With the way our current justice system works, it would seem it’s not that difficult to get out of a gaol sentence, even if you have committed a crime that apparently warrants it.
If you are caught using and/or in the possession of illegal drugs, it is advantageous if you can claim you have a depressive illness and are only using all those drugs to help you to cope with it. The fact that if you had actually been diagnosed with the above, you would have been prescribed legal medication for your condition, appears to be beside the point. A good lawyer can still work with this. If you are a famous sportsperson, all the better, because no matter what you did while you were off your face, none of it will be your fault and your fans/teammates will all be sympathetic.
Anyone else though, is more than likely to end up with a hefty fine and possible custodial sentence, depending on just how off their face they were and how bad whatever they did, was.
But the same leniency appears to be happening with sex offenders. Periodically, the system claims to have done an about-face and those convicted of sexual offences will face much tougher justice in the form of longer gaol sentences etc, and then you read about the repeat offender who strikes again while on a good behaviour bond or out on bail. And again, lawyers can be very creative when it comes to arguing why it may not necessarily be their client’s fault, and before you can say “Just lock the mongrel up!” we will have a new “medical” condition that at least partly exonerates them.
A case in point is the cybersecurity expert who was caught using his iPhone to film up the skirts of women and schoolgirls at shopping centres and train stations around Sydney. Spotted by a keen-eyed shopper at Westfield Hurstville in May of this year, the 26-year-old man pleaded guilty to 10 up-skirting offences after being caught in the act.
The court heard the man used a covert filming application on his iPhone that made the phone screen appear blank as he held the camera beneath his victims’ skirts to capture images of their underwear and genital area. This is very sleazy, yes? Oh yes, it definitely is.
The offender was originally charged with two offences pertaining to an unknown woman at Central Station and a schoolgirl at the shopping centre before police linked him to eight identical offences at Central Station, Hurstville Station and Greenwood Plaza in North Sydney. Okay, you would be forgiven if, at this point, you are expecting to hear that the offender got exactly what he deserved once he got hauled into court. But unfortunately, you would be wrong. The Magistrate hearing the case at Sutherland Local Court said he accepted the excuse that the offender had since been diagnosed with “voyeuristic disorder” (yes, you read that correctly) by a forensic psychologist, as a reasonable defence. The offender was sentenced to a two-year supervised community corrections order, whatever that is, and that was it. Personally, I would have thought he would have at least been placed on the Sex Offenders Register and been given a custodial sentence seeing as he had filmed so many and had taken such steps to conceal what he was really doing. After all, he’s a repeat offender, and someone should have considered whether he is likely to escalate, once looking at images he’s taken on the sly no longer give him the fix he obviously craves. But no.
Anyway, “voyeuristic disorder” is a new one on me, but no doubt it’s going to get quite a workout now via future offenders caught covertly peeping, filming or just plain perving on others without their knowledge. Defence lawyers are going to be all over it and if one magistrate is prepared to accept it as a valid excuse for lewd and offensive behaviour, then no doubt there will be others and this is where the system is all wrong. Rapists, murderers, and other violent criminals are getting bail, despite recommendations from police that bail be refused, and while they are out awaiting their next court appearance, they re-offend, and every time that happens there is a lot of noise about the justice system being overhauled to stop it happening again.
And then an obvious sex offender gets off with a slap on the wrist because he has been diagnosed with “voyeuristic disorder”.
This is really profane.