The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see aside of life. The average person is never exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome back to part two of my chat. We've retired magistrate David Helper. Now, if you listen to part one, you would have found David is probably not the type of person who you would think occupied a magistrate's position
for over twenty years. In part two, David told me about the time his family was relocated to a safe house over concerns of retribution from a man who appeared at his court. We get his surprising views on drug legislation. And we also talked about the emotional and mental impact of someone in a judicial position. I think this is something most of us had not considered, but David really
opened up about it. We also talked about sovereign citizens and how AI might change the face of our legal system. It was a great chat. David. Welcome back to part two of I Catchkillers.
Thanks.
Thanks, that's a bit underwhelming. Thanks well.
I enjoyed the first half, so I hope the second half is as good.
Great local courts. We were talking during the break that you see all aspects of life, and the good, the bad, the ugly literally come through the local courts and you see some humor and there's you see some humanity. You see every aspect of life. Any funny things happened to you when you're on the bench.
Looks so many that I'm sure I could bore your audience for dat. But I did sentence somebody who refused to stand up, and I said stand up, please, and he didn't, and I said, come on, stand up, this is serious. And then I realized he was in a wheelchair. That was not a good look.
That's embarrassing.
But another guy I refused bail too, and you know, as he was being led out of court very unhappy, he goes to me, oh, you fat cunt, and said, did you call me fat? And fortunately he laughed. I laughed and we left it at that. But you know, court is a funny place. It's tense, and so anything that breaks the ice can be really very funny, even though it's not so funny outside court.
Yeah, and there's a certain sharpness and a wit that comes with the type of people in court. And I'm not just talking the legal for there. Some of the defendants come before the court, some of the comments that they make are quite hilarious.
And you know, there's language that they don't understand, like a defense low will often call prosecutor on my friend or my learned friend or my very learned friend. And half the time you see the defendants and sometimes they jump up and go, I'm not staying here is your friends, you know, and you just think, well, you know, what hope is there?
Yeah? Well, I think in that environment you've got to be able to laugh where you can. It's a little bit hard when you're sitting there as a magistrate that sees you when you're sitting in at the back of the court.
But yeah, and it's even worse when everyone in front of you starts laughing and you've got to keep it straight face. Yeah, you just learn to be a good actor.
And I also and no, I don't want you to acknowledge this. I can say it from my position when I'm sitting in the gallery. Some court matters can be very dry and very long, and it might be after lunch and it's been a long day and you start to start the nod off or your mind drift somewhere else. There's a lot of concentration that's required as a magistrate. Now I'm always gobsmacked by I could have worked on a brief, not just magistrates, with judges as well, for
a long time, intricate briefs. It's taken to the court, it's been explained once to the person sitting on the bench, and they seem the grasp of the concept. There's a real skill to be able to pick up what's important.
As hard as it is to believe, I actually found it quite a relief because the vast majority of judging is actually listening. Yeah, you know, and you do get better at it over time and there's very little after ten or fifteen or twenty years, there's not that much that's new that you haven't seen before and that you can't pick up pretty quickly. But good lawyers, good lawyers make for good cases. And you know, good lawyers and
never boring. They may be thorough, but they're always they always explaining things in short bites that you can comprehend and that really give a good grasp on the case. And that's why if you've got really excellent lawyers and prosecutors in front of you, then cases run smoothly.
It makes sense. Did you find that your skills improved, like your skills your experience and that did you think you're a better magistrate towards the latter part of your career or when you've got like over a decade of experience? Was it something a job that you continually learn.
On absolutely every day was learning experience? And I think those who stopped learning stopped being good at what they're doing. And look, I'm sure you found that in policing too, and probably in podcast making or me now being back at the university. Every day's a learning experience. But certainly I think the other thing is is that what I got much better at was recognizing that people weren't with some exceptions, people weren't generally good or bad. Their behavior
was good or bad. And once I drew that distinction, which took quite a few years to get to, it really started to dawn on me that we're dealing with whole humans, some of whom are behaving badly, but that doesn't make them bad people. And keeping that in and you know, you could see that both in victims and perpetrators, in witnesses, in police and it really helped me. But I did get better at it. I think over time, certainly I was calmer.
Yeah, I would imagine that you're confident, and you've seen something like this before, you know how to deal with it. What you said about someone does something bad doesn't make them a bad person. I work very closely with doctor Sarah ull A forensic psychologists in homicide, and she and I valued her opinion on some really interesting, tough, tough cases. And she was great to work with because she'd be looking at things from a slightly different perspective than the
looking through it from the police lens. But she was always at pain saying to me, Gary, just because someone's done something bad doesn't make them a bad person. And I've really come to accept that as you found out that we all make mistakes in life, and you know, it's what you've done before then what you do after it that doesn't sort of define you. And I think it's a good thing to hang on to when you, especially in your role when you're judging people, to be
able to see that people but not necessarily bad. They've made a mistake, as we all do at some stage in our life.
And as part of sentencing, would I would say that, I would say, you know clearly, you know from reading all the submissions your family care and love for you, as do many members of the community have written on your behalf. On the other hand, what you've done is behavior that's completely unacceptable in our community, and you have to be punished for it, both for you and for
all of society and for the victims. But people would if if you approach people like that, you know, for a judicial officer to say to someone you're a bad person and you're evil, it takes away it robs them of an ability to reform and rehabilitate, I think, or it makes it much harder for them. Of course, there's some exceptions, and I did deal with some people who I would describe as really pathologically evil, not many, but some. Did you come across some like that as well?
Yeah, most definitely. There's some people that are in jail for the rest of their lives that I was involved in, and I'm more than happy. I know the evil side that those people, and you're not going to change them. But there are other people and people thought as a homicide detective, like everyone that you locked up must have been a terrible human being. No, yeah, yes, done a terrible thing, and there's you know, in the scale of things,
there's not much worse than murder. But some of the people have made a mistake, a huge, huge mistake, and the consequences have been devastating, But doesn't make them that evil person. There is pure evil. That's my take on that. Other people might have different opinions, but I think it would be supported with research. There's some people that just inherently evil and society does need to be protected from them.
Yeah. Absolutely. I dealt with one case and when it went to the district court, he got forty eight years. That's what he said to what he did to his daughters, and you know, I'm glad. I'm glad he's behind bars until after his death. For sure.
Well, I'm assuming there that it must be a child's sexual abuse. And indeed, the thing that about that offense that separates it from a lot of others is that children should be protected, that there is no mitigating circumstances for a child to be sexually assaulted. And also the level of planning and the reoffending and the ongoing offending. That's not like a one punch situation of about the
side of the local club in an argument. This is people that have deliberately decided to do this and then do it again and again.
And yeah, and I think there's a cost in the criminal justice system. And of course I'm not taking away from the harm to the victims and the victims family, but the investigating police, the magistrates and judges, the jurors, the witnesses, for everyone. It's an incredibly grueling experience. I mean, it's at least in homicide, they're either dead or they're not.
I know what you're saying.
Yeah, and you know that that whole process is incredibly damaging for people. I'm sure we've all seen it in our careers, people who are so harmed, not by their involvement in those cases.
Yeah, And I like there's pressure on the homicide when leading investigations, and the rare occasion that you're looking for a serial killer or a contract killer, you know that it's consequences you don't bring that person to justice. But the pressure on the investigators in sex crimes, especially child protection. Please you get a report of that. And you know, if I don't move on this straight away, maybe the child's going to be assaulted again. There's a lot of
pressure there. It brings me I jumping forward. But we can go back to what we're talking about. You write a paper on lifting the judicial veil, Vicarious Trauma PTSD and the judiciary. A personal story. I bought some quotes out there because we're talking about the impact of child sexual abuse and this is an extract from your experience. I'll read it out and I'll get you get you to comment on it. About twelve years ago, I was sitting in a series of cases involving child pornography in
Bateman's Bay. In those days, it was necessary for the courts to view the pictures and the videos to determine the seriousness of the charges. Fortunately, that is far less often today due to computer classification. As is regular the case, the charges include thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of images and hundreds of videos. I'll not retraumatize all of us or revictimize the victims by describing the images. That's
pretty heavy. And I think from there you've read on a quote by the Chief Magistrate and Police versus Power, who describes what you described there. To see the pale death of innocence and the trust in the eyes of so many young children is to bemoan the capacity of some members of the human race to descend into the dark and depraved side of the human condition. I pulled both those quotes out because I thought that at some point in time we would talk about that. But that
is that is really what we're talking about. The heaviness of what you.
See, absolutely, and let's keep in mind who Power was. It was Patrick Power, who was the Deputy DPP for the state of New South Wales who was charged with possession of that child pornography.
Right.
He was working as a Deputy DPP of New South Wales and his computer needed some repairs. He sent it in and they discovered a cash of child pornography material there. They then conducted an investigation obviously searched his home and the like, and found more. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment several years imprisonment, and
obviously that was the end of his career. That was the case that I was quoting from, which is extraordinary for a whole set of other reasons that we could talk about.
Well, I didn't pick it up. He prosecuted the murder trial I was involved in. I knew him well, and I was disgusted and shocked when I heard of what happened there.
So the reaction for me of having to deal with it that nest of cases was really horrific. I couldn't get the images out of my head and as a result, you know, I really went through a very difficult mental time. And again I don't you know, there's police who have to classify this every day, and of course these are real children who are being filmed. So I don't want to take away from a moment the horror of the victims. But the price of that of needing to deal with
that material for me was really high. I found it very difficult to sleep. I had nightmares with those recurring images, and it became very difficult for me to do my job. I'm not ashamed of that at all. In fact, you'd think it's a sign of humanity that you can't cope with that sort of stuff. And clearly I thought I was terrifically resilient. In the first few cases I did
didn't affect me. But it's a bit like a sponge, and over time that sponge got full, and you know, I realized that I had choices, so I could either stop doing cases like that or get some help.
Yeah, and as a magistrate, you've got help. You've got professional help there to I did.
I find the Chief Magistrate and said, I'm not coping with these cases. I explained what was happening to me, and so delight, you know, pleased that my colleagues, you know, I spoke to them and they said, well, you just don't do those cases for I will swap. And I did spent twelve eighteen months not doing those cases, getting some professional help, getting some therapy and talk therapy about it,
and it really helped. And coincidentally, during that time, a lot of the computer classification came in and rarely after that did I need to certainly not look at the same numbers of pictures. But you know, I think it's the price. One of the prices that people don't talk about or even think about of doing that kind of work is that it can have a really significant impact deep down.
It can take a time, but the fact that you put your hand up and addressed it and then could move forward from I think a lot of people, and I'm talking more so with police because they understand that world more. A lot of people don't put their hand up until it's too late, and yeah, if they got just acknowledge, Okay, let me step away from this a little bit. I need to break from this type of work.
Well, in the last few years we've had two magistrates in Victoria kill themselves and one family court judge in Queensland to kill himself. So you know, there's and of course we know about the rates of police suicide and suicide and the legal profession and is it any wonder when you're dealing with that kind of pressure and that kind of crime.
And it is a dark world, and as we talked about in part one, you are isolated as a magistrate, Like even in policing, we see some horrific things, but you could share it with the team because invariably there's people that have experienced it. As a magistrate, you sit there, sit there on your own and confronted with all this.
And you're meant to be above it all. You're meant to be Cupucantan and not affected by it.
Yeah. Well, I think it says a lot because you would have heard it, and we all hear it with the shock jocks and the headlines in the paper about judges. If this happened to if this happened to their loved one, they'd give the person the harder sentence. I think sitting down, having a chat with you and giving it the exposure to our audience and listeners allow them to understand that there is a human sitting there. Quite often you're just this character that sitting on the bench and we don't
think about that you've got emotions. You're just the magistrate or the judge. So I think it's good that we talk about it and there is an impact.
Yeah, and you realize that there's discretion. I mean, when you're sentencing someone, you've got discretion from the very minor penalties to the maximum penalties, and where you drop that line, of course, is to do with precedent and what high courts are said, what the lawyers say before you and point out what's an appropriate sentence. But you also carry
your own baggage. And there weren't many chop pornography offenders who left mich court without getting really long jail sentences because of my abhorrence for the crime.
Well, I think we had a brief discussion about it the other day, but I was surprised about the amount of people in prison that had been sexually assaulted as children and the trajectory that took them on their life from that point in time. And when we talk about reducing crime, and we talked about other ways of preventing crime from happening, I think we need to have a real hard look at child sex offenders and the impact
that they have on society. Because the amount of people in prison that have been sexually abused as children that might necessitate them going into prison, but it's the way they live their life with a risk they might become drug dependent sorts of things because it disrupts their life. We're really got to look at going as hard as we can on it, and I don't think there would be many people that would argue against it.
I think that's true, and I think the other aspect is the harm that's done to children by witnessing domestic violence. You know, over the years, I realized that young people who came before me had a lot of things differences,
but a lot of things in common. And one of the really common features of young young criminals, kids who are committing crimes, who were all concerned about increases in crimes, and particularly young people, but one thing they all or almost all had in common was that they had witnessed crime, They had witnessed violence in their homes. And you know, there's a price to pay for the kinds of violence that is perpetrated on children, all perpetrated around children, and it's a big price.
That's interesting. Certainly clearly understand what you're saying there, and I'm just processing in my mind, But that environment that those formative views as a child growing up, if you're in a safe environment, that sets you on a pathway that you're given your best chance of making the most of the life. If you've grown up in a violent
household with domestic violence going on. I can see the problems that that could create, but you actually recognize it and saw that in all the years that you were on the bench and people that were coming before you.
Yeah, it's I think I better do some research on it.
Yeah, well, there you go, there's the next paper. We'll bring you. We'll bring you back. How long were you taken the whole three years?
It'll take me a little.
We'll book you in domestic violence. There's a lot of talk about it across the country, not just New South Wales, and how we really need to get a handle on it and the end result where partners, invariably female partners
are taken to the conclusion where they've been murdered. How did you deal with domestic violence situations in the court, because in the local court and in the areas that you presided in, I would imagine that a lot of your casework would have been avios and domestic violence situations.
Absolutely, And it's not the most glamorous work for police either, you know, And it's frustrating. So often victims would get into the witness box and I can't remember I fell over,
I was drunk. I don't know what happened. But you know, at one time in Grafton Local Court a woman her partner had been charged with beating her on several occasions, and I think it was about the fourth or fifth time she got in the witness box and we're all expecting the same again, and I saw the defeated look on the arresting officer's faces, saying here we go, and she said he hit me, and we all were just staggered. It took five times, five lots of great police work, patience,
making a safe environment, and eventually she'd had enough. And it was a real lesson to me that there's a power in just bringing people to court. The outcome doesn't matter so much as getting people protected as much as possible, but it really is. I don't know if there's been an increase in domestic violence or there's just been an increase in the recognition that it's a crime.
The awareness of it, the willingness to report it.
But the fact that the police now are starting to I think only now really take it seriously as serious as some of the less serious crimes is a terrific thing. And I think it's a cultural shift that we just
need to continue. I had recently went to a domestic violence specialist court in Queensland to have a look at how they're operating, just to find, you know, really terrific thing where people feel safe, where justice is done, where the emphasis is not so much on well lock them up, but on how we're going to change the behavior in this family and by this man, and you know, really successful programs and you know, I've got a lot of hope for change, but I don't think we need We
can possibly underestimate the seriousness of the problem.
I think part of and police are more aware of it because we've had some horrific situations where people looked at it and we've got to have this get a handle of this type of crime. But I think there's more accountability now like we can't. You know, when you look and sadly, quite often you see a murder and
you look back and there's all these red flags. And we had an expert a criminologists from overseas and described as murdered by slaveh motion where a domestic situation there's been for falling out and I can't remember the percentages, but it was quite frightening that if you've been in a domestic situation and your partner has threatened to key you. When we're talking to men kill a woman, the likelihood
of that occurring the ridiculous percentage. We've got to acknowledge that domestic violence is a red flag and indicator that something much worse can.
Happen totally, and you know, the hardest decisions I think that courts have to make is bail. You know, if people are found guilty or they plead guilty. Sentencing is relatively easy, but bail is the first time. And of course we're all aware that there's situations where there's false allegations. We're aware that people are innocent until they're proven guilty. But if you locked up every man where a threat was alleged, well, the jug you couldn't do it. So
it's really tough, tough call. And I think every magistrate in Australia, every judge will have released someone on bail who then commits an offense. Has refused people bail who end up being found not guilty. It's a net loss game and you can only do your best.
It's a tough one. I want to thry this out because it's just something that in my simple mind it seems like a simple solution, and I saw that. It came to me when I was speaking to Hannah Clark's parents that I know you're met, and talking about the lead up to before Hannah and the three children were murdered, and the fact that she was living in fear. There was concerns. We talk hypothetically, so it's not Hannah's situation,
but hypothetically man and woman in a relationship. There's domestic accusations of an assault, the person's perhaps charge on that AVOs are taken out if they breached that AVO once. Why can't we bring in I'm talking Angril bracelets, electronic monitoring of people. Now. I've raised it a couple of times and people said, well, the costing of it, we haven't got the technology. Well, when we're going through COVID, we knew where everyone, we knew how a bloke went
to ten different stores to buy a barbecue. You know, we can track people. I raised this with Hannah's parents and said, would you have felt more safe if the offender, if he came within a five kilometer radius of Hannah, she would have been notified because she was limiting fear, And they said most definitely, most definitely that would have given her comfort. And if she knew that he was within five kilometers of her location, she would take certain action.
And then the naysayers say, but they could cut the ankle bracelet off. Well, if they cut the ankle bracelet off, the potential victim gets notified. I see it as a way of a compromise between, as you identified, sending everyone that's in breach to jail because the Giles just couldn't deal with it, and protecting the victim and for the accused, why do I have to walk around with an ankle braceleon? Well, you were given the chance, you failed in that chance,
and this is the next alternative. If you've breached it again, then you go into custody. Am I looking at things too simplistically? No?
I don't think so at all. And I think it's and it doesn't have to be an ankle bracelet these days. I mean, we can all we can all find our phones, we'll find my and you know, this technology exists, it's there and that's where it should belong. I often think the fanciest technology seems to be stuck on offenses like major drug crimes and things like that. You know, the Australian Federal Police seem to have every single gizmo known
humanity and investigating importation of drugs. If we put that same effort, technology and money into domestic violence offenses, and you're right, the geographic separation of people does two things. Of course, it protects the victim, but it also protects the perpetrator from unfair or unrealistic allegations because we know where they are and if it's false, it's clearly false. So it's absolutely win win, and there should be much much more.
And the technology and you know, I'm speaking out of my era of expertise, but I'm sure the technology is available to set that in place, and I think that will give that separation because we really have got to make a difference in it because it's happening too much. There's a quote that you talked about the role of a magistrate, and I think it sort of will get you to discuss it from there. A magistrate cannot stop domestic violence or alcoholism or turn around the economy of
dyeing towns. What we can do is ensure that the law is upheld and that there is humanity and consideration in its application. Do you just want to expand on what was meant there? Yeah.
Look, the sense of sitting in rural and regional New South Wales is often a fairly depressing thing. As you see these towns that were once boyant, they're in economic decline. Often all that's left is the ragtag army of original inhabitants or older people and a lot of disaffected young people. They don't have the services, they don't have the medical or mental health or educational services that other places have. But the biggest injustice occurs when people aren't listened to.
And I found that the smaller the town and the more you know, the tougher the regional environment, the more time you took, the better justice was served. People have a story that they want to tell. And you know, the worst thing I've seen in court when I was a lawyer and since is when magistrates just cut everyone off and just you know, don't allow people to have their say, win, lose or draw. If people manage to have their say, they feel that justice has been done,
whether they're believed or not. If justice is seemed to be done, people will leave court not happy, but not begrudging the entire system. And I think it's really important to show that it takes a bit of time, takes a bit longer, you might get home as early, but in the end justice is done.
Well saying that your day in court, you'll get your day in court, I think that very much reflects what you just said.
There absolutely and you know you see this particularly you know in the masty court. As I said, there's no jury, so you're not only the person who's doing the sentencing. You're the person who's trying to determine the truth in the situation. And that often means you believe one person and don't believe the other. But if you explain why you come to that conclusion that the man really did beat his wife, that she was telling the truth because of the bruises, or the immediacy of the complaint, or
his prior record or whatever. He may not be happy with that decision, but as long as as long as it's a process that is fair and open and he gets a chance to have his say, well hopefully the resentment will be less.
Yeah, understandable. Now, there was one defendant that you had before you that he wasn't satisfied with the court, which resulted in you having to relocate your family. Do you care to tell a story?
Because it was that was a family law dispute which had been going on for a while, and this fellow who was ex army, decided that he would go to his ex wife's house while she was at work and the children were at school, and he got the dog and nail guned the dog to the front door. So when the children came home, that's what they were confronted with.
He was arrested and I refused him bail because I thought the crime was just so horrendous that he was a real d I mean, anyone, there's this whole psychology and you would know this better than me from homicide, but harm to animals is a really is a in the red flag. Definitely, I refused him bail. In their wisdom, the Supreme Court granted him bail. And his response to that he didn't like me much, was to plant a bomb at the courthouse on the gas tank on a
sitting day. So that then led to the police rightly saying in the sheriff's office and you know the security apparatus that we get the protective officers relocating us to a motel until he was caught, and you know, that's obviously a chilling experience. I'm sure it happens to a lot of people in the community, but it also gives you a taste of what it's like to be to have to hide.
It's not good. It's not good if you're under threaten, your family's under threaten, and especially in your red flag. You know, someone that's prepared to commit a crime like nailing the family pet to the front door, well that tells me a great deal. And I don't think we need to be psychologists or experts in the field to know that that is a dangerous person.
And there's not many magistrates, not many judges who haven't had stalkers, who haven't had threats, and you know, particularly the Sovereign Citizen movement are very threatening often to judges and magistrates. Desi Freeman sought to that's the fellows on the run sought to arrest the magistrate who originally found his decision that he didn't like, and then he sought
to arrest the Attorney General and others. And obviously there would have been a fear factor, and that fear, as we now know, was well found.
It's a worrying I find it worrying with this. It's an ideology that in past times, a sovereign citizen, we go back thirty years, come up on a show like a Current Affairs, someone that's declared he's seceded from the country, and we'd all have a laugh and think there's nothing in it. My take on it. Now, we've been doing a little bit on sovereign citizens and we've had actually documents served on us from the sovereign citizens and they want us to appear at the court and all that
sort of nonsense. But the danger of them now is it's an ideology that is harmless in isolation, but then they can connect in the social media world where people they go down a rabbit hole and people are supporting their views. So their radical view is that's what's skeet fed back to them. And I see them as a real risk. We had someone in and I'm not saying sovereign citizen here, but just alone actor situation, someone fire and show a couple of weeks ago in Sydney and
led off something like fifty shots. I see them as the real danger of the future and sovereign citizens that they're not something that we should laugh at we've got as the two police officers down there. There are other links with the police that were killed up in Queensland that there was an ideology or a link with the ideology of sovereign citizens. Have you had them before your court at the preside over.
I've had them. I certainly had them a lot before my court, particularly in the later years, and you know, everybody reports there's been an exponential growth in those people appearing before court, and since joining the university it's been a area of focus of my research and publishing is on the sovereign citizen movement. And it's hard to think of any other ideology where four police have been killed and yeah at least several injured as a result of
a set of common beliefs. I can't think of another example in Australian recent history where that's occurred. So we really are dealing with a dangerous edge and their numbers are growing and the gobbledygook that they come out with is just so crazy. And when they first appeared before me in court, I just couldn't believe anyone would ever spout such nonsense, you know. And when I say that, I'm not laughing at them, but.
You're not ridiculing them, you're just saying you're completely wrong.
And they're not ill educated. A lot of these people, they don't fit within the category of right wing or left wing either. And certainly, sitting in Lismore, I had a lot of, you know, people who were alternate healers and the like who really follow sovereign citizenship as well. So there really is a broad spectrum of people involved, and it's extraordinary and it's dangerous, and they honestly believe
that the law doesn't apply to them. And when you think, if you think that through logically, that the law doesn't apply to them, of course they engage in risky and dangerous behavior because they think that it doesn't apply to them. They genuinely believe that, and that's a pretty dangerous starting point from any law enforcement or judicial determination point of view.
It is dangerous and it can have impact, and you see it from your role, and I understand the sort of impact they can have. But also to the uninformed in regards to legal matters, they serve these documents and they throw in a couple of legal things and stamps and that, and I can imagine that being served on a person that isn't educated in that area, and the confusion that would create just a simple thing like that.
Yeah, totally.
You get the document served or they raise it in court and you can dismiss it out of hand. But yeah, I imagine there's a lot of people that have been impacted upon by them standing over people with the so called Yeah.
Well it's okay for Scott Morrison and me to be sent to jail. They senced me to five years jail, they send him to ten. I thought the worst thing could be is if we have to have a cell together.
That would be that would be unfee That wouldn't.
Have been a lot of fun for I'm sure, But yeah,
you have to appeal. But I think you're right. You know, there's the Nagari Court that they've set up in Gimpi, which purports to be a family court and which is actually making orders for the return of children where the family court has determined the children are with person X in the In the leading case, it's it's a male the father and the mother, who is the sovereign citizen has got orders that she's serving on all sorts of agencies and places saying that she actually has custody you
know there's an inherent danger in that.
How can we reduce the movement or the impact of the movement. Have you got any thoughts on that? I have.
Firstly, I think when people come to court and start expressing sovereign citizen views, I think we should give them an option, just like we do with anger management, just like we do with drug and alcohol counseling, just like we do with gambling. And that is some sort of program, at least a pilot, a program where you try and debunk a lot of these beliefs, explain to them that they won't hold up in court, and seek to change
their behavior. I've had success with that on a one to one level, and I think it could work on scale. We haven't done it yet, but I think it's worth exploring. The second aspect is that there is people making money
out of the sovereign citizen movement. There are a lot of subscription services where you subscribe and these people will get you out of your speeding fine if you just follow this script and just write these letters and just take put your names in capitals and say you're a traveler not a driver, and etc. The authorities really need to crack down on these agencies of profit because behind this movement there are people who are making a lot of money and if you go for them, like the
drug trade, like a lot of crime, then if you cut the head off the snake, the rest of it really doesn't know what it's doing.
Yeah, it's a difficult area and talking danger. You mentioned Family Law Court the bomb that was placed, but we had the Family Law Court judges and that was I think it was even before my career but started in the police. But I remember we're working on it and very much aware of the recent charging of the conviction of the person for it. That's horrific. That's where society is.
You know, we can all complain about the court so they made the wrong decision, but when you start to get people putting bombs in judges homes and people being murdered, that's horrific.
I think it really is. And I think also we should be grateful that we've got such an independent judiciary. I know that that means sometimes decisions are made that people don't like, too soft, too hard, whatever.
But in my time, David, I'm not talking about my personal case here.
No, no, I'm not either, But you know, look at the situation in America now where all judges are effectively political appointments and there's no break on the excesses of government, the excesses of enforcement agencies, and no one wants to
live in a society like that. When I was a magistrate, I saw in that time, you know, literally hundreds of magistrates come and go, and whether they are appointed because they were prosecutors or ex defense lawyers or government officials, all of them genuinely sought to apply the law according to legal standards, not according to you know, one favoring one party or another. And we should be so grateful we've got that independent judiciary.
I think it's crucial with separation of powers between politics, the courts of police. We need those separation of powers, and if they all become too aligned, I think that's where that's where problems are made, and it leans one way or the other. That doesn't do the society justice. It's so importantly. I don't like seeing politics get involved
in court matters. I'm a big believer in legislation changes if it needed to be changes, but I don't like the Neederk reaction where legislations changes because it's become a popular vote winner and oh, we're going to bring in this law.
So yeah, and also you know, magistrates and judges should be criticized. It's you know, when the media would criticize me saying, you know, you're at least a person and then they did a crime fair cop, you know, like I never had a problem with that in the sense that you know, you can't afford to be reactive in
that situation and not cop criticism. But yes, as you say, simply changing the law because of one bad case or one bad decision, it always has implications that no one's happy with in the end, and then you have to go back and it takes time, and there's injustice.
The scrutiny called. I'm a big believer in open justice as well, and I've seen it in my career times where I think that's not good that the doors are shut to the media or the public on this one, because sometimes I think there's mistakes made or things that aren't people are not accountable when there's not the public scrutiny.
I get the sense through your career you were very much open to the open justice system, even in the way that you talked and you'd offer opinions on current situations and weren't afraid to voice those opinions.
If I thought the law was being silly, I would certainly say so, but then I would go ahead and apply it as you must. You take an oath, like an oath to uphold the laws and usages of the State of New South Wales without fear or favor, affection or ill will. And what that means is whatever your personal view is, the law is the law. And you know, I had problems, like we've talked about with possession minor possession charges for prohibited drugs, but you've got a lot
of discretion there. You don't have to send everyone to jail for it. Indeed, you don't have to convict people for it, and you know, especially first offenders, that's what I would do. But it has to be open and you have to have a good appeal system because the scrutiny that's given by the media, whether it be whether it be tabloid me or so called non tabloid media. The more intellectual approach, I honestly don't think it matters.
It's good to have people in court and watching and I would love it when school kids came in and I tell the first thing I tell law students is spend as much time in court as you can. Just become a courtroom junkie. Just watch it. I still am if I still practice a little now, and if I have a case that's not going to get on till the afternoon, no better way to spend the day than watch the morning A.
Yeah, if you can, you can certainly learn things from there. So with the as a magistrate, you talked about the drug laws, and I think the issues that you had with people that have used let's say, what's the medical based cannabis and then being pulled over. You had a lot of people coming before the court's there with a miniscule amount of cannabis still in their system and people being charged. What's your you take on that situation.
It wasn't so much problem when cannabiates was just an illicit drug, But of course we know now that it's available by prescription and there's a million prescriptions now in excess of a million prescriptions, So what we've got is a lot of people driving around who use THHC as their preferred medication prescribed by their doctor. But if they have a detectable level in their system. We're not talking about people being stoned, but just a detectable level. Then
they're committing an offense and they lose their license. Now that when I was sitting as a magistrate, I would have, you know, single mums who who were getting medication for all sorts of things, be it PTSD, or who were getting THHDC prescribed by their doctors, or chronic pain or epilepsy, and they would say, you can't take away my license. How am I going to get my kids to school or to sport or all the other things. And I
would say, I'm sorry, this is the law. And I just felt that that was really wrong and I spoke out about it, and I still speak out about it. And you know, the drug some we just had in New South Wales with John Brogden and Carmel Tabbitt recognize that the overwhelming view of the unanimous view as far as I know of the drug Summit, certainly of the report, was that this law should change, and hopefully we're going to see that this year.
Well, I think it is something that needs to come in because I've got friends that use medical cannabis and I see them drive and that might be a week later, and I'm thinking, I'm no expert, but I'm thinking if you get pulled over that there's a good chance that you'd still have it in your system.
Typically, how people take medicinal cannabis is they would take it after dinner. It would help them sleep, and of course the effects of that eight, ten, twelve hours later would be zero. There's no question that they are driving while they're intoxicated or anything. The other aspect to this, of course, is what's their alternative. Do they go on benzodiazepines or valium or anti anxiety medication, or do they drink a residual amount of any other prescription drug doesn't
trigger this law. I jokingly said at Parliament House a few weeks ago, I was speaking about this and I jokingly said, I feel like I need a T shirt that says just like any other prescription drug, and that's all people, that's how we should treat it, just like
every other. Imagine if there was a new drug we'll call it weed, that came in from America that had these benefits, no one would even think about making it an offense to have a detectable level, like with desperine or alcohol or anything else.
No, Well, it's again this is where I've always been of the belief that the lawsuit evolved to reflect the needs of society and the changes in society. Talking of changes, one thing that I know that caused me concerned what I saw of the effect and we're still talking drugs with a completely different drug ice in the communities. And I would imagine in the communities, even when you're a magistrate,
that would would have been prevalent. And what was the impact that you saw of the prevalence of ice in the me these.
And the two things, the two topics, the drug driving topic and ice are not unrelated because for ice, as we all know, it's water soluble, whereas cannabis as fat soluble. So people could use ice on a Friday night if they wanted to go out, it was cheap, they could use it. They could then drive the next day without detection. And it had a shocking impact on the operations of
the court. Lismore Courthouse has been there for at least a couple of hundred years, but there'd never been the need for a walled in, glassed in or barred dock. That's where prisoners are kept while the court's on. But with ice, there was people escapes, there was a lot of violence in the court. There's people jumping over the railing and injuring themselves. We had to double the number
of sheriffs in court. The impact of ice. People who are craving ice, who are addicted and have been arrested, they lose all sense of logical sense, and they're extremely strong and extremely violent, and we saw that in the court time after time. It's a really bad.
Drug and it's readily available too.
It's an absolute tragedy. You know. My students now tell me that, Well, if they go out, you know, for a big for a big night, as young people are wont to do alcohol all costs them, you know, and maybe one hundred dollars cannabis. Well they've got the risks of driving and it smells and whatever. Ice fifteen bucks.
That's a concern, isn't it.
You know? I mean, that's that is just a that's a failure of drug policy, and it's a failure of our society that the most dangerous drug is there is the cheapest and most prevalent. That's a really difficult and dangerous situation for those involved. Now I get the sense that we may have reached the peak of it and we're on the downhill slide. Is that your sense as well?
Yeah, it doesn't like there was a point in time where it was the usage was growing exponentially and with almost and you would get the information that's hit the town, and then the town the dynamics of the town change, and maybe there is it's planted out, but it is so concerning, and the crimes can be very violent when the people have been on ice, and towards the latter part of my career, in the homicide out at the Tamworth there was someone that was affected by ice and
committed a horrific murder. But I remember speaking to him and just it was chilling. It was like I was talking to a zombie, like there was no soul behind the eyes, and it was something different. I'd seen all types of people affected by drugs, but there was something not quite right when I was speaking to this person.
Yeah, and I think I think the involvement of a whole lot of programs really have proven pretty successful. We have the Drug Court, which doesn't sit in enough places, but at least it's in Sydney and it's in Dubbo now and it's in Newcastle. We also have MERIT, which is magistrate's early referral into treatment, which means that drug offenders can be dealt with via rehabilitation process as opposed
to know, a more punishment based process. So I think the system always a bit slow, is a bit too late, but still is effectively gearing up to deal with these problems in a much more constructive way than we were dealing with them before. Because you know, the other scary aspect is the urine samples that are taken from prisons. Amphetamines are rife in prisons, so you know, that's obviously not an answer. I think the other thing that's happened, also for good or for bad, is that cocaine has
really taken over to a bigger extent than ice. And what you know, not saying one drug is better than the other, but I think that the consequences of violence are less.
Yeah, I think that's far to say about putting ourselves up experts in the field, but I think I'm not saying anything. I think that, yeah, the damages from ice, that's far far reaching. There's damages. I've seen people lose track and lose path in in Cokaine, but it's more of a gradual thing with ice. It gave from a normal person to a shell of a human being in a very short period of time. You work at the
UNI with the students. What are you doing there? What's your title and what's your role that you're doing there.
I'm the Dean of Law, which means I'm head of the law discipline, which we have, you know, students doing law degrees, students doing paralegal degrees, students doing conveyancing. I'm in a large faculty which is the faculty Business Law and Arts, so there's compatibility with arts. We have a lot of double degrees. And you know, it's marvelous for me to be back in an environment where I'm teaching again. It's an absolute delight. And I've got a great crew
of really dedicated academics. I guess we pride ourselves on producing great lawyers as opposed to other universities which focus much more on research and on higher degrees. We're a rural, a regional law school. We were based in Lismore. Now we're also at the Gold Coast and Coffs Harbor, and you know, we produce lawyers who go to small firms and practice law, who go to Aboriginal Legal Service, legal
aid government departments. We have some in the larger firms, but it's you know, I've been living in the country so long that produced to produce great country lawyers is there's a shortage of them. There's not enough lawyers in the country, in the country areas.
And what do you think you're saying making great lawyers? What are the attributes you're looking for or what's the finished product that comes out after they've got their qualifications? What are you looking at for a good lawyer?
You know, I think there's really only two things that's actually really simple. The first is you've got to be able to communicate, and you've got to be able to communicate with an incredible range of people, from the judges and magistrates to your colleagues, the other lawyers, to the people on the street, to your staff. You've just got to have that real ability to talk to people and not talk down to people and not complicate things. So the first is communication. The second thing is you've got
to have a love of the law. You've got to enjoy researching it, finding out what the latest is, seeing how it's useful for your client, or how it fits in better for the society. So if you've got those two factors, then you've got a great lawyer and an employable one and one that will be a benefit to the community. And you know, we have a lot of people who we have a lot of police who are studying law because they want to become prosecutors or join
the DPP or go into private practice. At the average age of our student is not school leaver age. It's in their late twenties, so people have had a bit of a life.
That's not a bad thing going into that environment. Having life experience it makes it I saw it in policing, and I would imagine that it's very much similar in law.
I remember reading I can't remember. I think it was the Wood Royle Commission into Police corruption said that the older the age you employed the police, the less likely they are to be corruptible. You know, when people were brought into professions at seventeen and eighteen, and you know they were Whereas if you've got a trade to fall back on if all else fails, then you know you're less likely to be culturally influenced by negative things as opposed to positive.
David, that's and I haven't heard it put that way, but it's an interesting point, the non reflection. I think it's very very true that if we had what was called cadets where you could basically go straight from school into the police, that's the only culture you knew outside of school. I worked in the building industry and got an electrical trade for six years before I joined the police, and I think that was the best thing that happened
to me. And I was also in like I was age of crime before the Royal Commission and all that, so I was around that time, but I had the life experience to navigate my way through through that in that you know, I could stand up for myself. I could sense this person wasn't quite right. I didn't buy
into the whole culture. And so I think that's a good idea that having that life experience before taking on the profession, that once you're in there, it gets your wholess ballus and you get caught up in the whole thing. And a lawyer, I always laugh when police are complaining how tough the job is, and I think spend the day on the jackammer and the hot sun spend the day on the jackammer and tell me what we're doing here at the crime scene is hard. So I wanted
to ask you this because I'm falling. We're talking about sovereign citizens falling down rabbit holes. I'm falling down the rabbit hole of AI. At the moment I had to do a talk with a lady about crime and AI the future of training lawyers. But I'm thinking the access that you've got to material case law, which is always a part of a good lawyer being able to research the cases and get the material. Where do you see the future of law with the advent of AI.
Well, in terms of teaching law, I think we've got to come pretty quickly to the conclusion that the bedrock method of assessment, which was assignments, is gone. You know, we can catch some now, we'll be able to catch less in five years and less five years later. So if you can't test people by writing assignments, how do you test them? Well, the other is exams. Well, then you're going to have closed book exams. Can people have their computers there? Because if they can, then AI will
just take over. Are you going to go back to closed book handwritten exams, Well, what does that test? Just tests memory and we're not testing whether people are those skills that I said before, I love and passion for
the law and the ability to communicate. So I guess I see the law school of the future with AI as being what I call, without being derogatory at all, the Plumber model where you go out into the field four days a week, you're working with other lawyers or judges or police or anyone within the justice system, and a day a week you come back and you learn your theory, rather than what we're doing now, which is just trying to ram it into three years or four
years into a degree and it's all intellectual without very much going out into the field. And you know, I think that that model, which which ironically is what they used to call article clerks, it's how people used to go to UNI. That model of learning, I think is what we're going to have. And that's not a model that will come to any surprise for people, say in the medical profession or indeed teaching as well. You know, they do a lot of their learning in the field. Well,
I think that's the way law has to move. As for AI and the practice of law, I can see situations where, for example, in sentencing, where all the factors are fed into AI, you know, just to drink, drive, charge the bread and butter of the local court tens
of thousands of matters every year. Well do they really need individual assessment by a judge or should it instead be fed into a big mega computer and a proposed penalty comes out taking into account all the factors that are fed in and if you don't like that penalty you can go to the court and say, well this is why it should be different. Similarly, you know the
preparation of documents. You know, the Chief Justice of New South Wales has said we're not going to use AI and affidavits and well, really, really, what you're inviting there is people to do it and then cover it up and that's even worse.
Yeah, I wondered about that because that was a big part of policing, like Affhi Davids, and I'm thinking, what's happening because I've been out of the police five years, what's happening now? Because that was to type up an Affidavid to get a Supreme Court warrant at two o'clock in the morning. It took skill and that was a real the skill that you developed as a detective. You could you got renowned for your skills to be able to type up in that for David, and it was
a particular skill drawing all the evidence together succinctly. That's going to pass the test with a Supreme Court judge. I'm thinking at two o'clock in the morning, with AI available, you know what's happening exactly.
And look, you know we set exams or assignments now, which says, here's the problem. This is what AOI says. Criticize this response.
Okay, so you know it's interesting.
That's one way that you can get around it. Also, you know, in criminal law now we say to people, don't do an assignment on bayl law sentencing. You have to do a BAILA application and you have to do a sentencing. And so we do mock courts for assessment rather than an exam or an assignment. So look, you can do all that. But then I think to myself, well, if you really want people to learn criminal law, we aren't they working with legal aid or police prosecutions for six months that had learner.
I like the way you're thinking, and until you raise it, I hadn't given it much thought on how to prepare for the future like that. But I suppose even as your career as a magistrate, you're an agent of change and pushing against some of the some of the more accepted practices of offensive behavior and different things. The future, the future of law. Do you think it's a career that you advise people to go into and what are the rewards for pursuing a career in law.
One of the joys and pleasures of having been an academic and then a judicial officer is you get to see your students appearing in front of you, you know, and it was just wonderful. Occasional they'd bring books you'd written and put them on the bar table and think they're being very smart. But there is an enormous satisfaction I think in the practice of law. And the other thing is law degrees are really the new arts degree.
There are no arts degrees at many universities now, and people do law as their base degree because it's such a great starting point. You know, if you didn't know what you wanted to do, you used to do an arts degree. Now I think, well, why wouldn't you do law? I guess a lot of people think to themselves, well, you know, I'm going to make more money as a plumber, and you might well, or I'm going to have bad off school holidays if I become a teacher, and you
may well. But to me, at least, the satisfaction and seeing it in my students, the satisfaction and learning the law and applying it and trying to change the world to make it a better place, is enormously satisfying. So I would always encourage people to practice, to study law, and you know, if you don't like it, you'll soon know and you can go and do something else.
Well, I get the sense that it served you well. You seem like you still have the joy for life and great future ahead of you. I'd like to thank you for coming on. I catchkillers. You're the second magist, but we had Hugh Dillon that I know you know, the coroner on there before. But I think you've given a fascinating insight because we talked about a lot of people don't know who the person is sitting on the bench, spent a lot of time sitting in the courts wondering
what's going on in that person's mind. But you've given us a bit of insight into that. I think. I mean this sincerely too. I'd like to thank you for the service that you've brought to the communities, because someone that's got some humanity and empathy in them, sitting in a position of power like you have as a magistrate is so important. I think you really make a potentially make a difference the fact you understand crime when these people are saying, yeah, what would they know, it's never
happened to them. You understand the impact it has, and I think that's so important. So congratulations on an impressive career and a future educating lawyers in the right direction.
Thanks so much. Has been real pleasure talking to you, and obviously our shared experience in these things makes for a great base of knowledge. I've certainly learned things too, so it's been great. And I'll come back in a few years once I've done that research on children being victims of crime then committing crimes. We'll talk about that.
Okay, we'll booked the studio. I'll just check the calendar. We'll get that sorted out. But thanks very much and all the best, David, sincerely.
Thanks very much.
Cheers,