SELECTIVE HUMAN RIGHTS MR HAMPEL?

2003

The consensus is that former Supreme Court judge George Hampel and his barrister wife Felicity are entitled to feature in an article (Age A3 Monday 25 August) without someone expecting a right of reply. If it were Burke's Backyard or some lifestyle program I'd agree. However, when the article is a glowing tribute to Hampel's 'love of fairness' and his fierce resistance to those who 'compromise freedom' and 'dehumanise victims', and when he is described as a Renaissance man with an unbridled commitment to human rights it should not pass without comment.

It's well documented in many articles and in my book 'Just another little murder' how my sister, Vicki, was parking her car outside her place of work in a quiet street in Coburg when her former boyfriend arrived armed with a large hunting knife, packing tape and other implements. Vicki was a kindergarten teacher. Peter Keogh was a man with a violent history.

By the time the court case had concluded, in February 1989, I'd joined the ranks of those who believed the criminal justice system had lost touch with the lives of ordinary people. It was my considered view that Vicki's human rights had been trampled upon, while those of the killer had been elevated beyond imagination. Justice Hampel appeared to have lost sight of the human rights of my sister. When I see him proclaiming his commitment to those killed by genocidal murderers I wonder what Vicki did wrong.

Although my sister was dragged from the driver's side door around the front of the car and into the passenger side seat and stabbed to death, Hampel still saw grounds for a legal defense of provocation. The words spoken by Vicki when Keogh set upon her, were sufficient, said the judge, to support an argument that Keogh might simply have lost control as any ordinary man with his alleged depression could do. I have never wavered from the view that this was a dangerous and unfounded ruling and that the Department of Public Prosecutions should have tested it in an Appeal Court. I still say he was wrong in law.

Confused by the ruling, and confounded by cultural assumption, the jury found Vicki's killer guilty only of manslaughter. Despite Keogh's well-documented history of physical and sexual violence, Hampel settled on a sentence that saw the killer walk from gaol less than four years after leaving Vicki dying in the street. In the eyes of thinking people Keogh had the heart of a Nazi concentration camp guard or ethnic cleanser.

In Just another little Murder I explored the role of patriarchy in Keogh's escape from real justice. Along the way I asked why the legal fraternity didn't express its outrage and whether George Hampel wasn't locked in an antiquated mode of thinking. Although he wishes to be considered a 'Renaissance' man, there was nothing of a new beginning in Vicki's trial and the way her rights were proscribed.

This is not, however, the only time Justice Hampel has been accused by a victim's family of being soft when dealing with the killing of a woman. A violent man, Mark Bottriell, bashed Sandra Smart's young daughter to death in 1998. After a plea bargain that reduced the conviction to manslaughter, Hampel sent him to gaol for three years. Bottriell is now back in gaol after being found guilty of assaulting his latest girlfriend. Noel McNamara was so emotionally distraught when Hampel sentenced the man who murdered his daughter to 10 years gaol in 1993 he founded the Victims of Crime Association.

The legal fraternity, along with those civil libertarians who claim to be wedded to human rights, need to be reminded that refugees and the victims of genocide or totalitarianism aren't the only underdogs in this world. So often the underdog is a girl from the neighbourhod, a girl killed for do doing nothing more than asserting her right to leave a relationship. If Hampel had shown the same passion for Vicki's human rights as he appears to hold for refugees and the victims of state sponsored violence I'd be on his side. But defending people against violence isn't restricted to prosecuting war criminals in The Hague.

Every woman killed by a former partner in the family setting is as important as those who lie in unmarked mass graves in the Balkans, Iraq or anywhere else. It's time the civil libertarians grasped that one fact. When sentencing Keogh, George Hampel could find not a word of comfort for my parents. His one and a half page statement contained not a single reference to the pain the killer had wrought upon an ordinary law abiding family. Instead, from his privileged position he lambasted the family for having, in the depths of grief and sorrow, broken bourgeois protocol and spoken audibly about the verdict. I've never forgotten that day.

PHIL CLEARY - AUGUST 2003

 

JUDGE OF THE MONTH

Justice Robert Redlich wins our judge of the month award for a profound observation in the case involving the killing of a woman by her ex. Francis Rhook was shot dead by John William Sypott (her ex boyfriend) in her house six months after their separation. Even though Ms Rhook had another boyfriend and wasn't living with Sypott, Justice Redlich still found it necessary to use the words 'domestic quarrel' when sentencing the killer.

Can someone please explain to these blokes in wigs that they need to bone up on contemporary life? A woman shot dead by an intruder, even if he's the ex boyfriend, is not engaged in a domestic quarrel. It's a home invasion, an assault and an act of harrasment. Let's hope the DPP challenges the sentence on the grounds that the judge's words display a flawed, if not prejudicial, understanding of the events.

Sypott had a history of barging his way into Frances Rhook's house. It was revealed in the court that she had tried to stop him doing this. At what point is a woman free of her former partner? Can someone please explain? At what point does she cease to be his property? At what point is the word 'domestic' no longer appropriate?

After the Crown accepted a plea bargain that reduced the charge to manslaughter the killer went down for three years. Sypott said he only went to Ms Rhook's house to commit suicide. Seriously!

The Attorney-General Rob Hulls has rejected calls for minimum sentences, saying: "All that it does is turn politicians into judge, jury and executioner and ignores the fact that every case is different." That's fair enough. But does he have no view about Redlich's comments?