High Court Rules that Police Interview is Inadmissible
Richard Filihia was armed with a bowie knife when he entered a brothel on the night of October 24 2012. He stabbed the establishment’s receptionist Brian Gaudry, before fleeing with the cash he’d taken from the man’s back pocket. The receptionist...
Murder for Hire in Australia
2016 was a big year for media coverage of contract killings. The year started with the murder of Joseph Acquaro, the criminal defence lawyer for Melbourne crime boss Rocco Arico. More recently, crime figure Pasquale Barbaro lost his life in...
The Murder of Police Whistle-Blower Sallie-Anne Huckstepp
A man was walking his dog through Centennial Park in Sydney on the morning of February 7, 1986 when he noticed the body of a woman floating in Busby Pond. After police were alerted, two uniformed constables rowed out and dragged...
Neddy Smith: A Career in Crime
Standing at 6ft 6in, Arthur “Neddy” Smith – the infamous standover man - had a menacing aura. He was a leading underworld figure during the mid-1980s Sydney drug wars. And he drove fear into all he encountered. Today, the 72-year-old...
Lest We Forget: The Indigenous Defence of Land
The Frontier Wars raged across the continent of Australia from 1788 – the year European occupiers arrived – right up until 1934. For the most part these battles, massacres and acts of resistance have been forgotten and remain unacknowledged to...
The Delay in Prosecuting the Death of Lynette Daley: A Nation’s Shame
Lynette Daley was already dead by the time paramedics arrived at Ten Mile Beach in northern NSW. It was around 7 am on January 27, 2011 and the 33-year-old mother-of-seven’s body lay bloodied and brutalised. Two men, Adrian Attwater and...
The Santa Claus Slayer: You Better Watch Out!
At 11:30pm on Christmas Eve, 2008, a man dressed as Santa Claus knocked on the door of a house in Covina: a small town 35 kilometres east of Los Angeles. An 8-year-old girl answered the door to find Santa holding...
Family of Malcolm Naden’s Victim Will Finally Receive Closure
By Blake O’Connor Captured fugitive Malcolm Naden was one of Australia’s most notorious and infamous criminals, having been responsible for a wave of offences that left several injured, homes ransacked and two people dead. Now, after 11 years of anxious...
Queensland May Finally Abolish Gay Panic Defence
After years of petitioning, the Queensland government has finally introduced a bill to abolish the antiquated gay panic defence. The state’s attorney-general Yvette D’Ath presented the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2016 to parliament on Wednesday. Officially known as the homosexual advancement...
Abolishing the Partial Defence of Provocation: An Interview with Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon
The partial defence of provocation can be argued in a court of law when a person who’s killed another claims to have been provoked by the deceased in such a way that they lost self-control and were therefore less culpable...
