The Snitch: Guinea pig excuse doesn’t cut it with Federal Court

When it comes to excuses for avoiding court The Snitch has stumbled upon a new greatest ever contender. Also, whose name is doing the round to replace Shane Drumgold SC?

There are a select few reasons that will excuse a person for not turning up to a scheduled court date — death, serious illness, outbreak of war, aliens landing are some of the very short list.

Dr Megumi Ogawa’s reason given in the Federal Court of Australia on Tuesday did not make the cut.

The good doctor was suing the Commonwealth for false imprisonment, trespass, and assault but then bowled this up when she couldn’t make it to Tuesday’s hearing.

“Dear Registry,” Dr Ogawa wrote in an email to the court registry on Monday. “Please inform her Honour that I will not be able to attend tomorrow’s case management hearing because: i) my old guinea pig is not very well and I cannot be away from him for too long.”

Dr Ogawa continued in the email that it should all be OK because she was planning to launch a legal argument to have Justice Fiona Meagher kicked off the case anyway, so the judge need not worry about Tuesday’s hearing.

Dr Megumi Ogawa’s excuse for missing court was not accepted.

“In any event, I am going to file my interlocutory application for her Honour’s disqualification in this matter and 2 other matters currently before her Honour so that I do not participate in any proceedings in those matters before the hearing of my interlocutory application.”

She then signed off: “Kind regards, Megumi.”

The legal manoeuvre didn’t yield the result Dr Megumi was looking for.

Justice Meagher told the court: “The applicant has failed to serve the respondent. She also failed to appear at the case management hearing and has not given a reasonable excuse for doing so. Both are events of default.”

Case dismissed.

GHOST OF A CHANCE

A group of Western Sydney’s most violent criminals played in a midweek soccer comp, but when it came to naming their team, their choice didn’t quite live up to their fearsome reputation.

They were known as Ghost Squad.

Safe to say that if Snitch came up against a team with that name, we would spend the duration of the match sledging its players.

Luckily it never happened because a number of the team’s players are now serving lengthy spells in jail after being convicted of some seriously violent gang-related crimes.

One thing they won’t be serving jail time for is beating seven shades of it out of an ex-gang member.

And that’s thanks to the existence of Ghost Squad.

Three of the team were set to stand trial facing a number of charges, inflicting grievous bodily harm to the man.

But prosecutors abandoned the case after it was revealed that the accused men were playing for Ghost Squad in a soccer game at the same time the horrendous assault was supposed to have occurred.

A scorecard and team registration sheet for the match was provided to prosecutors who then withdrew the charges.

It turns out the alleged victim may not have been completely truthful with investigators.

The other lesson here is to be careful who you sledge on the sporting field.

They might shoot you in the carpark.

WHAT’S THE DRUM

There’s a hot tip doing the rounds that the replacement for former ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC will be poached from NSW.

Shane Drumgold has resigned from his role as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Current NSW ODPP deputy director Helen Roberts SC’s name has come up in several conversations, including a recent dinner in Canberra attended by people who make these kinds of decisions.

We’re told that adding spice to the rumour is the fact that Ms Roberts is friends with ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum and one of the court’s judges, Justice Belinda Baker.

Ms Roberts has only been a deputy director since last October, according to the ODPP’s website.

Fellow deputy director Frank Veltro SC is also tipped to get the tap to go to the District Court bench, leaving insiders to worry about the number of silks still left at that ODPP.

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