Badness Binse sacks lawyer & cops extra time over ‘erotic’ videos found in his cell
Notorious armed robber Christopher “Badness” Binse has earned an extra two weeks in jail for hiding a computer stick containing “lesbian wrestling” videos in his cell at Barwon Prison.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Notorious armed robber Christopher Dean Binse, aka “Badness”, has earned an extra two weeks in jail for hiding a computer stick containing “lesbian wrestling” videos in his cell at Lara’s Barwon Prison.
Binse sacked his Legal Aid lawyer at the start of his hearing in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday, before representing himself and admitted hiding a USB stick in his cell in the newly built maximum-security Olearia Unit.
He told the court it contained “some adult entertainment” but said its main purpose was to store legal material, including an application to the Attorney-General for a ‘petition of mercy’.
LIFE & CRIMES PODCAST ON iTUNES
Police prosecutor Senior Constable David Vanderpol said prison officers found the storage device taped to the underside of a toilet brush in Binse’s single-person cell.
Binse said he stored some documents on the USB because he didn’t trust Corrections Victoria, and didn’t want to store the papers on the prison computers.
In a quirk of happenstance, the small storage device was found in a raid of his cell on May 23 this year, exactly six years after he was taken into custody.
On that same date in 2012 police used tear gas to arrest Binse following a 44-hour siege at East Keilor and an earlier $235,000 armed robbery of Armaguard officers at Laverton.
Exactly two years later, on May 23, 2014, the career crim’ was sentenced to an 18-year stint in jail for those crimes.
He said the discovery of the memory sticks with “erotic content” on them had added further restrictions to the “harsh conditions” and “isolation” he was enduring at Barwon Prison.
“Yes, there was some adult entertainment. I think about three five-minute trailers,” he told court.
He later said the videos contained “lesbian wrestling”, but magistrate John Lesser said: “To be honest, I don’t care what was on it”.
He told Binse the memory stick found in his cell was contraband, and he was charged for having it, not what it contained.
But the defendant said prison staff had already penalised him for that.
“I feel this case is a classic case of double jeopardy applying to me because I’ve been dealt with initially over this matter,” he said.
Binse said before the raid on his cell he was allowed two private visitors a month, but now he was only entitled to one, and his allocation of phone calls had also been reduced. He said his access to computers had also been restricted, along with his ability to purchase items.
The defendant wanted to draw the Magistrate’s attention to a previous case where one of his fellow prisoners had received a minimal penalty for being caught with a USB stick, but was unable to cite the case.
“You might’ve been better to ask your lawyer about that before you sacked him,” Mr Lesser quipped.
The magistrate ordered the memory stick be destroyed once Binse had been allowed to extract any “legitimate legal material” from it.
He told Binse the crime of possessing an unauthorised memory stick in prison could potentially add 12 months to his sentence, and noted prison papers showed he had been caught with a similar device previously without prosecution.
This prompted Binse to threaten an appeal.
“Why don’t you wait to see what I’m going to do before you lodge your appeal papers,” Mr Lesser responded. He then added 14 days to Binse’s prison term.