Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

The Offence of Displaying a Nazi Symbol by a Public Act Without Reasonable Excuse

Nazi Symbol

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The NSW government last Thursday banned the public display of Nazi symbols, including the Hakenkreuz, the Third Reich’s corruption of the ancient swastika, making this state the second jurisdiction nationally to prohibit the insignia associated with antisemitism, racism and genocide. Introduced in late June, the Crimes Amendment (Prohibition on Display of… Read more »

Totality and Parity are Important Principles When It Comes to Sentencing Co-Offenders

Supreme Court of NSW

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 3.30 pm on 17 January 2020, Brendan Gilbert Wood and George Layton entered Kelly’s Asian Flower brothel posing as customers.  Whilst alone in the waiting area, the pair donned face coverings, Layton armed himself with an axe and a machete, whilst Wood held a machete. In threatening… Read more »

NSW Youth Koori Court Keeps First Nations Youth Out of Prison, Reports Finds

Koori Court

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The latest NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) custody figures, which relate to the 2021 December quarter, reveal that in this state 43 percent of all young people being held in youth detention are First Nations children. This is despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids only accounting… Read more »

Bail in New South Wales: Being Able to Prepare for Trial is an Important Consideration

Bail with Gavel

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Neil Andrew Simpson has significant criminal history, having been convicted of a range of offences from  fraud to smuggling fauna. The defendant appeared before the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (NSWCCA) on 25 October 2021 for an application to be released on bail, after having been remanded since his… Read more »

Sentencing Courts Cannot Draw Adverse Inferences From a Defendant’s Decision Not to Testify

High Court of Australia

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim After being found unconscious at his mother’s Biggera Waters home on the Queensland Gold Coast, 4-year-old Tyrell Cobb passed away in hospital on 24 May 2009. The child died as a result of two abdominal injuries caused by blunt force trauma, which occurred within 48 hours of his death…. Read more »

The NSW Public Health Orders Governing COVID-19 Restrictions

COVID-19 Restrictions Berejiklian

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Originally issued on 10 June, Public Health (COVID-19 Self-Isolation) Order (No 2) 2021 was amended by NSW health minister Brad Hazzard on 21 August, so that it now contains section 6A, which involves responding to police requests about who is in a “COVID-19 risk premises”. Containing three subsections, section… Read more »

Prosecution Must Exclude Any Reasonable Hypothesis Consistent with Innocence in Circumstantial Cases

Circumstantial evidence

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Just after 9 pm on 30 December 2016, some teenagers appeared on the balcony of a Pennant Hills unit occupied by Simon Krisenthal and Mark Wordsworth. The teens entered via a staircase leading up from a back street, Pennicook Lane, to the second floor apartment that sits above a… Read more »

Federal Court Labels Illegal Robodebt Extortion Scheme a “Massive… Stuff-Up”

Federal Court Perth

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim In his 11 June ruling on the class action taken against the Coalition government’s Centrelink robodebt scheme, Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy said that rather than “a conspiracy”, he found the unlawful automated debt collection initiative to be “a stuff-up”, albeit “a massive one”. Initiated by then social services… Read more »