The only question on the agenda today was how long the man who once bestrode the Catholic world will be living behind bars
The script was bare. “Take him away, please,” said Judge Peter Kidd at 3.10pm and Cardinal George Pell picked up his stick, nodded to the guards fore and aft and walked through a blank door at the end of the dock into the underworld.
Nothing his barrister, Robert Richter, argued could have saved Pell from this fate.
Continue reading...Cardinal Pell is remanded in custody following his conviction for child sexual assault, which judge calls ‘callous, brazen offending’
Cardinal George Pell has been taken in custody following a sentencing hearing in which his lawyer, Robert Richter, described one of Pell’s offences as a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating”.
After the hearing, with Pell’s lawyer having withdrawn his application for bail, the chief judge, Peter Kidd, said: “Take him away, please.” Pell will be sentenced on 13 March after his conviction for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys.
Continue reading...Paediatrician wins preselection for plum Melbourne seat ahead of federal election
The Liberal party has chosen a woman to succeed the cabinet minister Kelly O’Dwyer in the blue-ribbon seat of Higgins in Melbourne.
The paediatrician and former state election candidate Katie Allen was on Sunday afternoon picked to succeed O’Dwyer.
Continue reading...As the identity of Informer 3838 remains under wraps, the royal commission into police informants exposes a scandal that worsens by the day
It’s a matter of pride for lawyers that they are free and able to work both sides of the street. In particular the cab-rank rule for barristers dictates as much. One day as a prosecutor, next for an accused; for the state and against it. And in the civil sphere there’s much swapping of hats while working for plaintiffs and alternatively for defendants.
Now we have the Victorian police informer and former barrister known variously as Lawyer X, Informer 3838 or in judicial proceedings as EF, working “both sides of the street” to new and previously unexplored levels. She was shopping her clients to the police who were prosecuting them, notably when she acted as counsel for Melbourne crime figure Tony Mokbel and his associates while simultaneously providing information to the police about her clients. About eight years ago Victoria police paid her almost $2.9m in compensation for her troubles.
Continue reading...Survivors of the Kinglake bushfire of 7 February 2009, which took 120 lives, talk about their struggle to move on
“Half the town is on medication, and the other half should be.”
That’s bushfire survivor Anne Dixon’s dark-humoured attempt to describe how people from the mountain-top hamlets around Kinglake are coping 10 years on from Black Saturday.
Continue reading...Victorian state memorial service hears how those who lost loved ones have tried to rebuild their lives
At the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, 100km from Marysville where her husband and 39 others died in the swirling winds of the Black Saturday bushfires, Dr Kathy Rowe is documenting birds.
The holiday house she shared with her husband Ken, and which he had been trying to make bushfire-ready when the front went through the town on 7 February, 2009, had been teeming with birds. Then the fire came, and everything went away.
Continue reading...Emergency alerts issued for several major fires with weather conditions expected to fan flames
Lives and homes remained under threat as fires near Victorian towns worsened, with weather conditions expected to fan the flames.
Emergency alerts were issued for several major fires burning across the state.
Continue reading...Study reveals failure of legal protections to ensure women’s access to terminations
Victorian doctors who conscientiously object to abortion are breaking the law by failing to refer women on to practitioners who will perform the procedure, leading to some women having abortions later than necessary or having the baby despite wanting a termination.
This was the finding from a study led by associate professor Louise Keogh at the University of Melbourne, who examined whether mandatory referral, introduced in Victoria during abortion law reforms in 2008, was making healthcare more accessible to women.
Continue reading...Eleven people left ill in Sydney and six near Ballarat after Australia Day long weekend music festivals
A teenage boy has been found with almost 600 capsules and $2,000 cash at a Sydney music festival where several people left critically ill due to drug use.
Six young men aged under 25 left the Hardcore Till I Die festival at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday in critical or serious conditions. All were either stable or discharged from hospital by Sunday.
Continue reading...With high temperatures also forecast for Victoria and NSW, there are warnings about potential power outages and blackouts, as well as total fire bans amid worsening weather. Follow developments live
Yes please.
Elite marketing by Royal Park Foodland #adelaideheatwave pic.twitter.com/IMMLZdywLq
Just on the issue of heatwaves and climate change, the ABC Melbourne presenter Rafael Epstein has pointed to recent statements from Victoria’s Bureau of Meteorology (Bom).
Just in case someone says hot weather has nothing to do with climate change
"Australia's climate is increasingly influenced by global warming... has warmed by just over one degree since 1910, with most of the warming occurring since 1950."
From @BOM_Vic this month
It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests solar power. Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. “People tend to stay at home,” she said. “They don’t walk around when it’s like this.”
It’s easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds to blister a dog’s paw or child’s foot. In Mildura, in northern Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked up their tools, which had been left in the sun at 46C. Fish were dying in the rivers.
Continue reading...The 21-year-old student at Melbourne’s LaTrobe University is believed to have been returning home from a comedy show
A young woman who was killed outside a Bundoora shopping centre was an Israeli student who was on a video call to her younger sister when she was attacked.
Aiia Maasarwe, 21, had been in Australia for about six months on a study abroad program at LaTrobe University.
Continue reading...Australia had its warmest ever December on record and temperatures this week nudged 50C in some places
Temperature records have been broken in towns across parts of Australia sweltering through a heatwave, which is currently in its fourth day.
Australia also recorded its hottest December on record the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday in a special climate statement on “the unusual extended period of heatwaves” across much of the country.
Continue reading...Police ramped up breath testing target from 3.2m to 4.5m but had a ‘perverse’ incentive to limit the number of drunk drivers netted
An independent investigation has branded Victoria police’s widespread practice of falsifying breath tests as an “ethical failure”.
The former police chief commissioner Neil Comrie’s inquiry was unable to determine exactly how many times police had manipulated breath test devices to falsely inflate the number of tests conducted.
Continue reading...Severe weather conditions forecast to bring maximum temperatures 8C to 16C above average, as three towns record overnight minimums of 33C
Coping with extreme heat: share your photos
Port Augusta in South Australia has reached 48.9C on Tuesday, as a heatwave sets in across much of Australia threatening more record hot days.
All-time highest minimum temperatures have also been broken in three places. Meekatharra in Western Australia and Fowlers Gap and White Cliffs in New South Wales all registered an overnight minimum of 33C on Monday.
Continue reading...Much of Australia will bake this week with meteorologists forecasting the hot conditions will last for days in some parts
Every state and territory will bake through a heatwave on Monday with meteorologists saying soaring temperatures will last for days in some parts.
The Bureau of Meteorology said hot days were expected in January but multiple days in a row of temperatures above 40C were unusual.
Continue reading...Diplomatic headquarters in Canberra also targeted as firefighters remove bags labelled ‘Danger asbestos’
The United States, Pakistani, Swiss, Indian, South Korean and New Zealand consulates in Melbourne are among a number of foreign diplomatic headquarters across the city and in Canberra targeted with suspicious packages.
The deliveries on Wednesday sparked an emergency “hazardous material” response and, in some cases, evacuation.
Continue reading...Richard Pithouse referred to Judicial Commission of Victoria after reportedly saying woman put herself into position of allegedly being assaulted
The Victorian attorney general, Jill Hennessy, has asked the state’s judicial watchdog to investigate a Melbourne magistrate after he reportedly suggested that an alleged rape victim had suffered “buyer’s remorse”.
The magistrate, Richard Pithouse, allegedly made the comments while presiding over a preliminary hearing for a compensation claim in November, and they were reported in the Herald Sun.
Continue reading...