Three Legs

for shame.

Baz

I was not at the trial, i do not know all the intimate details, but i do know it is very easy for smart, well paid defence lawyers, to make things look like something they are not, like the police are all thugs and brought it all on themselves, and got what they deserved, and the McLeod's were in fact totally innocent bystanders, who frequently contribute to charity, and spend their time off helping OAP's. All a defence lawyer has to do is introduce reasonable doubt,' and that is sufficient to obtain a not guilty verdict, and they go to any length to do this. I have spoken to defendants who have been told by their lawyers to put in complaints of assault against the arresting officer of their case, when there was never any suggestion in the first place from the defendant that they were assaulted by the officer. Why? It is brought out in court, and muddies the waters, and the credibility of the arresting officer is doubted.

These savages should not have been fighting in the first place, then the police would not have been called, and then all this would not have happened.

The lawyer defending the McLeod's (no doubt paid for with our taxes) was Colin Lovette, i don't know how he sleeps at night, but in fairness to him he his obviously very good at what he does. He also successfully defended Greg Domaszewicz for the murder of Jaidyn Leskie in Moe some years back :

Jaidyn Raymond Leskie (April 30, 1996 – June 15, 1997) was the Australian child of Bilynda Williams and Brett Leskie, kidnapped and murdered in 1997. Despite leads, and the arrest and trial of a prime suspect, Leskie's murder remains unsolved. Although the decision was made in 2002 not to hold an inquest into the toddler's death, the case remained in the news for several more years and an inquest was held in 2006 implicating the mother's boyfriend, Greg Domaszewicz.

Jaidyn was kidnapped from the house of his mother's boyfriend, who was babysitting at the time, in Newborough near Moe. The circumstances around his disappearance and death were never clear, and were complicated by a pig's head being thrown at the house and other vandalism on the evening of the toddler's disappearance, an alleged prank about the boy's fate and the body not being discovered until January 1998. Leskie is believed to have died of head injuries.[1] After a missing person's search, believed to have been the largest since the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt in 1967,[2] Jaidyn's body was found on January 1, 1998 at Blue Rock Dam, 30 km north of Moe.[3] His body had been preserved by the cold waters of the lake through winter and the clothing he was wearing was subject to a DNA test in an effort to solve the crime.[4]

Greg Domaszewicz was charged with murder but was found not guilty in December 1998.[1] A controversial 2006 inquest[5], believed by some to be media driven,[6] found that he had contributed to the toddler's death and had likely disposed of the boy's body.[7] The inability to move forward with what some believe to be new evidence due to the double jeopardy laws in place in Victoria have led Leskie's mother to join a coalition asking for reform of these laws.[8] Almost ten years after Leskie's death, a kit on helping parents choose adequate babysitters was released in his memory.[9]

The reality is when it comes to the courts, it no longer has anything to do with 'the truth,' or 'justice,' its just a bunch of sharks in suit, playing a game (and i have heard them rereferingo it as 'the great game' myself, i don't think some of the victims see it that way though). I don't blame the jury, i blame the system which no longer represents victims, they system only serves the interests of criminals and lawyers fat salaries. I remember picking up a defendant on a warrant once, and we got speaking about the system. He told me that he was charged for one thing or another, and he told his defence layer he was going to plead guilty, as funnily enenoug he was guilty. He told me the defence lawyer told him if he plead guilty he would not represent him, so what did he do? He plead not guilty, and his defence lawyer susuccessfully defended the charge. I would like to think this is an isolated case, but i really don't think it is, 'truth' now takes second place to the possibility of lawyers legal fees, and justice goes out of the window, and society starts to criumble.

If you want justice i'm afraid you have to wait to the next life, in this life all we have is the judicial system.

renth

True, just like the OJ Simpson trial. You can get away with anything if you have a $200,000 QC defending you.

I hope the public backlash drives these scum from our city and preferably the country too.

EvannTel

I think we're at crossed purposes here. By taking law into their own hands, I'm referring to the fact that it was widely reported the attack was because of the restraint used on their father. Regardless of the police force used (which is if excessive should be subject to investigation and charges as appropriate). But for the court to found them not guilty imlies that flying headbutts and subsequent paralisation of an individual is acceptable. From the video I do not consider that "reasonable" force but excessive.

I dont see how this verdict gives us greater confidence in the legal system. As others have posted its not a perfect system and while some are wrongly convicted equally (and probably far more frequently) the guilty are aquitted.

This is a comples case and clearly knowledge of the whole proceedings would be required by all of us to understand the courts decision.

As is borne out on here and the media coverage the majority are shocked by this acquittal.

fraser

Sorry if my father was being fatally tasered for trying to stop 3 coppers laying into someone with a baton I'd defend him, if that's how it went down.

Did anyone here attend the court? Is anyone here have a full transcript of the trial? If not how can anyone judge whether the jury were correct or not?

I'm sure they didn't come to a decision easily, and any reasonable doubt has to return a not guilty verdict, there must have been some for a majority verdict.

Amazulu

Fair point. We have to accept that we live in a just and democratic society, even if that means some things do not sit well with the majority.

Whilst I can accept that the cops may have been a bit over the top in this case (what's new?), Const. Butcher did not deserve to get assaulted like he was.

Dennis The Menace

Totally agree with you 3

moneypenny20

Not often I say this to Fraser, but...... agreed.

lapin_windstar

I think you may be misled by the poor reporting of this case. It was not the case that the cops arrested the father a little roughly, and then the other guys jumped in.

The police were found to have assaulted the family first, and the family was acting in a kind of collective self defence. The use of excessive force is an assault (and in this case, it looks like we're being generous to assume the cops were doing anything other than beat first, ask questions later). The right to resist an assault - no matter whether it's done by cops or bogans - is a common law right, and for good reason. The law does not require you to sit back and watch while people are assaulted in front of you.

Think about it the other way around - if it were the cops that were getting smacked in the face with a baton and shot with a taser by hooligans, would you think it was fair that you weren't allowed to go to their aid?

(Also, the jury found that the headbutt was not an excessive response to the assault+battery in which the cops were engaging).
For someone that seems to be claiming to a police officer, you have a weird understanding of the law. A defence lawyer doesn't have to introduce reasonable doubt, it's the prosecutor that has to remove it. A defence lawyer doesn't have to prove that the defendant is a good guy, the prosecution has to prove that they did the crime they are accused of. The average defence lawyer isn't any smarter or better paid than the average public prosecutors (especially when there isn't a constitutional right to legal aid in Australia).

Let me ask you a question - if it's so bleeding obvious that these guys were guilty and cops were utterly in the right, then why was there a unanimous acquittal?

the troubadour

My sentiments entirely.The entire big picture needs to be considered here instead of knee jerk reactions which are formed by film footage that the police deem in their interests to release.

Dennis The Menace

FATALLY TAZERED Thought it wouldn´t be long before you put your view in. I know you are anti-establishment because you spent time in prison as you have admitted before. You were guilty and served your time was that the Police´s fault?
This family are out and out scum just look at their history. I know a bit more about this case and not what has been shown in the media.
Please tell me if one of your kids were out at work doing their job and some pissed up idiot took a ¨flying headbutt ¨ which resulted in them being partially paralised and unable to carry out their chosen career you wouldn´t be angry???

moneypenny20

Their history is irrelevant to the case (legally speaking). All Fraser has said is that no one except the jury members know what happened whilst they were deliberating and regardless of what you know or don't know, that information will not be told. What Fraser has done or not done in the past is also completely irrelevant to this post and totally unnecessary for you to mention.

I find your post very unpleasant and would ask that you keep personal comments out of your posts please. Perhaps you should read the BE rules before deciding to post again.

the troubadour

Very well put.Lets say in the sense of fairness that the police release footage of how the entire event unfolded not a segment of it so that the public can judge for themselves if excessive force was used by so called trained personal in how they dealt with a middle aged,aggravated man.
If shown to be the case that undue force was used then the officers involved should be taken to task and be fully answerable for such actions in a court of law.
As stated it is the job of the prosection to build a case not the other way and they failed utterly to do so.

lapin_windstar

To be fair to the cops/prosecution, I assume that the reason the phone video of the whole ruck wasn't released was because the guy with the phone didn't start taping it until halfway through. If s/he had, it would have been a much more straightforward one way or the other, right?

I think it's very sad that the officer was paralyzed, but unfortunately, he was part of a group of people that assaulted another group of people in a bar fight.

So what if the MacLeods had a history of loserdom? It didn't make a difference to the cops when they showed up - they didn't jump out the van, carry out an instant background check and say, "oh, it's OK, we can panel those guys because they've been convicted of stuff in the past, but don't touch that punter in the blue shirt, because he's a good dude!". It could just as easily have been you or me standing outside the pub when it all kicked off, that's the point. If cops could be trusted to hand out beatings only to nasty people that really deserved it, then we'd be able to just let them get on with it, but that's asking too much of them, so they're not allowed to beat anyone.
I don't know if trial judges in criminal cases can publish their notes/opinions, as technically they're not deciding the factual meat of the case (the jury is), they're just there to handle administrative stuff and pass sentence (if any). Courts of appeal (i.e. levels above the initial trial court) are more likely to have the judges publish their opinions, because there's more for the judge to consider (typically). In this case, there's been so much public interest that I think it would be worth the judge(s) publishing something that educates the public about what the prosecution had to prove for a guilty verdict, what the defence arguments were, and how the not guilty verdict came about.

I tend to think that "sunlight is the best disinfectant", so I broadly favour televised/greater openness around trials, especially when there's a legitimate and significant public interest, as there is here.

Judges are often criticised for being out of touch or coming to incomprehensible decisions/directions, but IMHO this is often because the journalists describing a case don't make any effort to give enough detail or background in their reports, or are too lazy/ignorant to understand the issues. In other words, it's not the decisions that don't make any sense, it's the bleedin' articles! (Sometimes, of course, judges do mess it up completely, but I don't see any signs of that here so far) (IMVHO).

the troubadour

A lot of people are uneasy at many aspects of this case.Those of us who are of this disposition can but applaud the decision arrived at by the court.
What do you think you know about this case that was not
disclosed in the media i wonder.As you fail to disclose it rather nullifies that statement some what do you not think?
The job that the police do is not easy that goes without saying,but they are one would hope trained to a standard high enough to be able to deal with and diffuse and not go into a volatile situation as thugs and bully boys.Those days when the police could act as they saw fit none should want to see return.
And by the way this place could do with a few more what you label as anti establishment to enable other points of view.
It is a little sad that so many feel the need to push what could be deemed as a ever so slightly right wing reactionary view on the matter discussed and well as law and order in general.