Senator wants taxpayers to cover assault costs

The lawyer for South Australian Liberal Senator Mary Jo Fisher has asked an Adelaide court to award his client legal costs after she was found guilty of assault.

Ms Fisher was found guilty of assaulting a female security officer at the Foodland shopping centre at Frewville in Adelaide's eastern suburbs in December 2010.

She was acquitted of stealing groceries and released without conviction or penalty.

During the trial, Senator Fisher's defence team told the court she suffered a panic attack in the supermarket and was not capable of thinking rationally.

Her lawyer, Michael Abbott QC, has asked the Adelaide Magistrates Court that the prosecution pay the defence legal costs, understood to be a considerable sum.

He said the time spent preparing for the complex and lengthy trial was necessary because of the potentially grave consequences facing his client, who would automatically have lost her senate seat if convicted of the offences.

"This case in my submission was wholly exceptional," Mr Abbott said.

"It is, I suggest, like no other shoplifting case that has been before your Honour and like no other shoplifting case that will be before any Magistrate of this court.

"Given the severe consequences that would've been visited upon Ms Fisher in the event she would be found guilty and convicted of shoplifting, it was essential that every step be taken that might result in her acquittal of the charge of shoplifting."

The court was told the parties had negotiated for Senator Fisher to plead guilty to assault on condition that the prosecution supported no conviction being recorded.

The court heard despite the police prosecutor's recommendation, an order was made higher up in the police department to continue with the trial.

"The prosecution had recommended that due to the medical evidence they had received from us and other factors, namely that the store did not wish to take any action and restitution had been made, that the matter should not proceed," Mr Abbott said.

He said the store was sympathetic to Senator Fisher's mental illness and did not wish to proceed with the charges on compassionate grounds.

Magistrate Kym Boxall said he was not likely to make an order covering all the defence costs but would allow for a sum higher than the standard Magistrates Court costs scale.

The case will return to court in July.

In the meantime the parties were encouraged to negotiate an agreed sum.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-25/liberal-senator-asks-for-legal-costs/40337...

All systems are corruptible: if they aren't then I suspect there would be no possiblity of parole,... so to speak!!

 

cods wrote on May 25^th, 2012 at 5:36pm:

Everything is rigged buddy: that's what tripping about pretend free-markets is all about!!

____ wrote on May 25^th, 2012 at 3:29pm:

Courts under fire in mental health row

MENTAL illnesses are being exploited by some defence lawyers to reduce sentences for people found guilty of serious offences, despite a lack of evidence linking the ailments to criminal behaviour, mental health experts say.

Groups including the Mental Health Council of Australia and beyondblue have urged more rigorous psychological examinations of people charged with crimes when mental illness is claimed in mitigation. They say those with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators.

Several prosecutors from the Office of Public Prosecutions also told The Sunday Age they were frustrated that depression had become a ''pro forma defence tactic'' used to seek leniency...

...Mental Health Council of Australia chief executive Frank Quinlan said there were doubts about the diagnosis of some mental illnesses. Distinctions between normal sadness and clinical depression were still widely debated in the mental health profession, he said.

''It seems to me, that on the back of the very poor evidence we have, there is no prima facie case of a link between crime and mental illness.''...






http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/courts-under-fire-in-mental-health-row-2012051...

____ wrote on May 25^th, 2012 at 3:29pm:

He said the store was sympathetic to Senator Fisher's mental illness and did not wish to proceed with the charges on compassionate grounds.
If one suffers from mental illness, could he/she work as a bus driver.
Should we be represented in parliament by people with a mental illness?
Makes one wonder, why judges are paid hundreds of thousand of dollars.
The system sure does stink.