Explained: Why Alexandra Hills crash teen was on bail

Many are questioning how the teen charged with murder after a couple were hit and killed in a horror crash was out on bail for driving offences. Jessica Marszalek explains.

Many of our readers are asking why the 17-year-old driver was out on bail when yesterday’s horrific car crash at Alexandra Hills happened. Here, State Political Editor Jessica Marszalek gives a run down of Queensland’s youth bail laws.

The couple killed in Alexandra Hills were Matty Field and Kate Leadbetter. Pic: Facebook

WHAT IS THE LAW?

New amendments to the Youth Justice Act were passed and came into effect last July to make it clear that if a young person is a danger to the community, they must be denied bail and kept in custody.

They are deemed to be a danger to the community if they are an unacceptable risk of reoffending.

A new section of the legislation makes it clear that the child “must” be kept in custody where police or courts decide there is an unacceptable risk of the child committing an offence that endangers the safety of the community or the safety or welfare of a person and the risk cannot be reduced through bail conditions.

Two people were killed in a serious crash on Finucane Rd in Alexandra Hills on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. Photo Steve Pohlner

WHAT DID THE PREVIOUS LAWS SAY?

Last year’s change was an about-face from the previous laws that Labor had only recently passed.

The Palaszczuk Government introduced surprise new laws in June 2019 that directed courts to lock up fewer children.

They had said that a young person “may” be kept in custody, not “must”.

They specified that detention was a “last resort” for youths and that there was an “explicit presumption in favour of release” when considering bail.

“Wherever it is possible and safe to do so, we want young people out of detention, especially when they have not yet been convicted of an offence,” the former youth justice minister Di Farmer said at the time.

WHY DID THEY INTRODUCE THOSE LAWS?

The 2019 changes came amid increasing political pressure to deal with scores of children as young as 10 who were being kept in temporary watch house cells for weeks at a time awaiting trial or sentencing because youth detention centres were full.

Those cells are meant for temporarily holding adults.

That was happening because the Palaszcuk Government had passed different laws that recognised 17-year-old as children, rather than adults, and meant they could no longer be kept in adult prisons any more.

But when they were moved to youth detention centres, there wasn’t enough room and no plan in place to deal with that.

A mourner pauses after placing flowers at a makeshift shrine where a couple walking their dog were hit and killed in a crash involving an allegedly stolen car at Alexandra Hills in Brisbane's east. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

SO WHY DID THEY RIP UP THOSE LAWS LESS THAN A YEAR LATER?

After growing community anger around bail decisions being made - especially in the context of a spate of youth crime in Townsville - the Palaszczuk Government launched an extraordinary attack on the judiciary, blaming them for out-of-control youth crime.

Police Minster Mark Ryan said magistrates weren’t keeping in the spirit of the new Youth Justice Act to maintain public safety and were letting too many “hardcore” offenders out on bail.

“Quite frankly I think they have gotten it wrong in a number of instances recently,” he said of the courts in March 2020.

“They have to make decisions which fulfil the intention of the legislation and the intention of the legislation is clear - community safety comes first.”

He also admitted that the Government was considering changing the laws again to make its intentions clearer to the courts.

WHAT DOES THE PREMIER ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HER GOVERNMENT’S BAIL LAWS TODAY?

She says there will be a full police investigation into the tragic deaths of Kate Leadbetter and Matty Field and she’s not going to comment on facts she’s not privy to.

But she says her government toughened up the bail laws and they are “very strict”.

Originally published as Explained: Why Alexandra Hills crash teen was on bail