Call to track down health chief’s ‘death threat’ trolls
One of Queensland’s most respected legal minds has blasted trolls harassing the state’s Chief Health Officer as “cowards” and urged her to get authorities to track them down.
QLD News
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One of Queensland’s most respected legal minds has blasted trolls harassing the chief health officer as “cowards” and urged her to get authorities to track them down.
“No one can doubt the honesty, sincerity and professionalism of Jeannette Young, a public servant who truly serves the public,” criminal lawyer Bill Potts said.
“To threaten a public servant with violence or death is a serious criminal offence,” Mr Potts said.
“If the perpetrators are caught, it doesn’t matter that they were thinking they were clever or keyboard warriors hiding in the anonymity of the internet,” he said.
Mr Potts, who is the director of Potts Lawyers and former president of the Queensland Law Society, said death threats carried penalties of up to three years of jail time.
It is an offence under Queensland Criminal Code to make death threats and also illegal under Commonwealth law to use a “carriageway” such as phones and the internet to threaten, intimidate or harass somebody.
“Police have significant powers to track these cowards through (internet service providers),” Mr Potts said.
“They can issue search warrants to determine the true identity of these people,” he said.
Mr Potts also expressed dismay at the use of personal threats, arguing they created greater polarisation in the political debate and harmed “liberal democracy.”
“This is cowardly and disgraceful behaviour which needs to be exposed,” he said.
“The Queensland Police Service and Federal Police should receive a complaint on behalf of Jeannette ... and they should investigate and track down and expose these people.”
“Someone anonymously sitting in their bed at 2 in the morning, they feel themselves a hero, but in the real world threats have a real effect.”
