Charge officers over falsified breath tests: PIC

According to the PIC, at the station, Senior Constable Mark Ronald Christie took the second breath test for Mr Clunes, which was negative and Mr Clunes was not charged.

Three police officers should be charged with perverting the course of justice after allegedly falsifying alcohol breath tests to help two well-connected suspects escape prosecution, the Police Integrity Commission recommends.

The allegations relate to incidents in Moree and Orange late last year.

The PIC did not recommend any charges against superiors and a senior officer in the Corrective Services Department, who discussed the incidents with some of the officers before the second breath test in each case.

In the first incident, in September last year, an officer of the Corrective Services Department, David John Webb, was pulled over for a random breath test outside Moree. He returned a reading of .095, well above the legal limit.

But when he was taken back to the police station, officers recognised him, because he worked out of the same station.

The PIC, in a report released today, says Senior Constable Phillip William Smith agreed with a colleague, Senior Constable James William Boaden, that Senior Constable Smith would take a second breath test for Mr Webb at the station. This test recorded a zero blood alcohol level and no charges were laid.

Senior Constable Smith told the PIC inquiry that Mr Webb's boss, Corrective Services Department Assistant Superintendent John Arthur Weavers, "virtually" said to him: "Can't you get someone else to blow into the bag?"

Superintendent Weavers told the PIC he had no recollection of the conversation because he was intoxicated, but "may have" said this.

Senior Constable Smith also told the inquiry that his boss, Inspector Jeffrey Budd, had told him to "be careful" about the case, which he had interpreted to mean he should not charge Mr Webb.

Inspector Budd told the commission he asked Senior Constable Smith to treat Mr Webb like any other offender.

In the second incident, in December last year, Adam Colin Clunes, the son of a police officer, recorded a reading of .202 in a random breath test on a road in Orange.

According to the PIC, at the station, Senior Constable Mark Ronald Christie took the second breath test for Mr Clunes, which was negative and Mr Clunes was not charged.

Senior Constable Christie told the inquiry he felt empathy for Mr Clunes and was overwhelmed by the situation. He said he had been involved in several high-stress incidents, had been assaulted and took medication to relieve stress.

The PIC heard that Mr Clunes's father, Senior Constable Colin Clunes had allegedly told another officer: "You've got to do something ... he'll lose his licence", and that Senior Constable Clunes had previously been unhappy when his son had received a traffic fine.

But Senior Constable Clunes told the inquiry he was angry with his son and did not intend for the officer to believe he wanted her to do something to stop his son from losing his licence.

The PIC recommended that senior constables Smith, Boaden and Christie be charged.

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“The NSW Government’s mini budget decision to privatise Cessnock and Parklea prisons would add them to the disaster that prison privatisation has proven around the world. Unions NSW added its voice in a resolution last night.” said JA Coordinator Brett Collins.

Stephen Nathan, an international prison privatisation expert, in the March 2008 edition of the Independent Monitor (UK), disclosed that a leaked report placed ten of the eleven private prisons in the UK in the bottom quarter of the performance register of all UK prisons “and showed they are consistently worse than their publicly run equivalents.”

Privatising prisons “requires more people in the criminal justice system for longer and is squarely at odds with the public good”, wrote Mr Nathan.

The budget decision to privatise was based on a 2005 report of the Legislative Assembly ‘Value For Money From NSW Correctional Centres’.

Jane Andrew of the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Wollongong and Damien Cahill from the University of Sydney, attacked the report’s conclusion that the privatised model of prison management delivered superior ‘value for money’. In their paper, ‘Value for Money? Neoliberalism in NSW Prisons, ‘ Australian Accounting Review 2008, they concluded that ‘the report is fundamentally flawed on its own terms’ and is driven by concepts of ideology rather than any cost data evidence of financial savings.

“Justice Action joins prison officers in the PSA and Unions NSW to utterly oppose the privatisations. Prisoners are human beings – citizens of our community with whom we share a social compact. They are not chattels to generate profits for shareholders” said JA Coordinator Michael Poynder.

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Draconian power to discharge juror and bend trial

JUDGES will be given [draconian] powers to discharge individual jurors without having to abort a trial under reforms passed through state cabinet yesterday.

Jurors will be able to complain to judges or the sheriff about the conduct of other jurors to enable troublemakers to be discharged. [Bullying ???]

Legal counsel will also be given new powers to contest any decision by a judge to discharge a jury in the Criminal Court of Appeal.

The changes are to be introduced in the Jury Act in the next session of Parliament. They are [allegedly] derived from a Law Reform Commission report.

Judges are often called upon to discharge a juror when they are showing bias, have not declared an interest or are misbehaving, but often this causes a trial to be aborted.

The introduction of legislation to allow judges to discharge jurors and [bend] keep a trial going [allegedly] follows two recent cases where a juror's presence at a trial resulted in successful appeals.

In one recent case (Crown v Brown), a conviction was overturned on appeal because a juror had reported for service a day early and was empanelled in breach of the the Jury Act.

In another case (Crown v Petroulias last year), a judge's decision to discharge a juror because he had incurred driving offences led to a successful appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeal because the defence argued that the entire jury should have been discharged.

The Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, said the proposed changes were the first of a series of reforms to come out of the commission's report on juries.

He said the change to allow jurors to complain about colleagues was important.

"They can complain and the judge can decide whether to discharge the juror," Mr Hatzistergos said.

"It's more to cover "[SMH] [situations]" such as where a particular juror has a conflict of interest they haven't discussed but it becomes apparent during the trial."

The shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith, said although the Government's changes appeared "reasonable", in practice jurors often already complained to judges if they had a problem with someone on the jury.

Quote: These laws are draconian and allow the Judge to push the jury around and sway the trial one way or another. Shame on John Hatzistergos, this creep wants to move trials the government's way when it suits the political agenda. This is not a trial by a jury of your peers. This is bullying. And why didn’t the Sydney Morning Herald get a response from civil liberties lawyers? Because they didn’t like it? Or they were too lazy? Or they want it to suit themselves because finding people guilty of crimes is in the corporate interest when it suits them? Shame on the (SMH) Sydney Morning Herald's bad reporting. What about balancing your articles? What did the Greens say? The most outstanding proposition is that the SMH in addition to these changes tried to make their article look convincing by adding to it some notion about juries getting more money etc and saving the doctors and professionals from having to appear, which is totally irrelevant in relation to the above article that is draconian.

[PS) a Google search for this article reveals the real truth i.e. "Did you mean: Power to discharge jury and save trial."]

[PPS) "The New South Wales Law Society says millions of dollars will be saved under new reforms giving judges the power to discharge individual jurors without aborting a trial." But it's not about saving millions it's about a fair trial and justice for all not justice for the state government, corporations or even the Law Society. How many millions does it cost to keep an innocent person in jail? So much for the Law Society's comment. ]

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Ombudsman to review state FoI laws

THE state's Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, will conduct an unprecedented review of the state's Freedom of Information Act after the repeated failure of the NSW Government to examine the laws.

Mr Barbour did little to hide his irritation with the NSW Government in a release yesterday. "For almost 14 years, each NSW Ombudsman, including myself, has called for an independent and comprehensive review of the FoI Act," Mr Barbour said. He said the legislation was "the cornerstones of good governance" which "ensure[d] that government decision-making is open and transparent, and that decision-makers are held accountable for their actions".

"In the absence of the NSW Government initiating a review of the act, I have decided to conduct my own independent review."

[The trouble with that proposition though, and everybody knows it, is that the Ombudsman is only an insurance policy for the government. Just another arm of government, a government stooge and a toothless terrier for the people. Oh! he may get to the bottom of the problem.... after the current elected government is out of office? Bruce Barbour's portfolio is flawed to say the least because of the Ombudsmans Act restricting his ability to ask certain questions or to obtain certain evidence off the authorities themselves. And if anything at all he's just covering up for the government's latent acts and now trying to look like someone who actually cares? Anyway...]

Mr Barbour's provocative move [?] comes [allegedly] as the Sydney Morning Herald battles with police over the release of the names of pubs and clubs most linked to alcohol-related crime.

The Queensland Government is reviewing its freedom-of-information laws and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has promised important changes to federal laws by Christmas. One recommendation at the 2020 Summit at the weekend was that freedom-of-information laws be overhauled.

The 1989 act was no longer relevant to the way the Government works, Mr Barbour said. "Both applicants and agencies continually voice their frustration with the act," he said.

Mr Barbour said he would investigate freedom-of-information practices at government agencies, councils, universities and area health services, but which ones had not been decided.

Last year's NSW Ombudsman annual report highlighted the abysmal state of NSW's freedom-of-information laws. The report found that applications released in full in NSW dropped from 81 per cent in 1995-96 to 52 per cent in 2005-06. This compared with the Commonwealth where 78 per cent of requests were granted in full.

Mr Barbour said his review, to begin in two weeks, would involve audits of freedom-of-information files held by the organisations and interviews with staff working in the area. He said he would create a discussion paper and invite submissions. This is expected to be released in July. "The findings from our investigation will inform our final report and recommendations to Parliament," he said.

A freedom-of-information expert, Peter Timmins, welcomed the review but doubted the NSW Government would enact recommendations. "The NSW Freedom of Information Act is certainly long, long overdue for re-examination and improvement," said Mr Timmins, who runs a consultancy specialising in freedom-of-information laws.

"But we're seeing here an Ombudsman starting an inquiry without any indication the Government will respond positively to what emerges. Mr Iemma and his predecessors just don't seem to be interested in making any changes in this area."

The Greens MP Lee Rhiannon criticised the Government for ignoring earlier pleas by the Ombudsman to review the laws. "Premier Morris Iemma has failed to review and revamp FOI laws over the years as his government has been enjoying the spoils of a 'secret state'," Ms Rhiannon said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Iemma, Alison Hill, said the Premier would support the review. Ms Hill did not answer a question about why the NSW Government had not acted on previous Ombudsman recommendations that the Government review the laws.

Lack of funding threatens Gap trial

THE impending murder trial of Gordon Wood is in disarray due to the lack of funding for his legal team.

Wood's barrister, Winston Terracini, SC, is understood to be considering withdrawing from the matter after yesterday's decision by the Legal Aid Commission to offer Wood funding of only $50,000 for his estimated three- to four-month trial.

Wood, the one-time chauffeur to the late stockbroker Rene Rivkin, is due to stand trial on July 21 for the murder of his girlfriend Caroline Byrne in June 1995.

The 24-year-old's body was found wedged between rocks almost 12 metres out from the base of The Gap at Watsons Bay.

Given the estimated length of the trial, which is expected to involve 200 witnesses, legal sources say $50,000 would be insufficient to cover the cost of a single solicitor, let alone a senior barrister, who would usually charge between $5000 and $7000 a day.

When contacted Mr Terracini said he had been invited by the Legal Aid Commission to make a written submission regarding further funding for the trial.

Wood's solicitor, Michael Bowe, has said his client has no money, no job and is surviving on unemployment benefits. Wood's mother, Brenda, is assisting by paying his rent.

The Legal Aid Commission has asked Wood to contribute $340,000 for his legal fees, on the basis that his mother still has some assets.

However, Mr Bowe said that Mrs Wood, who is not in good health, had already exhausted her finances by funding her son's committal hearing. She has now sold her Sydney house and moved to a smaller one in Adelaide.

"She has no more funds to give him and she's totally stressed by this," Mr Bowe said.

The uncertainty about the funding for Wood's legal team has already led to the cancellation of a scheduled viewing of the murder scene which was due to take place today.

Earlier this week Justice Graham Barr said that a viewing, involving a crane lowering a cage with the judge and two barristers over The Gap, would not go ahead while Wood was without proper representation. "I regard this matter as one in which Mr Wood should be represented by experienced trial counsel," Justice Barr told the Supreme Court.

Parents of drunk children face fines

Parents of drunk children may be subject to counselling and fines as part of a NSW government program to crack down on underage drinking.

Nearly 1,700 children were treated in hospital for alcohol in the past year - some as young as 10.

At Sutherland, in southern Sydney, police are trialling a program that requires parents to attend counselling sessions with children who are caught drinking.

If they fail to attend, they could face fines of up to $500.

Up to 140 underage drinkers and their parents are attending the sessions.

"Parents have two chances of turning up," a police spokeswoman said. "If they don't end up attending the session, then the fine is issued."

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