By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim A NSW District Court jury found former Australian Taxation Office deputy commissioner Michael Cranston not guilty of misusing his position to benefit his son on 15 February 2019. Following the verdict’s delivery, the 40-year ATO veteran held back the tears in the dock at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court. During… Read more »
Posts By: Sydney Criminal Lawyers
Judge’s Summing Up Amounted to “a Second Address by the Prosecution”
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 16 May 2013, a consignment of five cardboard boxes marked “pijamas” arrived in Sydney from Chile. The movements manager of freight transport company Wymap, Jason Troy McKell, told a driver to put the boxes in a truck and not to enter them into the electronic run sheet. Mr… Read more »
Manslaughter Sentence Reduced as Judge Strayed From the Facts
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 1 am on 3 August 2013, Allira Holt arrived at Louise Bodeker’s unit on Astoria Circuit in Maroubra to pick up Allira Green, who was about five months pregnant. Green and Bodeker – who’d both been consuming ice – decided they’d both go back to Holt’s place… Read more »
Sentence Reduced as Judge Got the Maximum Penalty Wrong
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 10 November 2016, street-level drug dealer Hayden O’Neill introduced his drug supplier Michael O’Neile to a man who was interested in buying some methamphetamine. Unbeknownst to both dealers, the interested buyer was an undercover police operative. Mr O’Neile supplied the police officer with 13.88 grams of ice with… Read more »
Financial Gain is not an Aggravating Factor in Drug Supply Cases
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 12 May 2014, Huang Enhua negotiated a deal to supply 15 kilograms of ephedrine for a price of $80,000 a kilogram. Unbeknownst to Mr Huang, he’d arranged to supply the $1.2 million worth of the methamphetamine precursor to an undercover police officer. The two men met in a… Read more »
Man Acquitted Due to Lack of Evidence of a Joint Criminal Enterprise
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 20 October 2012, three boxes containing 5,939 grams of methamphetamine arrived in Sydney from the United States. Said to contain clothing, the consignment was received by FedEx International Security and was addressed to a Mr Peter Suca, the operations manager at Esprit Toll in Lidcombe. Two days later… Read more »
Courts Can Only Backdate for Time Spent In Prison for the Sentenced Offence
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 3 March 2014, Nathan Rodgers arranged to supply one kilogram of cocaine to two men. Unbeknownst to Mr Rodgers, he was the subject of a covert police operation. One of the buyers was a civilian participant and the other was an undercover police officer. The three men and… Read more »
Murderer Given Lesser Sentence for “Unexplained Killing”
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 19 July 2005, a 16-year-old boy known as DL followed a 15-year-old girl into the carpark of a motel on the Central Coast. It was the first day of school term and the girl was cutting through the property on her way home having just alighted from the… Read more »
Time in Prison Reduced for Serious Assault Charges
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On the morning of 14 February 2013, Jesse Lunn-Reid entered the bathroom at his ex-partner’s home, brandishing a knife with a 15 centimetre blade. The man was enraged because he believed the woman – who was running a bath at the time – had become involved with another man…. Read more »
Sentence Reduced Due to Multiple Errors by Judge
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 12.30 pm on 23 March 2016, three men in a blue Toyota Corolla pulled up outside of a house in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley. William Er got out of the car, walked over to the residence and knocked on the door. Having ascertained there was no… Read more »