NSW Courts Articles

Sentence Reduced Because Lawyer Neglected to Meet Deadline for Guilty Plea Discount

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 12.30 am on 8 October 2019, Bradley Green turned up at Kayla Lister’s home. The then 24-year-old Green was accompanied by a friend who wasn’t quite 18. Lister too, was with a male younger than 18, as well as a third male, who was about to become the… Read more »

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Inmate Released on Appeal, After Trial Judge Misapplied Mental Illness Defence

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim On 22 September 2017, Nick Masters veered onto the wrong side of Port Macquarie’s Hastings River Drive, and collided head on with a car being driven by a Mr Ashenden, who was killed, whilst his wife, Mrs Ashenden was seriously injured. NSW District Court Judge Mark Marien found Masters… Read more »

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Probative Value is of Primary Importance When Determining Admissibility of Tendency Evidence

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim A five justice bench of the High Court of Australia determined on 19 October that a NSW Supreme Court trial that saw the jury find a Coffs Harbour man guilty of the murder of his two-and-a-half-year-old stepdaughter that heavily relied on tendency evidence was correct in doing so. The young girl… Read more »

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The New Offence of Threatening a Criminal Defence Lawyer in New South Wales

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Times have certainly changed in the legal realm in terms of who needs protection from whom. Back in the early 1990s, laws were enacted to protect judges, prosecutors, witnesses and others involved in cases against those accused of committing crimes from threats and reprisals that would obviously be perpetrated… Read more »

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NSW Police Gifted Draconian Search Powers Relating to Encrypted Devices

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The Perrottet government, last Thursday, passed a new encryption-busting bill as part of an ongoing drive by the authorities to get around systems that encode our online communications to keep them out of the view of prying eyes that most often seem to be government and law enforcement. Passed… Read more »

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Sentence Reduced as Judge Failed to Consider Impact of COVID in Prison

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim NSW police commenced an investigation in June 2017, which led to detectives identifying eight men involved in a drug manufacturing operation producing MDA (3, 4-methylenedioxyamphetamine), a substance usually sold as MDMA on the street but can differ in effect. The joint criminal enterprise involved three properties belonging to one of… Read more »

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Judicial Independence is More Important Than Ever

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim “Most Australians assume that an Australian judge would not hesitate to find against the government or a government agency if the law requires that result,” said High Court Justice Jacqueline Gleeson, in a recent speech on judicial independence in liberal democracies. Appointed to the highest court in March last year, Gleeson,… Read more »

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Courts Cannot Consider Agreed Facts Relating to Coaccused During Sentencing

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim After migrating to Australia from Pakistan as a young man in 2001, Zeeshan Kareem met Imtiaz Malik, who, at 16 years his senior, was a respected elder in the local Pakistani community. In March 2013, Malik asked Kareem for assistance in setting up a business, which was then registered… Read more »

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High Court Rules Indefinite Detention of High Risk Offenders Is Constitutional

By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The High Court of Australia has, for the second time in 18 months, ruled in favour of a legal regime that permits indefinite detention. However, unlike its June 2021 ruling, which found that the executive can detain illegal noncitizens without end, last Wednesday’s decision impacts inmates deemed high risk. The case… Read more »

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