NewsBite

District Court Judge Anthony Allen delivers a masterclass in dealing with criminal sob stories | David Penberthy

When a criminal delivers their sob story, it’s often a shortcut to a sentence that leaves the public fuming, Not so this week, writes David Penberthy.

Cop scalper: SA Police slam sentence for Raina Cruise

The judiciary faces plenty of scrutiny and frequent criticism over the apparent softness of its sentencing.

The public is often aghast at what it sees as repeat chances being doled out to people who in their eyes are undeserving of any mercy. Scribes like me often join the fray.

In my 30 years writing for The Advertiser and Sunday Mail, I have gathered a small collection of spiked columns deemed too contemptuous for publication to prove the point.

So at the risk of confusing our friends in the judiciary, this column breaks with tradition by extending heartfelt plaudits to a judge who this week presided over an appalling case of violence towards a police officer.

Supplied Editorial Nathan Miller
Supplied Editorial Nathan Miller

District Court Judge Anthony Allen not only threw the book at hit-run driver Nathan Heath Miller, he did so with admirably blunt language that raised excellent broader points about the modern culture of excuse-making.

So often it seems that the courts are prepared to air and embrace all manner of exculpatory sob-stories to diminish culpability.

It didn’t work in Judge Allen’s court.

The deadbeat who appeared before him had a whopping 18 previous convictions for breaching the road rules and wasn’t about to get away with it a 19th time, especially given the gravity of what he had done.

He also had a tough background. Which in the judge’s mind didn’t explain or excuse anything about his conduct.

The facts are as follows.

On Anzac Day 2023, Miller – driving while unauthorised – ducked into a side street to avoid both an RBT and his 19th conviction for breaching the state’s road rules.

When a policeman tried to stop him, Miller accelerated and dragged the officer for 100m at 40km/h before flinging him into a kerb, tree and bins.

He then fled the scene and went on the run for the next 24 hours, shaving his head in a bid to avoid detection.

In his elegantly worded judgment, Judge Allen said that the panicked phone call Miller made to his then girlfriend after the crash “best encapsulated the reality of the situation”.

“She said to you ‘are you f---ing kidding me, what the f--- is wrong with you, you’d rather get done for that than a f---ing breatho, are you serious?” Judge Allen said.

All good questions from Miller’s ex, and a great starting point for a judgment which culminated with Miller being jailed for more than five years, with only a six-month reduction in his sentence on account of pleading guilty.

It was what Judge Allen said about Miller’s troubled past which will resonate with many people.

It will resonate especially with the many people who have suffered hardship and trauma but who nevertheless act in a civilised, law-abiding way.

In commendably direct language this is some of what the judge had to say:

“You are a deeply damaged individual. Your actions were unquestionably cowardly. (The trauma that) happened to you in your past doesn’t provide you with a licence to commit crimes without consequence.

“You shouldn’t have been driving, you caused injuries to a member of the police force who was simply going about his duty.

“You callously abandoned him, leaving him injured on the footpath while you drove off to escape.

“You continued to construct a farrago of lies and, notwithstanding your pleas, attempted to perpetrate the lies you constructed in evidence in this court.

“You have demonstrated a complete disregard for the laws put in place to protect us all, and a complete inability to comply with the orders of the court. Your prospects for rehabilitation are extremely poor.”

Bang on.

As heartening as the outcome in this case was, it also suggests that justice remains a bit of a crap shoot.

The good thing about this case is it reflects the widely held conviction – backed up by changes to the state’s laws – that frontline police and emergency services workers should not be forced to endure violence.

Raina Jane Cruise leaves court in Adelaide. Picture: Keryn Stevens
Raina Jane Cruise leaves court in Adelaide. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Yet I remain confused by the case last year involving violent anti-vax fanatic Raina Jane Cruise, who scalped a pregnant police officer, called her a Nazi, and screamed “I will smash you one-on-one bitch” during a shocking altercation at the Exeter Hotel.

Cruise received a fully suspended sentence, with the District Court judge in that case taking a more generous assessment of Cruise’s past, noting that losing her child to SIDS had pushed her into the scientifically bereft world of vaccine denial, and that prison was not the place which would offer the rehabilitation she required.

Having passed just three subjects of my abandoned law degree, perhaps there are questions at play here which go above my legally challenged head.

But like everyone else outside the law, I struggle to see the consistency.

In the case of Nathan Heath Miller, the court delivered a deserved lesson in personal responsibility.

In the case of Raina Jane Cruise, the court seemed swayed by some baseless tugging of the heartstrings by a woman who’s shown zero remorse for a crime of violence against a pregnant woman.

And one final thing.

How is that Nathan Heath Miller can get the sentence he deserves, yet the worst categories of drivers who cause death by driving dangerously can waltz out of court as free men?

With these questions to one side, I’d conclude simply by saying well done to Judge Allen.

If his diary permits, hopefully he can hear as many of these cases as possible in his remaining years on the bench.

Originally published as District Court Judge Anthony Allen delivers a masterclass in dealing with criminal sob stories | David Penberthy

Original URL: https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/south-australia/district-court-judge-anthony-allen-delivers-a-masterclass-in-dealing-with-criminal-sob-stories-david-penberthy/news-story/117bbed9a0e10192c249dd5081a2fc80