‘Lawless people don’t run society’: Ex-judge lets rip

‘Lawless people don’t run society’: ex-judge lets rip

Words: Cameron Stewart Producer: Louise Starkey

After more than 40 years of refusal, Victoria's best-known and most-feared judge, 'Bad' Betty King, has opened up about her career, shattering glass ceilings and confronting celebrity crook culture.

I do look back on my career with amazement that it was me, this little girl that ended up on the Supreme Court. I don’t know how it happened because I am different from the average judge, I speak very plainly and my background is different to theirs. It was certainly an unusual path at the time.

Betty King Former Judge “ “

Carl Williams, who King sentenced to life in jail with a 35-year minimum for murder and a conspiracy to murder, was one of the biggest criminals she faced in court.

At one stage Carl Williams said he was more important than the premier because he ran Victoria. And that was reported on the news, on television. I thought you can’t have this. Lawless people don’t run our society.

Betty King Former Judge “ “

Her most notable move during the Williams matter? Banning his right and the right of his child, parents and wife to speak to the press about his case.

At that stage he was giving interviews from prison. His wife Roberta was holding interviews almost daily and I thought, ‘This has just got to stop’. I thought, [these gangsters] are treating it like theatre. It was as if they were all acting the part.

Betty King Former Judge “ “

King was the first judge in Australia to impose tough sentences for domestic violence offenders at a time when maiming or killing a partner was widely viewed as a lesser crime than regular murder.

I believed from the time I started doing crime that violent crimes against women were under-sentenced. It was always, ‘Look what you made me do to you’. I thought, ‘This is your home, this is your safe place, yet he’s allowed to come in and go, ‘You didn’t cook my dinner properly’, or ‘You said I’ve got a small dick so you deserve to die’.

Betty King Former Judge “ “

King also banned TV series Underbelly from showing in Victoria so it did not affected the trial of hitman Evangelos Goussis for the 2004 murder of Lewis Moran. Picture: Underbelly | TV Series

In 2015, after 40 years in criminal law, including five years as a judge in the County Court and 10 years in the Supreme Court, King decided she had clocked up enough murder trials and retired at age 65.