By Ugur Nedim and Sonia Hickey A 17-year-old boy has been charged with acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm, after allegedly confessing to slashing a young schoolgirl’s face. Girl allegedly slashed on the way to school The 12-year old girl is alleged to have been walking through a pedestrian tunnel on her way to ...
Category: Criminal Law
Calls for Queensland to Reform Sexual Assault Laws
Victims’ groups have called for an urgent review into Queensland’s sexual assault laws after a man accused of raping his ex-partner was found not guilty after a jury trial. There are specific calls for a broadening of the rules relating to consent, which currently allow Queenslanders to be acquitted if they hold a genuine but ...
‘It’s OK to Be White’: Coalition Senators Briefly Admit Their Allegiance
For a brief moment last week, members of the Coalition government came clean on the racist sentiments which are simmering so close to the surface amongst their ranks that it’s hard to claim they’re even trying to conceal them. A motion moved by One Nation’s Pauline Hanson declaring “it’s OK to be white” was narrowly ...
Family Court Needs Urgent Overhaul, says new Chief Justice
The newly appointed head of the Family Court of Australia and Federal Circuit Court says urgent reform is needed if the courts are to serve those who need them most. Incoming Chief Justice Will Alstergren, who will take up the helm in December, says the entire system needs a major shake-up in order to make ...
Sydney Criminal Lawyers® Weekly Rundown – Articles from 15 to 21 October 2018
In case you’ve missed any of them, here’s a rundown of the past week’s articles: Anti-Fake News Laws: Preventing Misinformation or Silencing Dissent? Many believe laws against ‘fake news’ are more about silencing critics of the government than reducing misinformation. Click here to read the article Peter Dutton’s Office Under Investigation Australian Federal Police raided ...
Should Children Accused of Serious Crimes be Brought before Adult Courts?
A 17-year old was recently charged with fatal stabbing a man in Sydney’s west. The victim was found in Fitzwilliam Street in Parramatta with a stab wound to his chest. He was treated by Ambulance officers but later died in Westmead Hospital. Police arrested three teenagers in a nearby street and charged a 17-year old ...
White Nationalists Plan to Infiltrate Mainstream Australian Politics
A group of 25 white nationalists covertly joined the NSW Young Nationals just before the party’s state conference in May this year. As the meeting transpired, regular members of the Nationals youth division found that motions were being introduced involving immigration control and race. The ABC’s Background Briefing revealed this week that these alt-rightists were members ...
Queensland Legalises Abortion, While NSW Continues Criminalisation
By Sonia Hickey and Ugur Nedim In what’s being hailed as a ‘historic vote’, the Queensland parliament has resolved to repeal an antiquated section of the state’s criminal code that considers the termination of a pregnancy to be an “offence against morality”. The code was written more than 100 years ago, well before women had ...
Court Upholds 30-Year Prison Sentence for Domestic Murder
On 21 September 2018, the Australian Capital Territory Court of Appeal dismissed Magad Al-Harazi’s appeal against the severity of his 30-year sentence for murdering his wife Sabah Al-Mdwali. The relationship The couple met in 2005 and married in Yemen a year later. Mrs Al-Mdwali migrated to Canberra with her parents and siblings in 2007, and ...
Kids Off Nauru: An Interview With World Vision Australia’s Andrew White
The tide is turning over the issue of removing the close to 80 children still being held in offshore detention off Nauru. Indeed, events over recent days reveal that the Morrison government is going to find it increasingly untenable to keep the kids there. Three federal MPs from the prime minister’s own crew have called ...