Mother Imprisoned for Giving Her Kids Sleeping Tablets
An Adelaide mother who gave her children chocolate milk laced with sleeping tablets has been sentenced to a full term of three years in prison with a non-parole period of 15 months. The 47-year old mother of four, whose name...
Continuing Detention Orders in New South Wales
An application has been made to extend the prison sentence of a convicted killer and child sex offender beyond the expiry of his full term of imprisonment. 69-year old former babysitter and gardener Michael Anthony Guider was sentenced to two...
Prisons Should Focus on Treatment Rather than Punishment
A study by researchers from the University of Exeter in England has found that assessing new prison inmates for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and treating those affected can significantly reduce their likelihood of future offending. Source and effect of TBI...
Drug Driving Charges and the Defence of Honest and Reasonable Mistake
A recent decision by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has ruled that drug driving is an absolute liability offence, which means the defence of being honestly and reasonably mistaken about drugs being in the system does not apply to...
The Law and Penalties for Aggravated Sexual Assault in New South Wales
A man who was found guilty by a jury in Downing Centre District Court of multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and armed robbery has been sentenced to a full term of 38 years in prison with a non-parole...
40 Year Prison Sentence for Australia’s ‘Worst Paedophile’
Ruecha Tokputza has been described in court as “Australia’s worst paedophile”, and has been sentenced to 40 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to 50 charges including having sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 14, engaging in sexual...
Australian Prisoner Rights Activist Ends 33-Day Hunger Strike
Sydney man Jock Palfreeman has ended his month-long hunger strike inside correctional facilities in Bulgaria. The 32-year-old began his protest on 21 April, with the aim of drawing attention to rights violations in the local prison system, as well as...
Should It be a Crime to Publish Fake News?
Integrity campaigners have labelled the spread of disinformation during the recent Federal Election campaign as ‘intolerable’, and are calling for criminal laws specifically designed to deter such conduct in the future. One campaigner, former NSW supreme court justice Anthony Whealy,...
Police Use of Strip Searches Skyrockets in NSW
At the 11 May Midnight Mafia festival at Sydney Olympic Park, NSW police officers searched 272 punters following an indication from a sniffer dog. Of these, 32 were charged with possession and eight were issued with new on-the-spot fines. This...
The Crime of Kidnapping in New South Wales
A mother and daughter have been sentenced to imprisonment for detaining, assaulting and attempting to force a woman to transfer title to a car. Judge Warwick Hunt of the Downing Centre District Court heard that between 3.40pm and 7pm on...
