Justin Quill: Why vile Pusey deserved more jail time

It was at the court’s discretion to give Richard Pusey the whack he deserved to match the outrage the public felt. It didn’t and the missed opportunity let us all down.

Richard Pusey hasn’t, as the saying goes, gotten away with murder. But he effectively got away with something putrid.

In my view both the County Court and the Victorian parliament have let the community down.

Pusey should have received a far greater sentence.

But it’s not just the Court’s sentence that is in issue — we need a law on our statute books that covers Pusey’s conduct.

It’s easy to be outraged when you see four dead police officers and Pusey receiving only 10 months in jail.

That was my reaction.

But if you’re going to be serious about critiquing the County Court’s sentence of Pusey, you have to carefully analyse the sentencing remarks of the presiding judge.

Even then I remain of the view Pusey should have received more jail time.

Pusey was charged with four offences. Three of them are not really relevant to the outrage I feel about this sentence.

The less relevant charges were speeding, reckless conduct endangering life and drug possession.

Richard Pusey is arrested at his Fitzroy home. Picture. AAP

The reckless conduct really amounted to dangerous driving. Even though we tragically have four police officers dead, Pusey’s reckless conduct didn’t kill anyone.

The court was right not to say Pusey was responsible for the deaths of the officers because “but for” his speeding the police officers wouldn’t have been standing on the side of the road.

So Pusey’s speeding, drug possession and reckless conduct (essentially dangerous driving) are what I’d call run-of-the-mill offences.

They should — and did — attract run-of-the-mill sentences. The tragic circumstances regarding the dead police officers are not really relevant to those charges.

But the fourth charge — outraging public decency — is not run of the mill. In fact, the last time it was used in Victoria was 1963.

Here is part of the problem. Pusey’s abhorrent behaviour should have been caught by laws set out by parliament. Instead the court was required to use an old law passed down by judges over the years.

But even then the court, in my view, missed the opportunity to properly use that offence and make up for the gap in parliament’s laws.

The elements of the old crime fit this case even though Pusey’s lawyers argued the opposite at preliminary hearings. To quote the leading judgment used by the Court in Pusey’s case, this offence is satisfied by “a disgusting act … one which fills the onlooker with loathing or extreme distaste”.

How’s this for distaste — as the four officers lay their dead or moaning in pain as they died and with onlookers trying to help, who begged Pusey to stop filming and help, Pusey — the repulsive low life he is — just walked around for almost 30 minutes filming the scene, the dead and dying and close ups of the injuries.

The crash scene on the Eastern Freeway where four Police officers died. Picture: David Crosling

He expressed amazement at the scene but concern for his car. He said he thought the scene — presumably the fate of the officers “was justice”.

That enough distaste for you?

How about this from the sentencing remarks: “You took … a close-up view of Leading Senior Constable Taylor on top of the vehicle, zooming in as she was moaning. You then zoomed out depicting the entirety of (her) body on top of your vehicle including her legs that had been crushed by the truck. Her arm is observed hanging through the sunroof of your vehicle … you commented ‘absolutely amazing’”.

Pusey used words I can’t repeat in this newspaper to describe the dead and dying officers. He zoomed in on other officers’ head injuries. This went on for 30 minutes.

The psych report didn’t suggest Pusey was in some sort of psychotic state such that he didn’t know what he was doing.

In fact, the court specifically noted there was no formal evidence of shock. This was no spur-of-the-moment bad decision.

So while others helped, Pusey filmed and made disgusting remarks.

That seems to be the definition of the offence of “committing an act that outrages public decency”.

Sure, Pusey deserves a little discount for pleading guilty. But the court found he did it “at the first opportunity”.

I can’t agree.

His lawyers argued at a preliminary hearing that the charge didn’t apply.

Ultimately, if he’d pleaded not guilty it would have taken longer to get to trial than the sentence he received. So he was better off pleading guilty than waiting for a trial. That sounds self serving to me.

And Pusey’s past — sad, but nothing too over the top. I’m sure it was hard being teased at school because of his name.

And it’s sad he lost one brother in 2008 and his other while in jail and not able to attend the funeral.

But that doesn’t excuse what he did or justify a lesser sentence.

Pusey’s actions were considered and went on for a long time while watching members of the public doing what he should have done.

When he was asked for help, he gave none. He showed no empathy. No compassion. It was the personification of evil and hate.

Importantly, the charge of offending public decency carries no maximum.

It was at the court’s discretion to give Pusey the whack he deserved to match the outrage the public felt at his vile conduct.

It didn’t and the missed opportunity let us all down.

Justin Quill is a media lawyer and partner at major law firm Thomson Geer, which acts for the Herald Sun

@justinquill

Originally published as Justin Quill: Why vile Pusey deserved more jail time