Category Archives: Crime – Australia

Canada murders: teenage suspects died by apparent suicide, police say

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Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky were wanted over the killing of three people and the subject of a weeks-long manhunt across Canada

Canadian police say they believe two fugitives suspected of killing an American woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man died in what appears to be suicides.

The Manitoba Medical Examiner completed the autopsies and confirmed on Monday that the bodies found last week were indeed 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky. Both were found in dense bush in northern Manitoba.

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Roberta Williams allegedly threatened to kill TV producer making show about her life

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Melbourne gangland widow freed on bail after being charged with kidnapping and death threat

Gangland widow Roberta Williams has been given bail by a Melbourne court after allegedly kidnapping and threatening to kill a television producer making a show about her life.

The 50-year-old widow of convicted killer Carl Williams, who was killed in prison in 2010, is one of four people charged with assaulting and threatening to kill producer Ryan Naumenko at Collingwood on 9 July.

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British jetski fugitive who fled across Torres Strait sentenced

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Convicted drugs supplier David James Jackson left Queensland armed with crossbow

A British fugitive who made it across the Torres Strait on a jetski trying to flee a drugs supply charge in Australia has been sentenced for the audacious escape attempt.

Armed with a crossbow and supplies for the 90-mile journey, David James Jackson, 57, took off from the tip of Queensland and made it to Papua New Guinean waters.

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Jihadist who planned attack on police and carved slogan into cellmate’s head jailed for 34 years

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Bourhan Hraichie planned attack on Bankstown police station and threatened to kill NSW prisons boss

A New South Wales man who carved a terrorist slogan into a cellmate’s forehead and planned an Islamic State-inspired police shooting will spent at least 29 years in jail.

Bourhan Hraichie, 22, pleaded guilty in the NSW supreme court to four offences over his long-running plan to organise a terrorist attack on Bankstown police station, and causing grievous bodily harm to Michael O’Keefe with intent to murder.

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Victorian government orders investigation into Crown casino crime allegations

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Claims including links to Triads to be ‘re-examined’ and rules covering junket operators reviewed

Victoria’s minister for gambling, Marlene Kairouz, says she has ordered the state’s casino regulator to conduct a snap investigation into a flood of allegations made against Crown Resorts and its Melbourne operation that include claims of links to organised crime and that its high rollers got waved through immigration without proper checks.

Kairouz said her department would also review the regulation of junket operators who bring high rollers from China, some of whom have been linked by Nine to Triad gangs.

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Faruk Orman released after gangland murder conviction quashed over Lawyer X scandal

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Court of appeal orders former getaway driver be immediately released due to miscarriage of justice caused by his lawyer Nicola Gobbo

Melbourne gangland getaway driver Faruk Orman will be immediately released from jail because of a “substantial miscarriage of justice” caused by his double-agent lawyer Nicola Gobbo, also known as Lawyer X.

Victoria’s court of appeal ordered Orman be released without delay after a hearing in Melbourne on Friday found he should be acquitted due to Gobbo’s actions while she was representing him.

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No ‘reasonable doubt’: inquiry reinforces guilt of convicted baby killer Kathleen Folbigg

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The 51-year-old mother was jailed in 2003 for at least 25 years for killing her four babies

An inquiry into Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions for killing her four babies has reinforced her guilt, a former New South Wales district court chief judge has found.

Reginald Blanch QC, who presided over the inquiry, has concluded he does not have “any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Kathleen Megan Folbigg”, in a report made public on Monday night.

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Bedford man who murdered his family never to be released from prison, judge orders

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Anthony Harvey murdered his wife, Mara Lee, their three children and his mother-in-law in their Perth home

A man who admitted using knives to murder his wife, three young children and mother-in-law has become the first person in Western Australia ordered by a judge never to be released from prison.

Anthony Robert Harvey, 25, killed two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, three-year-old Charlotte and their mother, Mara Lee Harvey, 41, at their Bedford home on 3 September 2018.

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The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom

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Explosion in number of boats carrying cocaine and meth from Latin America to Australia is causing havoc for islands on the way

• Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx

It is the drug route you’ve never heard of: a multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines being packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported to Australia via South Pacific islands more often thought of as holiday destinations than narcotics hubs.

In the past five years there has been an explosion in the number of boats, sometimes carrying more than a tonne of cocaine, making the journey across the Pacific Ocean to feed Australia’s growing and very lucrative drug habit.

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Darwin shooting: man charged with four counts of murder

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Four men died and a woman was injured in this week’s shooting rampage in Darwin

Northern Territory police have charged the man suspected of a shooting rampage in Darwin with four counts of murder.

Four men died and a woman was injured after being shot in the leg on Tuesday night.

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AFP signals journalists could face charges for publishing secrets

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Acting AFP commissioner denies the government directed the investigations, which have led to raids on the ABC and News Corp this week

The Australian federal police have all but confirmed that ABC and News Corp journalists could be charged for publishing protected information after two dramatic days of raids which prompted outrage and drew international attention to Australia’s draconian secrecy laws.

The acting AFP commissioner, Neil Gaughan, held a press conference on Thursday to contain political fallout, denying suggestions the police had waited until after the federal election to execute warrants and claiming no contact had been made with the executive since they informed home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s office when the investigations started.

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George Pell appeal: prosecutor struggles to answer judges’ questions

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Christopher Boyce accidentally says victim’s name, which is suppressed, during Thursday’s hearing

Prosecutor Christopher Boyce struggled through questions from three judges presiding over the appeal of Cardinal George Pell, finding it difficult to answer their inquiries about the victim’s evidence and the case.

Pell, 77, is appealing his conviction on four charges of an indecent act on a child under the age of 16, and one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16. On Wednesday his legal team, led by Bret Walker SC, argued it was improbable that Pell assaulted two 13-year-old boys after presiding as archbishop of Sunday solemn mass at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996, and then a few weeks later assaulted one of the boys again.

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Quietly and confidently, George Pell’s barrister tried to unravel the prosecution’s case | David Marr

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The appeal court judges listened intently as Bret Walker SC ransacked the English language to try to prove his point

Rule number two on these occasions is not to trust the look in their eyes. Judges are masters of disguise. Baleful can be applause. Smiles can be the kiss of death.

But the verdict at the end of the first day of George Pell’s appeal has to be that the bench is listening to the case being argued on his behalf by Bret Walker SC with a little more than respect.

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Family and friends mourn as first victim of Darwin mass shooting named

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PhD student and taxi driver Hassan Baydoun was shot while taking a meal break in apparently random attack

Details of the victims of a mass shooting in Darwin have been revealed as Northern Territory police say they expect to soon lay charges against the alleged gunman.

One of the victims, a PhD student and taxi driver Hassan Baydoun, had never met the accused gunman, his cousin says.

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Darwin shooting: Northern Territory police order parole review after rampage

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Police say alleged gunman, who was on parole and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet, may have been looking for someone

The Northern Territory chief minister has announced a review of every person currently subject to electronic monitoring after a man wearing one of the bracelets allegedly killed four people in an hour-long rampage through Darwin on Tuesday.

The NT police chief, Reece Kershaw, said on Wednesday police believed the alleged gunman, a 45-year-old, was searching for someone who was interstate. Police said at least some of the victims may not have known the gunman.

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George Pell’s lawyer says timing of offence is ‘critical matter’ in appeal

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Cardinal George Pell has appeared in a Melbourne court to appeal his conviction on charges related to child sexual abuse

Cardinal George Pell’s lawyer Bret Walker SC has told three judges presiding over his client’s appeal that the timing of Pell’s offending was a “critical matter” in deciding whether his conviction should be overturned.

Walker is appealing Pell’s conviction on three grounds, the key one being that the jury came to an unreasonable verdict based on the evidence before them during the trial.

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Witnesses describe panic and carnage in Darwin during hour-long shooting rampage

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First reports of a man firing shots came at motel just outside the city centre about 5.50pm

Witnesses of a shooting in Darwin that left four people dead and a woman injured have described scenes of panic after the gunman went on an hour-long rampage.

Northern Territory police arrested the suspected shooter, described as a Caucasian man aged 45, wearing high-vis workwear, on Tuesday night. He remained in hospital under police guard on Wednesday.

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Homeless man charged with murder of Courtney Herron

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Twenty-seven-year-old to face court accused of ‘particularly horrendous attack’

A homeless man has been charged over the death of Courtney Herron, who was brutally murdered in a Melbourne park two days ago.

Victoria police said the man, 27, of no fixed address, had been arrested on Sunday and charged overnight with one count of murder, and would appear in Melbourne magistrates court on Monday.

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Woman found dead in Parkville, Melbourne in ‘horrendous crime’

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The body, yet to be identified, was discovered in the area between the Melbourne Zoo and Royal Children’s hospital

A woman’s body has been found in Melbourne between the Melbourne Zoo and the Royal Children’s hospital, in what police have described as a “horrendous crime”.

They have cordoned off a large section of the Royal park in Parkville, encompassing North Park Tennis Club and the Flemington Road Cricket Oval, as well as Elliott Avenue.

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‘Tinder rapist’ Glenn Hartland sentenced to at least 11 years in jail

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Hartland, 44, admitted raping three women and indecently assaulting a fourth woman

Glenn Hartland seduced women online, romanced them with grand gestures and, when they ended the relationship, he raped them.

The man known as Melbourne’s “Tinder rapist” was on Friday sentenced to 14 years and nine months in jail for attacks on four women he met on the popular dating app.

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