What is a Marketable and Commercial Quantity of Drugs for Commonwealth Offences?
The Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) contains a range of offences relating to border controlled drugs, including drug importation / exportation, possessing unlawfully imported drugs and drug trafficking. The maximum penalties that apply to these offences will depend on the...
NSW Police Watchdog: No Teeth and Underfunded
The NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (or LECC) is already considered to be a largely ineffective police watchdog, without sufficient funds or human resources to investigate complaints. The body has no power to discipline officers, and can only recommend that...
Sparked by the Cronulla Riots: NSW Police Emergency Public Disorder Powers
Groups of young Anglo Australians began congregating along southern Sydney’s North Cronulla Beach at around 8 am on Sunday, 11 December 2005. Drinking heavily, cooking barbeques and draped in Union Jacks, the crowd had grown to around 5,000 strong by...
Another Catholic Priest Guilty of Sexually Abusing Children
Another priest is behind bars as a result of complaints received in the lead up to the 2014 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. James Joseph Cunneen has been found guilty in Parramatta District Court of 10...
Bully Cops Should Remain on the Force, Police Watchdog finds
New South Wales police officers are increasingly acting as ‘a law unto themselves’ with an ever-increasing number of reports emerging of officers engaging in serious misconduct. Bullies in blue uniforms A recent inquiry by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC)...
The Offence of Stalking or Intimidation in NSW
It has been reported that 30-year old, retiring South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL star Sam Burgess has been charged with stalking or intimidation with intent to cause fear of physical or mental harm over an incident at around 4pm on Saturday,...
Section 32 Mental Health Applications: A Psychiatrist’s Report is Not Necessary
Joseph Perdicaro was charged with two criminal offences on 6 April 2018. The first was stalking or intimidation with intent to cause physical or mental harm under section 13 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW). This...
When Can Police Arrest a Person, and How Much Force Can be Applied?
Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) is investigating an incident during which police officers broke a man’s neck when they came to his house to tell him to turn his stereo down. The story of 47-year old Chris Karadaglis is...
NSW Police May be Bugging the Phones of Criminal Defence Lawyers
The New South Wales Police Commissioner has avoided answering questions raised in Parliament about whether the New South Wales police force is using spyware to infiltrate the mobile phones and computers of criminal defence lawyers, regardless of laws which protect...
NSW Police Are Illegally Strip-Searching Children
She was sixteen years old and ready to enjoy the time of her life. Moments later she was naked, crying and alone with a police officer who demanded she lift up the panty liner of her underwear as part of...