The Snitch: High profile inmate sues over prison sex abuse scandal
Which high profile inmate has launched a massive legal case against prisons? Which anti-Semitism case is going to put more pressure on the premier? And which rare double award went off in court this week? The Snitch is here.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A high profile inmate has launched legal action against the state’s prisons minister claiming she was victimised after making a complaint against notorious jail boss and sexual predator Wayne Astill.
Snitch is prevented from identifying the inmate because she was a complainant in Astill’s court case where he was jailed for 23 years after being found guilty of abusing his senior position to sexually assault 12 female prisoners.
The inmate has claimed in court documents, which were filed in the NSW Supreme Court just before Christmas, that senior prison staff made her life behind bars demonstrably harder after she complained against Astill.
This included, the inmate claims, refusing to downgrade her security classification and overall poor treatment by prison staff.
She is suing for personal injury in the Supreme Court, which hears matters worth more than $750,000.
The woman has named the defendant as the “NSW Minister of Correction” without naming the current minister, Anoulack Chanthivong.
The fallout from the Astill scandal looks set to continue for several years, with three Corrective Services staff, including a senior officer, charged with allegedly covering up Astill’s crimes.
MARK IT ON THE CALENDER
All eyes will be on NSW Premier Chris Minns on March 4 when the second anti-Semite arsonist will be sentenced for attempting to burn down a Bondi brewery.
On Friday, Minns ordered a review into how the case of the first arsonist, Guy Finnegan, was allowed to remain in the Local Court – where sentences are capped at two years’ jail – resulting in a minimum 10-month sentence.
Mr Minns slammed the sentence and said it sent the “wrong message” in deterring anti-Semitic attacks when Finnegan’s charge carries a maximum penalty of 11 years in jail.
Well, Finnegan’s co-offender in the October 17 attack on Curly Lewis Brewing, Craig Bantoft, appears to be heading in the same direction.
Bantoft has pleaded guilty to the same charge, destroying or damaging property worth more than $5000 by fire with another person, which carries the 11-year maximum penalty.
But his case has also remained in the Local Court, so the seriousness of the offence is going to be measured against the two-year max rather than the 11-year max if the matter was finalised in the District Court.
Snitch has been told the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC declined to take Finnegan’s case to the District Court because it didn’t meet the agency’s guidelines.
Minns clearly doesn’t want to be seen as soft on the issue of anti-Semitic violence, but he’s not going to look great when he has to do a re-run of the blow-up he had over Finnegan’s sentence.
Snitch reckons these two might be having a chat.
BAD DRIVER
The rare double award for worst driver and worst excuse peddled in a court can be handed out to one recipient this week.
Step up to the podium Daniel Mihayo.
Mihayo faced Waverley Local Court on Thursday to answer a charge of driving while suspended on Thursday.
When Magistrate Stephen Barlow asked him for an explanation, Mihayo said he did not know he had been suspended when he got behind the wheel.
“I find that hard to believe,” Mr Marlow responded.
The magistrate explained that his scepticism was based on the fact that Mihayo had amassed 42 demerit points in three years as a P-plater and had received so many fines that he had been put on a payment plan.
“He was on a payment plan for driving fines and he was paying them,” Mr Marlow told the court.
The easy logic was ‘how could Mihayo not know about his driving dramas if he was paying off the fines?’.
He couldn’t and was banned from driving for three months.
From ‘The Punisher’ to Kazem Hamad: New tobacco war intel
Illicit tobacco has reignited Melbourne’s gangland war as Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim was killed. With Kazem Hamad allegedly in control, the bloodshed has spread to Sydney. This is what’s at stake.
$150k of stolen goods: Alleged truck thief’s stash uncovered
A man banned from being in the front seat of any vehicle will remain behind bars on remand after police allegedly caught him in the driver’s seat of an allegedly stolen truck. But that wasn’t all that was allegedly uncovered.