Former UTS dean found not guilty of nine charges in fake harassment trial

Sydney academic Dianne Jolley, who is accused of sending herself threatening letters, has admitted to writing one note at work

A former dean of science at the University of Technology Sydney accused of sending threatening letters to herself and colleagues has been found not guilty of nine charges.

In the NSW district court on Monday, judge Ian Bourke ordered the jury to find Dianne Jolley not guilty of three counts of sending a letter to induce a false belief it would cause danger.

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Melissa Caddick convinced 72 investors to hand over $23m to ‘sham’ business, court told

Federal court hears Sydney woman, whose decomposing foot washed up on remote NSW beach, had 37 bank accounts

Sydney businesswoman Melissa Caddick faked many documents in the “quite elaborate fraud” she used to swindle trusting investors out of more than $23m, a judge has been told.

She operated 37 bank accounts, sent investors fictitious portfolio evaluations and kept “meticulous” records, Farid Assad SC said in the federal court on Tuesday.

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Onlookers extinguish flames after man set alight outside Perth church

The 68-year-old was taken to hospital where he was treated for burns to his face, upper body and hands

Perth detectives are investigating reports a man was set alight outside an inner city church.

Police say the 68-year-old suffered significant burns after he was approached by another man on Beaufort Street in Highgate around 5pm on Saturday.

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Hundreds arrested in global crime sting after underworld app is hacked

European and Australian police join forces with FBI to seize weapons, drugs and $148m in cash

A global sting in which organised crime gangs were sold encrypted phones that law enforcement officials could monitor has led to more than 800 arrests in 18 countries.

The operation by the FBI and Australian and European police, ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the narcotics trade.

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Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell charged by counter-terrorism police

Police say the arrests of Sewell and another man in Melbourne followed an investigation into an alleged armed robbery

Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell has been charged by police in Victoria over an alleged armed robbery earlier this month.

On Friday, counter-terrorism police arrested two men – 28-year-old Sewell and another 22-year-old – and executed search warrants in Eildon Parade in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville.

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‘Stealthing is rape’: the Australian push to criminalise the removal of a condom during sex without consent

ACT Liberal leader Elizabeth Lee is trying to change legislation to explicitly criminalise the act amid a rise in disturbing rhetoric

One in three women and one in five men globally have been the victim of “stealthing”, the non-consensual act of removing a condom during sex, yet the term has only recently entered public awareness – and courtrooms.

“Anecdotally, stealthing was something that felt yuck, confusing, violating and wrong,” the Australian Capital Territory’s Liberal opposition leader, Elizabeth Lee, says. “But victims of it didn’t even know it had a name, let alone that it negated their consent.”

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Kathleen Folbigg: how genetics could lead to a pardon for ‘Australia’s worst female serial killer’

She has always maintained her four children died of natural causes. Now 90 scientists argue she may be right

Leading scientific experts are petitioning for the pardon of the woman dubbed Australia’s worst female serial killer, arguing that all four of her children had rare genetic conditions that could explain their deaths.

Kathleen Folbigg is in jail for killing her children as infants between 1990 and 1999.

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Scientists call for Kathleen Folbigg’s release, saying children likely died of natural causes

A group of eminent scientists has cast doubt on the guilt of Kathleen Folbigg, jailed in 2003 for killing four of her children

Prominent scientists are calling for the release of convicted New South Wales child killer Kathleen Folbigg, saying there’s strong evidence she is innocent.

Folbigg was jailed in 2003 for murdering her children Patrick, Sarah and Laura, and for the manslaughter of her son Caleb.

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Third woman says she was sexually assaulted by man accused of raping Brittany Higgins

Attack took place in 2016 when she was a school leaver working as Coalition volunteer, woman says

A third woman has come forward to allege she was sexually assaulted by the same political staffer accused of raping a colleague inside Parliament House.

The woman says she was assaulted while working as a Coalition volunteer during the 2016 election campaign, after a night out drinking with the then-political staffer. She was barely out of school at the time.

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Scott Morrison pushes ‘professional behaviour’ changes after Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations

Prime minister says his wife, Jenny, urged him to respond to Higgins’ allegation ‘as a father first’

Scott Morrison has drafted one of his own MPs and a deputy secretary of his department to develop options to improve “the environment” of Parliament House after allegations from former government staffer Brittany Higgins that she was raped by a colleague in 2019.

The prime minister told reporters on Tuesday he had asked Liberal backbencher Celia Hammond, a former university vice-chancellor, to lead a process of internal consultation about how to improve “professional behaviour” in political offices.

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Australia news live: chief medical officer backs AstraZeneca vaccine after South Africa blow

NSW and Victoria report no new local Covid cases as hotel quarantine worker in Melbourne diagnosed with UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

On the vaccine distribution in Australia, Paul Kelly says it is still on track for the first injections to be happening before the end of February, but will not put an exact timeline on it.

The aim will be to get 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine before the end of this year, in weekly deliveries. Kelly said the AstraZeneca and Novovax vaccines will also be used if and when they are approved by the TGA:

We don’t want a lot of vaccines sitting out in warehouses, so we will be looking to roll out particularly for those priority populations that people will know about now, as soon as we can. But then will be going back to the same population, those people, to give them a second dose. That is really important.

We will await the TGA advice in relation to AstraZeneca but some of the information that has been coming up in the last few weeks is that it may actually be a longer interval for that second dose.”

Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, is also moving to reassure people about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

He said it was still in the process of being approved by the Therapeutics Goods Administration, and talked down claims it was less effective in treating the South African variant of the virus.

I just want to make a very clear statement about people taking small amounts of information quickly, without looking at it carefully. And making conclusions. At the moment, I can absolutely say, and this may change in future, and we will be nimble in the way we look at that information, and putting that into our planning, but at the moment, there’s no evidence anywhere in the world AstraZeneca effectiveness against severe infection is affected by any of these variants of concern.

And that is the fact. What we have at the moment is a small group of people in a study not yet peer-reviewed or published in South Africa where there was an effect on the mild or moderate disease in relation to that variant of concern in that country. But there were no severe infections in any of the people that received the vaccine in regards to any of those types of the virus.”

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Woman rescued from car boot after waving for help had been detained for 13 hours, NSW court told

Kayley Ketley and Latia Henderson allegedly detained the 24-year-old victim in Sydney before driving south on the Hume Highway

An alleged kidnapping victim who was rescued after waving through a hole in her own car’s boot had been detained for 13 hours, a NSW court has been told.

The 24-year-old woman was found with multiple stab wounds in the boot of her Holden sedan after it was pulled over on the Hume Highway at Berrima, south of Sydney, on Wednesday.

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One man shot dead and another in hospital after ambush in Sydney’s south

‘Targeted attack’ happened on Saturday night in Hurstville and police seek help from the public

An ambush in Sydney’s south has left a 35-year-old man dead and a 23-year-old man in hospital with gunshot wounds.

The two men were entering a Mercedes in Hurstville about 11pm on Saturday when a number of shots were fired at them.

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Jury unable to reach verdict after police officer said he ‘accidentally’ touched colleague’s bottom

Jason Renwick had pleaded not guilty to sexual assault over the 2019 incident in Brisbane, which he said was a ‘workplace accident’

A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in the case of a police sergeant charged with indecently touching a female colleague during a training exercise.

Jason Scott Renwick, 49, pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault over the incident at a Brisbane training facility in February 2019.

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Woman and three young children found dead at a Tullamarine home in Melbourne’s north

Victoria police say the woman’s husband – the father of the children – is assisting detectives but it would be unfair to presume culpability

A woman and her three young children have been found dead at a home in Melbourne’s north.

Victoria police said the woman’s husband, and the father of the three children, was assisting with the investigation but people should not presume culpability on that basis because “that would be grossly unfair”.

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Tony Mokbel conviction quashed as fallout from Lawyer X scandal rumbles on

Drug baron remains in jail while he appeals other guilty verdicts citing involvement of lawyer-turned-police informant Nicola Gobbo

Little time was wasted on pleasantries during the first meeting between the gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo and the police officers who were handling her as an informant in 2005.

“Tell us everything you know about Tony Mokbel,” was how the police handler known as Mr White started the meeting.

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Gun pointed at woman before her boyfriend killed assailant with samurai sword, court hears

Prosecutor alleges pair chased intruder down Sydney street before one pulled him to the ground and the other struck his head with a sword

A home invader who had been “armed to the teeth and full as a goog” with the drug ice was holding a gun at a woman before her boyfriend sliced his head open with a samurai sword, a Sydney jury has been told.

A picture “more bristling with menace” could hardly be imagined for a young woman of 23, the barrister Tom Hughes said in his opening address on behalf of Hannah Quinn on Tuesday.

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‘I fell asleep at the wheel’: my life changed the day my partner died | Rhonda Davis

Mat was killed when the car rolled on our way home from a party. I was jailed for five years

My name is Rhonda Davis. I’m a 38-year-old Kamillaroi woman with four children.

In September 2013, I found myself for the first time involved in the criminal justice system.

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Townsville man charged with pursuing teenagers in stolen car until they crashed

Police say armed man tried to box in the car and chase the teenagers in a pursuit that could have ‘easily ended in tragedy’

A man armed with a tyre iron pursued a stolen car driven by young teenagers until they crashed into a power pole in Townsville, police say.

On Saturday night about 10pm, police say a 48-year-old man was driving along McLean Street in the suburb of Gulliver, when he saw a Hyundai Santa Fe that had been stolen from the neighbouring suburb of Aitkenvale.

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‘I was numb inside’: Jack de Belin rape trial hears from alleged victim of NRL star

The St George Illawarra NRL player has pleaded not guilty to aggravated sexual assault at his Wollongong trial

NRL star Jack de Belin raped a teenager after ignoring her protests to stop undressing her and later asked why she was being “so emotional”, a jury has been told.

The St George Illawarra player, 29, and his friend Callan Sinclair, 23, have pleaded not guilty to the aggravated sexual assault of the woman, then 19, after meeting her in a Wollongong bar in December 2018.

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