Blog.

If you haven’t been living under a rock this past week you too would have been horrified to learn that a 95-year-old woman, Clare Nowland, suffering from dementia, was tasered by Senior Constable…

Queanbeyan police officers arrested an elderly woman on Thursday 2 February 2023, who was accused of stealing flowers from people’s gardens in Queanbeyan. The woman apparently then gets on the bus to Canberra…

The ACT has become the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise small amounts of illicit drugs, including cocaine, ecstasy (MDMA), ice, heroin, LSD and amphetamines. The Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Bill Amendment was passed…

The disappearance of William Tyrrell has arguably attracted the most media attention of any police investigation in Australia since the death of Azaria Chamberlain. The story of the toddler who went missing in…

The Reform On 11 August 2021, the Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2021 (No 2) (“the Act”) received notification. The Act makes several amendments to crime legislation in the ACT, most notably the addition…

I remember sitting in a tutorial at university after having disclosed to one of my peers that I worked in criminal defence. My peer shrieked and asked the question every criminal defence lawyer…

Custodial environments are susceptible to COVID-19 outbreaks given the confined conditions, potential for over-crowding and poor health profiles of the prison population. Extreme overcrowding means people are unable to self-isolate, provided with little…

You don’t need to have watched many crime TV shows to appreciate how important search warrants are. As Lord Denning MR memorably stated in Southam v Smout [1964] 1 QB 308 at 320, cited with approval…

Australia’s biosecurity laws After the first human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus in Australia,  Attorney-General, Christian Porter, has made clear the government will have no hesitation in exercising the pre-existing but as yet unused coercive…

Justice Chris Maxwell, President of the Victorian Court of Appeal, made headlines this week when he commented on a number of questionable practises dressed up as reliable forensic evidence.  He noted some forensic…