By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The British began their takeover of the island now referred to as Tasmania in 1803. At that time, there were already nine Indigenous nations present on the land. Indeed, the Aboriginal people had been living there for tens of thousands of years. Each of the local nations was comprised of about ...
Articles by Sydney Criminal Lawyers
Police DNA Bungle Clears Alleged Child Abusing Priest
By Zeb Holmes and Ugur Nedim Victorian Police have admitted a major bungle of DNA evidence that led to several key suspects being ruled out as suspects in the brutal 1980 murder of Melbourne mother Maria James. The murder investigation hinged on a bloodied pillowcase, which was used to establish the DNA profile of the ...
Death of Elijah Doughty: No Justice for Indigenous People
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim The verdict in the trial of the Kalgoorlie man who fatally ran over Elijah Doughty in August last year, has laid bare the inherent racism in the Australian criminal justice system. Last Friday, the 56-year-old non-Indigenous man – whose identity has been suppressed by the court – was cleared of ...
Top Ten Suburbs for Speeding in NSW
By Sonia Hickey and Ugur Nedim The top ten hotspots for speeding offences in NSW have been identified; and some of them may surprise you. The Sydney suburb of Mascot, near the airport, seems an unlikely place to be caught speeding, as traffic is often jammed and when it starts to move, it does so ...
Second-born children are the most likely to end up as ‘criminals’
By Sonia Hickey and Ugur Nedim Most first born children would say they’re not surprised by the theory that their younger siblings are more likely to end up on the wrong side of the law. And actually, there’s an ever-growing body of evidence to support this theory. A study completed earlier this year that followed ...
NSW Government Silences Animal Rights Activists
Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim ‘Ag-gag’ laws prohibit individuals, including animal rights activists, from filming or photographing animal agricultural practices on farms and in slaughterhouses. The laws are supposed protect our agricultural industry, but their practical effect is to inhibit the exposure of animal cruelty and thereby enable big farming operations to treat animals as they please. ...
Government Agency Fails to Protect Confidential Information
By Zeb Holmes and Ugur Nedim The new meta-data retention laws mean internet service providers (ISPs) must retain the personal information of users for a period of two years, and make that data available to a whole host of government departments without them even having to obtain a warrant. The laws give our state and federal ...
The Evolution of Punishment: From the Corporeal to Incarceration
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Renowned French philosopher Michel Foucault opens his 1975 work Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Modern Prison with an account of the death of Robert-Francois Damiens – the last French citizen to be drawn and quartered, on 1 March, 1757. A domestic servant, Damiens was publicly executed for allegedly attempting ...
Reducing Indigenous Crime: Mass Incarceration is Not the Answer
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the most incarcerated on earth by percentage of their population. Currently, the Indigenous incarceration rate in Australia is 2,430 inmates per 100,000 adults. In March this year, there were 11,288 Indigenous adults detained in the Australian prison system. The nation’s First Peoples account for ...
NSW Court Confirms Gittany Murder Conviction
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At 10am on 30 July 2011, ABC journalist Joshua Rathmell was on his usual route to work. He was walking through the southern end of Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD, when he heard “deranged screaming” from a male voice. The journalist looked up and saw a bare-chested man “unload” a ...