption among Australian Secret Intelligence Services officers, in which "substantial discrepancies" were discovered in the information provided to IGIS by ASIS. Despite the claims of the IGIS herself, Dr Vivienne Thom, that anyone lying under oath to IGIS can be jailed, there are in fact no penalties for providing incorrect or incomplete information to an IGIS investigation if it's not done under oath, and most of IGIS's work is done via examination of agency records, not evidence under oath.
So, either one of the key justifications for data retention doesn't stand up, or our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are obtaining data other than via the proper mechanism laid down in legislation, or they're not telling IGIS the full story. Take your pick from which of those is most comforting as the government prepares to bring forward legislation enabling those agencies to engage in mass surveillance.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Cartoon
based on Simpsons is child porn, NSW judge rules
Michael Adams was the judge.He was the shonky Prosecutor in the Lindy Chamberlains case and also the shonky Prosecutor in the David Harold Eastman case.Both of these cases showed that this dodgy prosecutor now Supreme Court Judge witheld evidence.
Now this shonk has ruled that Bart Simpson is actually a person!!!!
Clearly there is something very strange about this dodgy Judge from the Supreme Court in NSW
.
Sick misuse of a much-loved character ... Bart SimpsonSource: The
Daily Telegraph
A MAN charged over cartoons showing sex acts involving children modelled
on The Simpsons characters has failed to have his child pornography convictions
overturned.
In the NSW Supreme Court on
Monday, Justice Michael Adams ruled a fictional cartoon character was a
"person" within the meaning of the relevant state and Commonwealth
laws.
In February, Alan John McEwan was convicted in Parramatta Local Court of
possessing child pornography and using his computer to access child
pornography.
"The alleged pornography comprised a series of cartoons depicting
figures modelled on members of the television animated series The
Simpsons," the judge said.
The cartoons showed characters like Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson having
sex.
The man was convicted and fined $3,000 and placed on a good behaviour
bond.
"In my view, the magistrate was correct in determining that, in
respect of both the Commonwealth and the NSW offences, the word 'person'
included fictional or imaginary characters ...," the judge said.
"... the mere fact that the figure depicted departed from a
realistic representation in some respects of a human being did not mean that
such a figure was not a 'person'."
In dismissing the appeal, the judge ordered each party to pay its own
legal costs as this was the first case dealing with this "difficult"
issue.
Northern Territory shonkey Magistrate
Another dodgy Magistrate exposed!!!!
Royal commission: NT acting chief magistrate Michael Carey admits recommendation to drop court action against sex offender did not meet guidelines
A Northern Territory magistrate has admitted a recommendation he made in 2002 to drop court action against sex offender Don Henderson was made quickly, and did not meet guidelines.
At the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the NT's Acting Chief Magistrate Michael Carey gave evidence about a memo he sent in 2002 when he worked at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The memo sent to the DPP recommends dropping court action against Mr Henderson, a convicted sex offender who the royal commission has heard molested several children who were housed at the Retta Dixon home in Darwin.
The note from Mr Carey in 2002 has been described as "pivotal" to the decision to drop action against Mr Henderson, who was never prosecuted for his alleged crimes while working as a house parent at Retta Dixon.
Under questioning from Counsel Assisting the Commission, Sophie David, Mr Carey agreed the memo failed to adhere to prosecutor guidelines.
He admitted the memo did not, as it was supposed to, include reference or analysis to an application for new trials for Mr Henderson, and nor did it include references to Mr Henderson's history as a sex offender.
The memo also did not include the views of the officer in charge or victims, as guidelines direct.
"You would agree that this memorandum does not comply with the the prosecutor guidelines in respect of what should be in a discontinuance report?" Ms David asked.
"Yes," Mr Carey said.
Mr Carey also admitted the decision in 2002 was made within 24 hours of getting the file on Mr Henderson.
"I don't know why it was done in such haste," Mr Carey said.
Mr Henderson has been linked to scores of child abuse allegations, documents tendered to the commission show.
In 1984 he was convicted of molesting two boys at a public swimming pool in Darwin.
Apology from ministry in charge at Retta Dixon
Reverend Trevor Leggott, the head of the ministry that cared for children at Retta Dixon, has apologised for the sexual and physical abuse they suffered, but said his group could not offer money to victims.
"To hear those stories related to the people that I would call family has been extremely painful for me to hear and that is why I offer the most sincere apologies," Reverend Leggott said.
Reverend Leggott is the general-director of Australian Indigenous Ministry (AIM), whose forerunner, the Aboriginal Inland Mission, ran the Retta Dixon home.
The facility housed mainly Aboriginal children between 1946 and 1980.
I know the hurt that has been caused to these people is not going to be fixed by money.
Reverend Trevor Leggott, head of Australian Indigenous Ministries
Last week the inquiry heard often graphic accounts from nine former Retta Dixon residents who suffered physical or sexual abuse, including numerous examples of alleged abuse by Mr Henderson.
Reverend Leggott said his ministry lived a "hand-to-mouth existence" and did not have the funds available to give compensation payments to victims of abuse at Retta Dixon.
"It seems extremely difficult for me that we can offer it," he told the royal commission.
"I know there can be recompense in terms of money, but I know the hurt that has been caused to these people is not going to be fixed by money," he said.
Ministry has 'substantial number of properties'
Under questioning from Ms David, Reverend Leggott admitted his organisation did own a substantial number of properties in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
But he said most of the properties were held by trusts and local churches - AIM did not own them.
He said the ministry did own some properties itself, including an office in Humpty Doo and a home in the Blue Mountains in NSW, so there was some capacity to set up a compensation scheme.
"Only if we were to realise those assets and that meant that we couldn't do the work that we are doing presently," he said.
To heckles from the public gallery at the Darwin Supreme Court, Reverend Leggott also testified he did know of any abuse at Retta Dixon until he received papers from the royal commission.
Standard of kinship care for Indigenous children 'relaxed'
Earlier the royal commission heard Indigenous children looked after by relatives in the Northern Territory do not recieve the same standard of care as children placed with other carers.
NT Children's Commissioner Howard Bath told the inquiry he generally backed a policy of putting Aboriginal children in need of care with relatives, and if that is not possible then into care with people of the same culture.
Despite that principle the inquiry heard that the NT had the lowest placement rate for Aboriginal children with Aboriginal carers in Australia.
Dr Bath said that standards of care in general were lower with kinship carers.
"There are some ways to go before you can say the standard of care offered to those kids, and I am talking generally, is the same as for all other kids that need protection," Dr Bath said.
He said in some very remote communities the disadvantaged circumstances meant it was practically much harder to find a suitable placements and because of the larger size of Aboriginal families, often there were fewer adults able to look after children.
"The reality is some of those standards tend to be relaxed," he said.
"Some of the data that we provided say five years ago showed very clearly that more of the kinship carers weren't registered as carers and more of them had difficulty in terms of receiving training for example, were less likely to recieve training that non-kinship carers."
Asked why the policy of putting Indigenous children into the care of relatives was seen as preferable, Dr Bath said it helped preserve a sense of identity for the child and helped address the "historic mistakes of the past".
He said being with someone of the same cultural background also helped protect a child against the trauma and dislocation after they are removed from their family.
Freedom of expression Criminal Court Appeal Texas
This man was at a swimming pool taking underwater shots. The "thought police " said he was a pervert. Clearly he was not!!!
This is another example of one law being used for some other purpose other than what it was meant for!!!
In re Thompson
Justia.com Opinion Summary: Appellant was charged with twenty-six counts of improper photography or visual recording. Each count of the indictment alleged appellant, “with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of THE DEFENDANT, did by electronic means record another . . . at a location that was not a bathroom or private dressing room.” Each count further specified the name of an “.avi” file that was recorded. Some of the counts contained additional information regarding the subject matter and location of the recording. Appellant filed a pretrial application for a writ of habeas corpus, in which he alleged that the statute on which his prosecution was based was facially unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. The trial court denied the application, and appellant appealed. The “improper photography or visual recording” statute makes it a crime to, among other things, photograph or record by electronic means a visual image of another person under certain circumstances. Subsection (b)(1) of the statute makes such acts a crime if: (1) the person being photographed or recorded is not in a bathroom or private dressing room; (2) the photograph or recording of the person is made without that person’s consent; and (3) the photograph or recording is made with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that, to the extent that it proscribed taking photographs and recording visual images, Subsection (b)(1) of the statute was facially unconstitutional in violation of the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment. Consequently, the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals.
