Aboriginal inmates '22pc and rising' of prison population

The Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health says new research is urgently needed to address the worsening rate of Indigenous incarceration.

The centre says Aboriginal prisoners represented 22 per cent of the national prison population in 2005, and the incarceration rate has grown by 12 per cent since then.

In the Northern Territory 80 per cent of all prisoners are Aboriginal and this rate is also rising, particularly amongst women.

The Centre's Mick Gooda says a prisoner health round-table in Canberra today aims to find new ways to keep Indigenous people out of prison.

Son loses appeal over parents' murders

A Sydney man charged with the stabbing murders of his parents 14 years ago has lost a bid to avoid standing trial.

Jeffrey Gilham is accused of killing his parents at Woronora, in Sydney's south, in August 1993.

Gilham applied for the charges to be stayed using the double jeopardy principle but lost.

In appealing against that decision, he argued there was an abuse of process.

Gilham had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his brother, who he blamed for killing their parents.

In his appeal, he argued he could not be prosecuted for his parents' murders because his earlier plea was accepted on the basis his brother was the killer.

But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has today dismissed Gilham's appeal on the grounds there was insufficient evidence at the time.

He will face trial in February.

Women plead guilty to murdering teenage friend

Two women have pleaded guilty to the wilful murder of a teenage girl whose body was found in a wheelie bin.

Jessica Stasinowsky and Valerie Parashumti admitted killing 16-year-old Stacey Mitchell in the Perth suburb of Lathlain in December last year.

Both women now face a mandatory life jail term when they are sentenced in the Supreme Court later this year.

They appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court via video link from prison today and were again remanded in custody.

They have never explained why they murdered Ms Mitchell, who was reported missing from her home several days before her body was found.

Three generations jailed over caravan park attack

Five members of a family have been jailed for up to nine years over the death of a man who was stabbed, slashed and chopped at a caravan park on the New South Wales central coast.

William Smith, 34, was killed in an attack involving hand axes, machetes and a samurai sword at the Kangi Angi caravan park in October 2005.

He was struck 18 times with the fatal blow piercing his lungs.

The New South Wales Supreme Court heard he was attacked after a trivial argument escalated between members of his family and three generations of the Jones family.

Both had gathered weapons for an anticipated fight, including machetes, swords and iron bars.

Five members of the Jones family have been jailed for between seven-and-a-half and nine years for manslaughter.

A sixth family member was released on a good-behaviour bond for being an accessory.

Farquharson to be sentenced

Convicted child killer Robert Farquharson is to be sentenced in the Victorian Supreme Court, for the murder of his three children.

Farquharson, from Winchelsea, has been found guilty of drowning his three sons, aged ten, seven, and two, by driving them into a dam on Father's Day in 2005.

Prosecutors say he deserves life in prison with no minimum term.

But the defence has asked the judge to impose a sentence of between 20 and 30 years.

Mother who threw baby convicted of manslaughter

A young mother has been found not guilty of murdering her baby daughter, despite admitting she caused the infant's fatal injuries.

Six-month-old Crystal Peters had a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain and a broken arm when she died in August last year.

A Supreme Court jury in Adelaide has found the baby's mother Sarah Michelle Peters, 21, of Seaford, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

Chief Justice John Doyle has thanked the jury and said he agrees with the verdict.

During the trial, Peters admitted she lost control when her daughter would not stop crying.

She threw the child across a room toward a bed, but the infant skidded off and hit the floor with a thud.

Outside the court, husband Robert Peters said he felt justice had been done and that his child would now be at peace.

On a dusty morning, our tiny Lake Angel finds peace

HIS sobs rang across the red, parched graveyard. "That's my son, my baby," moaned Paul Shillingsworth, as the tiny white coffin was lowered into the ground. "Don't worry, your Dad loves you."

Two-year-old Dean James Shillingsworth was laid to rest in his father's home town of Brewarrina yesterday, a fortnight after his body was found dumped in a Sydney lake.

His mother, Rachel Pfitzner, 26, has been charged with his murder. Her family did not attend: they held a private memorial service in Campbelltown.

Several hundred people gathered in the central western town's community hall, including many who had made the journey from Sydney and Tamworth. They included Paul Shillingsworth and his brothers and Dean's grandmother, Ann Coffey, who was his legal guardian.

Dean's aunt, Sharon Dykes, delivered the eulogy. "How can you talk about a lifetime with someone so small?" she asked. She said the family was feeling shock, disbelief, and anger as well as compassion.

But they were starting to accept his death. "This morning his spirit is here with us in the hall," she said. "And his spirit touches each and every one of us."

Another aunt read a message from Dean's half-sister, who had met her little brother only once. "I know he will always be watching over me," she wrote. "When I look up to the night sky I know Dean's will be the biggest and brightest star in the sky."

At the end of the service, Dean's father laid his head on the coffin and wept. His family followed the hearse in a procession through town to a dusty, windswept cemetery on the outskirts of town.

Shops along the main road closed and their staff stood outside as a mark of respect. There, Mr Shillingsworth and his brothers took off their crisp, white shirts and draped them over the coffin to create a blanket for the little boy.

Dean's was the third funeral in a week for Brewarrina. One young man died of a heart attack, and an older woman died of cancer. "We have more funerals than we do weddings around here," said one local.

"Bre", as the locals call it, is small. There are one pub, one RSL and an old Greek cafe, decorated as it was when it opened in 1926.

It is reputed to be rough, but has calmed since the Aboriginal community worked with police to agree to curfews on alcohol sales a few years ago.

Rise in children's deaths

MORE children died in NSW last year - 628 - than in any year since 2002. Of those 110 had been identified as "vulnerable", as their families had contact with the Department of Community Services.

The number of deaths rose from 599 in 2005. There were 84 deaths (13.5 per cent of the total) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who make up 3.5 per cent of the population, the annual report of the Government's child deaths review team showed.

Deaths of children under the age of one rose from 367 to 401, including many cases involving conditions present from birth. There were 54 deaths of infants after they were left to sleep.

Sixty-five children died in traffic accidents, 15 from drowning and 10 from assaults. Seven children and young people died from suicide - the lowest number since 1996.

In one case a child's mother fell asleep in the bath with a child and one child died from injuries, including a fractured skull, suspected to have been caused by abuse.

The report said: "In another incident, risk of harm reports related to the physical and psychological wellbeing of the child as a consequence of exposure to domestic violence, parental drug use and neglect."

The Commissioner for Children and Young People and head of the review team, Gillian Calvert, said the increase in infant deaths was believed to be the result of the higher birthrate.

Half the children who had had contact with the department died from disease or morbid conditions, in a quarter the cause of death was yet to be determined and another quarter was from falls, traffic accidents or other incidents.

"It's not [all] about child abuse, it's actually a measure of whether they're vulnerable," Ms Calvert said.

SA row over smacking children

South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kanck has criticised a move in State Parliament to legally endorse the smacking of children.

Family First Upper House member Dennis Hood has introduced a bill seeking to endorse the legality of "reasonable chastisement" of children.

Ms Kanck says research shows that smacking does not improve children's behaviour, and teaches them that violence is a way of resolving conflict.

Ms Kanck says the bill does not clarify what constitutes a reasonable level of smacking.

"This is such a grey area and the definition in the bill does nothing to assuage my fears about [it] and how it could be used to justify the unjustifiable." she said.

Ms Kanck says the proposal could contravene the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

She says the convention calls on governments to protect children from all forms of physical or mental violence and abuse, including while in the care of their parents.

"So if you read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this would actually be saying that we ought not pass legislation such as this." she said.

Principals agree: cut out social subjects

PRIMARY school curriculums have too many subjects and schools are too underfunded to meet standard requirements for English, maths and science, a national study of principals has found.

The study underpins Australia's first primary school charter endorsed by principals who want the educational focus put back on literacy, numeracy and science.

However, a proposal to include stand-alone history in that list was yesterday replaced with a subject called Social Education, a mix of history, geography, and environmental and cultural studies.

The change raised concerns from the federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, who said history should be taught as a distinct subject.

The Federal Government funded research for the Australian Principals Association that found national standards were beyond the reach of many schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, unable to attract a high level of staff and private contributions from parents.

The association released a draft report in August, recommending that subjects that taught life and social skills, including manners, nutrition, drug education and financial literacy, be dropped from primary school curriculums.

The association's national president, Leonie Trimper, yesterday said her members had endorsed the draft charter, agreeing the curriculum had become cluttered with minor subjects.

"The curriculum is far too crowded and we know from our research that not all schools can do what is being asked of them," she said. "The social responsibilities being placed on primary schools are ever increasing, taking time and resources away from our core business."

Ms Bishop said that while she supported the charter's goal of reducing clutter in curriculum, "we must avoid at all costs the mistake that is Studies of Society and Environment, which became a mish-mash of subjects that lacked rigour in any of them".

"I would be concerned if the recommendation in the APPA Charter led to a watering down in the quality of teaching history and geography in primary schools," she said.

Ms Trimper said history had been replaced with social education because her members considered that history was "too narrow and conjured up the idea of rote learning".

"People wanted a new term and said it needed to be about geography and the environment and cultural understanding," she said.

The primary school charter received the support of 90 per cent of 1580 responses to an online survey, representing the views of 3500 principals.

The principals will now seek to have their document placed on the agenda for discussion at the next conference of state and federal education ministers.

The principals also expressed concerns about the enrolment of students with severe behavioural problems because of the lack of additional help for such students. The study of 30 primary schools around the country found that schools that enrolled severely disabled and emotionally disturbed students were in many cases inadequately resourced.

"Such students are frequently assigned to regular classrooms with aides who are employed for a fraction of the week. The school is expected to find the resources for the rest of the time," the study found.

Mother found guilty of daughter's murder

A woman has broken down in the South Australian Supreme Court as a jury unanimously found her guilty of murdering her young daughter.

The death happened at Swan Reach on the River Murray in November 2005.

The jury was told that Tracey Lee Smith fatally bashed her daughter Ti-Aysha because the 21-month-old would not eat her baked beans.

24-year old Smith denied killing Ti-Aysha and tried to pin the blame on her former de facto partner Adam Troy Barty.

After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, the jury rejected Smith's story and found her guilty of murder.

She broke down as she was led from the dock, facing a mandatory life prison term.

Justice Kevin Duggan will hear submissions in July for setting a non-parole term.

UK/ CCJS says age of criminal responsibility should be raised

The age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to as high as 18, a report says.

The document from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) also suggested children should no longer be sent to prison.

Claiming there was an urgent need to review the approach to "children in trouble", a collection of essays from academics and campaigners said the British age of criminal responsibility is much lower than in countries such as France, Germany, Canada and Russia.

The age at which children can be prosecuted should be raised to 14, 16 or even 18, the authors said.

Rebecca Palmer of the Children and Young People's Unit at the Greater London Authority said in her essay: "The negative perception of young people as 'hoodie-wearing yobs' should be concertedly challenged.

"The age of criminal responsibility should be raised to 18 and Asbos should be abolished. No child should be in prison and alternatives should be sought."

Bob Reitemeier of the Children's Society suggested 14 years should be the minimum.

Criminologist professors Barry Goldson, of Liverpool University, and John Muncie, of the Open University, wrote: "We submit that serious consideration should be given to raising the age of criminal responsibility to 16 or even 18."

The CCJS, which is based at King's College, London, said England and Wales has one of the highest child imprisonment rates in Europe. The report suggested moving responsibility for youth justice from the Home Office to the Department for Education and Skills. Grave crimes by children should be punished by a "residential training order" of up to five years, it added.

CCJS deputy director Enver Solomon said: "We are publishing this because we believe the current age of criminal responsibility is too low and there needs to be an urgent rethink. All options need to be under consideration, and we want to start a debate about what the new age should be. We think the new Ministry of Justice should make it a priority to look again at the age of criminal responsibility."