Deadline: Tradie demanding answers over failed rape trial

A tradie left with a $200,000 debt after a failed rape trial against him, says a prosecution lawyer — since moved on — withheld information from his legal team.

Cooper is still looking for answers about why he was branded a rapist in a failed prosecution. Picture: David Caird

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

Phoenix still burning over $200,000 wrong

Wronged tradie Phoenix Cooper is still looking for answers about why he was branded a rapist in a failed prosecution that cost him $200,000 in legal costs earlier this year.

The young glazing contractor holds no personal grudge against his accuser (or even the busybody friends who pressured her into laying charges) but wants to find out why a case with such obviously flimsy evidence ever got to trial.

He was last week interviewed by a Victoria Police detective about his grievances and is, so far, satisfied that police might be taking his plight seriously. But he is not nearly so satisfied with the Office of Public Prosecutions which, strangely, let the case proceed.

Cooper’s main concern is that the authorities insisted on prosecuting him even after the results of crucial toxicology tests destroyed the original accusations against him.

The tests proved that the allegation he drugged the woman was completely bogus.

But certain police, with the OPP’s blessing, insisted on pushing on regardless by mounting a spurious consent case against him over what was (a jury found) clearly consensual sex. Of the sort that happens when young female lawyers pick up young male tradies after a big Friday night at a trendy bar.

Wronged tradie Phoenix Cooper was left with a $200,00 legal bill. Picture: David Caird

Cooper’s view, which his lawyers studiously do not contradict, is that a particular police officer was overzealous and unprofessional in pushing the view that anyone accused of a sex offence must be automatically guilty on grounds that all claimed sex offence victims must be believed, regardless of evidence.

That one headstrong police officer could ignore the “innocent until proven guilty” doctrine is one thing. But what the Cooper family cannot understand is why the OPP’s fine legal minds condoned such a dangerously absurd prejudice.

When Cooper wrote to the OPP to ask why, he said this week, the response “was completely inadequate.”

In his written complaint, he asked why a certain solicitor (no longer working at the OPP) failed to disclose all prosecution material to the defence. In fact, this particular lawyer provided only “redacted” voice memos recorded at the time of the incident, not the full memos.

The concern is whether “redacted” means “doctored” to suit the prosecution and hamper his defence.

Cooper asks if the solicitor involved was, in fact, sacked because of this withholding of information.

The lofty reply was that the inexperienced solicitor in question moved on because of “personal” issues, not because of any mistakes she made.

In other words: nothing to see here, we know best and we will stonewall you until your nose bleeds even though one of our lawyers got it wrong.

Testing the truth of the OPP’s answers will be interesting if this debacle gets before an independent inquiry.

Until that happens, the tradie with the $200,000 millstone is forced to make his case in the media.

Shinboner spirit

Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent had a bit to say about Melbourne street gangs last week, serving up a reminder that they are nothing new.

He took Deadline back to the turn of the century when a tasty bunch called the Crutchy Push ruled the streets of North Melbourne.

Valentine Keating was the Crutchy Push leader. Picture: Supplied

It certainly sounds as though they’d give the current generation of Adidas tracksuit-clad carjackers and home invaders a run for their money.

The Crutchy Push was so named because all but one member was missing a leg.

Instead of stolen Audis and BMWs, they got around on crutches which they used as highly effective weapons when the push turned to shove.

Gang leader Valentine Keating was once described as bolting from the Carlton Court like “a flying kangaroo.” One of Keating’s followers was a one-armed bandit who kept a half-brick knotted in his empty sleeve to swing as a club where required.

Then, of course, there were the razor gangs. Apart from carrying cutthroat razors to slash and maim, they stitched fish hooks into their sleeves to rip and tear.

Nugent’s point is that as violently anti-social as gangs might be in recent years, they are not new.

Four letter words stun mullet

A well-known former detective has turned up in archival footage used on Channel 9’s Million Dollar Murders.

The clip revisited the magnificent James Reyne-style mullet he sported in those times, clearly in contravention of the force’s once-strict grooming regulations.

James Reyne of Australian crawl rocking a mullet.

The footage also brought to mind his response to reading on the office notice board that a colleague had just welcomed a baby boy into the world.

This investigator, who has a particularly penetrating voice, has never been allowed to forget what he bellowed next.

“What kind of a f---ing name is Bothwell?” he boomed through the old St Kilda Rd crime squad offices.

What the note actually said was mother and baby “both well”.

Rainman smith hits another obstacle

Tim “Rainman” Smith really should stop leading with his chin.

The latest to put him back in his box is comic Tony Martin after Smith launched a strident attack on 3AW broadcasters Neil Mitchell and Ross Stevenson for what he perceives as their support of using masks against the spread of the coronavirus.

MP Tim Smith. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

3AW’s Ross Stevenson. Picture: Facebook

Smith called the AW pair “bedwetting boomers” and members of a Daniel Andrews’ “cheer squad” and accused them of “sooking we haven’t been compulsorily muzzled and ordered to work from home.”

To which Tony Martin replied: “I agree, working from home is dangerous. Someone might drive through the front of your house!”

A reminder that Rainman (“I am an excellent driver”) Smith rammed his bedwetting boomer car (a Jaguar such as retired dentists drive to Rotary meetings) into a family house in Hawthorn last October.

He was seemingly so drunk he couldn’t steer, let alone think straight. He won’t be driving for some time but still hasn’t learned that if you drink and tweet, you’re a bloody idiot.

Rainman should give up the booze before he wets the bed.

Tim Smith’s boomer car lodged in the fence of a house in Power Street, Hawthorn. Picture: Olivia and Charlotte Neish.

We love you, too

South Australians have traditionally had a bit of a thing about Victorians.

Deadline would never come out and call it a chip on the shoulder but the hostility is close to the surface and was again on show on the state’s wild west coast recently.

At one popular seaside spot, a sign had been erected to warn against caravans using a rough road to the cliff top.

Some local hater had altered it to read: “Road not suitable for Victorian cars.”

Serial killer star signs

Only in America could a law firm think it’s a good idea to survey birth information of “over 120 of the world’s most notorious serial killers to find out if there could be a correlation between star signs and a murderous disposition,” as they put it.

The helpful folks at legal outfit UpCounsel have done precisely that.

Sagittarian Ted Bundy.

The results are slightly bewildering, but it appears that Sagittarius is the most sinister star sign, with 11 super-serial killers having birthdays in the period from November 22 to December 21.

Sagittarian serial killers include Ted Bundy, Richard Cottingham (“The Torso Killer”) and José Paz Bezerra (“The Monster of Morumbi”). Who knew?

Just behind the evil Sagittarians are killers born under Pisces and Capricorn star signs. Bottom of the table, apparently, are Gemini and Taurus.

The “study” was done (presumably by bored interns) by first identifying serial killers who killed huge numbers of people. Top scorers include creepy-crawlies like Yvann Keller and Adolf Seefeldt, each with an “estimated” more than 100 victims each.

The UpCounsel people slice it and dice the figures a lot of ways, none of it proving much at all. They sign off their earnest press release “We hope you find this interesting and useful.”

Well, it certainly ain’t useful.