January 15, 2025 • 54 mins
Margaret Cunneen SC was one of Australia’s top Crown Prosecutors, renowned for securing convictions against some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including the Butcher of Bega and Robert “Dolly” Dunn.
She also led the prosecution of the Skaf gang rapes in 2000, where brothers Bilal and Mohammed Skaf orchestrated a series of brutal, ethnically motivated sex crimes. One of the most harrowing incidents involved 14 men and boys sexually assaulting a single woman.
Today, only one of the key perpetrators remains behind bars.
Margaret’s remarkable career, including her work on this case, is chronicled in The Boxing Butterfly, which you can find here.
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Guest: Margaret Cunneen SC
Host: Gemma Bath
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listing to a Mumma Mea podcast. Mamma Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was
recorded on it's early August in Sydney in the year
two thousand and the city is gearing up to host
the Olympics. Two year twelve girls aged seventeen and eighteen
(00:34):
are at Chatswood shopping center chatting to a group of
teenage boys. They're offered a lift home, so they accept.
Hopping into a white van with the group, they're taken
to Greenacre in the city's west, where they're slacked, threatened, pushed,
and raped by a total of eight males. Two days later,
(00:56):
the group strikes again, giving a sixteen year old girl
a lift into the city. Taken to a park and
ambushed by a group of fourteen the teenager is raped
by two of them while the others watch on and laugh.
On August thirty, an eighteen year old woman is approached
by the group on a train to Bankstown. She's persuaded
(01:18):
to get off with them, tricked into entering a public toilet,
and raped over and over. Both there and in two
other locations. She's sexually assaulted by fourteen men and boys
in total over the course of six terrifying hours. As
a final humiliation, they hose her down and throw her
into the street near a train station. In early September,
(01:42):
two sixteen year old girls are picked up from another
railway station in the city's southwest. They're repeatedly raped by
three males over a period of five hours. This series
of horrific crimes becomes known as the Scaff Gang rapes,
named after the gang's ringleaders, brothers Bellal and Muhammad Scaff.
(02:03):
The magnitude of the horror they subjected their victims to
left our country in a state of shock and outrage,
with a judge which describing the offenses as events that
you hear about or read about only in the context
of wartime atrocities. The group, aged between sixteen and twenty,
consisted of up to fourteen boys and men, but only
(02:24):
nine were convicted, sentenced to a total of more than
two hundred and forty years in prison. Only one of
them remains behind bars. I'm Jemma Bath and This is
True Crime Conversations Amoma mea podcast exploring the world's most
(02:46):
notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
most about them. Our guest today led the prosecution of
the two thousand Scaff gang rapes. Margaret Kneen sc has
enjoyed a long career as a Crown Prosecutor and Deputy
Senior Crown Prosecutor, leading hundreds of judge only and jury
criminal trials and appeals in the New South Wales Court
(03:09):
of Criminal Appeal and High Court of Australia. She's recorded
a long succession of convictions against rapists and murderers, including
the butcher of Beager and pedophile Robert Dolly Dunn, and
has served as Commissioner of the New South Wales Special
Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation
of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Roman Catholic
(03:30):
Diocese of Maitland Newcastle. She's had her fair share of
controversy too. At the end of twenty fourteen, she was
investigated by the New South Wales EYEKAC, who were pursuing
her for corrupt conduct. She was accused of perverting the
course of justice for advising her son's girlfriend to fake
chest pains to avoid a breath test after a car crash.
(03:53):
She was fully exonerated and her involvement in the inquiry
at all was revealed to be a big misunderstanding. Retiring
from public office in twenty nineteen, Margaret embarked on a
brand new chapter, doing the complete professional opposite of what
she's done for so long, defending the accused instead of
(04:13):
prosecuting them. Her career is outlined in a chronicle called
The Boxing Butterfly, which explores some of her biggest cases
and moments. Margaret joins us, now, Margaret, you've had a
very big career. Do you have a proudest moment? Is
that something you're even able to do with so many achievements.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I do have one, and it's fairly recent, and it's
in my time as defense counsel. Because my career is
now forty eight years old at the end of this year,
forty eight years of full time work. My goodness, no wonder,
no wonder, I feel tired. The big moment for me,
the biggest achievement was winning a case that perhaps most
(04:57):
people wouldn't have seen the success in. And it's the
case of Coulwynda Singh, who was charged with burning his
wife to death. And I sensed very much a bit
of a racist persecution going on and even that the
Crown was going to get an expert to say that
Indian men burn their wives and on her short list
(05:20):
to prove that this expert, who had never been to India,
by the way, she already had mister Singh's name on it,
and he hadn't been convicted. And as it happened, there
was plenty of evidence in that case, plenty of forensic evidence,
and it all pointed to the deceased woman having set
her self on fire, but not to burn herself. It
was a mistake. She used petrol instead of kerosene. She'd
(05:43):
prepared herself, she'd put a hair up that she usually
had down in a wet towel. She prepared everything, and
hers were the only fingerprints in DNA on the petrol
can and on the lighter. But poor mister Singh, who
is who I could faithfully say to the jury, has
never had a drink, smoke, gambled, didn't have anyone on
the side, so to speak, never been to a brothel, casino, nothing,
(06:05):
Just a hard working guy with a lovely family. It
wasn't him, but he was. He was treated so badly
by everyone who assumed it must have been well that
he did it to her. So it was hard won
victory because the first trial was conducted in a way
which wasn't allowed the second time by the prosecution desperate
(06:26):
for a conviction and breaking it up. Well, even if
she did it, you forced her to and all these
different permutations. But finally, and that was a hung jury.
The second time, we were able to keep the crown
to admissible evidence and the jury very quickly came back
with a not guilty verdict. But he spent a lot
of his own money, he did four months in jail,
(06:48):
and he's just suffered so much. And it just shows
that investigators ought not to jump to conclusions and that
the legal process testing all the evidence is there for
a good reason.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's interesting that you pick a proudest moment from your
I'm going to call it second act, because you spent
so much time on the other side prosecuting cases. What
has it been like spending the last few years in defense?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yes, six years now. I didn't know whether anyone would
brief me. I left the Crown at sixty and thought, well,
that's the sort of where the super comes to a
sort of stop. So let's see what it's like. Will
anyone brief me, But I didn't get any briefs from
the prosecution none, And so I was briefed by many
(07:35):
different defense solicitors, most of whom I'd never worked with.
But there's just so much work, and I'm still turning
it away and booked out well towards the end of
next year. So it's true that I did some wonderful
cases as a Crown prosecutor, and I'm still in contact
(07:56):
with dozens of families, especially bereaved parents of children who
were killed, such as Lindsay van Blanken, whose body was
found in a cricket bag. I'm still friends with her
mum and her sister. But in a sense, Jemma, I've
got to say that it's a bit more of a
challenge on the defense side. It's generally more straightforward on
(08:22):
the prosecution side. If you're on the correct side, and
you should be by the time a trial gets up,
the Crown prosecutor should be very confident of the evidence
and very confident of the way the matter should go
by having made sure that it's all been tested to
some degree and everything checked before someone is put on trial.
(08:45):
But from the defense point of view, being against the
zeitgeist against the publicity and the tendency now it seems
to me for people to make up their mind before
someone is convicted, and so that's a very negative influence
carrying through the trial. And it's very hard for people,
(09:08):
especially people in the public eye, who get put on
because so often it's as though they've already been convicted
just when they're charged, and people forget that as they
would want if they were charged, they'd want the evidence
to be tested and proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Everyone is innocent until they're not.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So is that a welcome challenge for you?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Well, I was daunted by it and thought it might
be difficult to change because I used to be criticized
a lot for this. I get very close to the
people I work with, and I was criticized very much,
and I think, perhaps in a somewhat sexist fashion for
decades for being just affectionate with young women who'd been
(09:49):
terribly assaulted or parents who'd lost a child. And I
warmed to those people and thought it would be easier
for them if they knew how much it meant to
me for them to get justice. And so I've been
criticized for hugging people and having my arm around people
and so forth, showing oh that's it, yes, Oh, yes,
(10:12):
we must have none of us be kind. Yes, that's right,
even if we were you know, mothers and grandmothers and in.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The worst moments of their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes, it is the worst moment of anyone's life to
go through a court process, and the more serious the
case that the worse it is for all parties. And
so you can see that people need kindness. But then
when I was a prosecutor and I saw a woman
just quietly crying, and I knew it was the mother
of the man who had just been convicted of murder.
(10:42):
And I saw her crying there, and she was a mum,
and I just I asked the defense counsel could I
just go and see her? And I ended up holding
her and hugging her because no one else was. So
we have to have humanity in our justice system, because
it's very, very much a part of it. It's not
it's not a mathematical calculation. It's even the determination of
(11:05):
these cases has so much it relies on so much
knowledge of human nature, and.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Court is scary if you haven't been in one. I've
covered them as a court reporter. They're really intimidating places.
And so these families have often never set foot in
a court before, and suddenly there's judges, there's prosecutors, there's defense,
there's criminals, and it's very overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yes, in a bit of an arcane language too, perhaps
deliberately set so that people don't quite know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And the intimidation is deliberate too, to try to scare
people into telling the truth. I don't know if it
really works like that anymore. That, like many other of
the trappings of the criminal justice system, have changed a
lot in the forty odd years I've been in it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It's probably a good segue to bring me to a
sentence in your book that really stood out to me
right at the start in the introduction, and it said,
she has been trenchantly attacked by some colleagues in the profession.
Perhaps they mistook her niceness for weakness. It was an
observation by your co author. What would you say to that,
because that kind of speaks to what you've just been
(12:12):
saying about people looking at you showing empathy and kindness
and positive emotion as a weakness.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
For a few decades. I think it was ago I
noticed that people thought that if you're quite pleasant and
polite with people and nice to people, polite with the
other side, you can't be taking it seriously enough. You've
got to walk in there with a stern look and
don't get too close to people, and be a bit
of an object rather than a person. But well, I've
(12:43):
just continued to do it my way, and if people
don't like it, well, many of the people who don't
like it aren't there anymore, so it doesn't matter, and you've.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Got your achievements to show. You have spoken before about
your own experience of sexual abuse in your childhood. Did
that help to inform your why when you entered this career,
And also, I guess the empathy that you.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Have it certainly did infor me, because because I knew
very well from when I first started working in the
prosecution of child sexual assault in the nineteen eighties, I
knew things that other people who only had a theoretical
knowledge didn't appreciate. And one of the main things is
how child sexual abuse can happen virtually under the noses
(13:29):
of parents. And so it's not really an answer to say, oh, well,
the parents were there, and how could this have happened?
Because so much of it is furtive grooming behavior. And
I also understood that a long time ago, and in
the sixties, when I was a child, there was very
little ability to say something about a respected adult and
(13:52):
be believed. And especially if a child, a small child,
was talking about parts of the body or something that
was regarded as rude or shocking for a child to say,
it was very hard for them to get the message across.
And I remember getting very very sternly treated when I
was trying to tell people who should have known, and
(14:15):
I used, at about the age of six or seven,
use the word penis to try to tell the message,
and I got hit really using that word. So I
didn't bother to tell anyone sell the same people again
until I was an adult.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Just goes to show, though I would hope that nowadays,
you know, young children, I'm teaching my two year old
about consent or trying to yes, teaching him about body parts, like,
we're just so much more knowledgeable.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We are so much more knowledgeable there seem to be
in that generation of people. They weren't all like this,
but there was such a people just take a sharp
intake of breath at the mention of anything sexual. It
was also behind the curtain, and so I think it's
so much more healthy that everyone just takes sexual matters
(15:05):
in their stride and it's not something that only people
of a certain age can talk about it in hush tones.
So good for you with your little boy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You've been involved in so many high profile cases during
your time as a prosecutor and crime prosecutor, too many
to touch on in this episode, so I want to
hone in on one the scaff gang rapes. Would you
say that it's among one of the cases you're asked
about the most.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yes, I'm asked about that the most, really the most.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's a few reasons. Those offenses took place in August
two thousand, so it was kind of a change of
history in a sense, and it was just before the Olympics.
The occurrence of the crimes was a bit concealed by
authorities at the time, so that there wasn't a huge panic.
(15:55):
But there were fifteen men in a gang, not always
all all together, but easily able with the relatively new
invention of mobile phones to get together and to have
sort of a military type operation, just so that there'd
be literally shifts of men coming in to assault a
(16:20):
young woman or two. It was really shocking. The mobile
telephones gave us a lot more detail, and so too
did the victims were extremely articulate and well able to
give so many descriptions of what happened. One victim in particular,
who was involved with this gang over six hours and
(16:43):
four locations. Her memory of it was so impressive because
not just because there was a lot of detail in
a statement that can happen anytime and a prosecutor or
a police officer isn't sure whether it's true or not,
but so much of the detail was able to be
checked because of the other relatively new thing of CCTV
(17:06):
on a railway station. But even details like the one
in the yellow jumper had something to do with his
private area, and that turned out to be true, and
so she was. So she just took it all in,
even through the stress of probably believing at the end
(17:28):
she might be killed, just going through something so terrible,
but remembering so accurately because mobile phones backed up what
she said about he left and he came back, and
so forth, and mobile phones I suppose that this was
the first case where mobile phones were used so much
in the detection of the offenders. And I learned things
(17:52):
like a mobile tower being able to say not just
that it's picked up on that tower, but which of
three sectors the direction of the call comes from. So
even if some of the offenders lived close to the
mobile tower, their home wasn't in the correct sector, and
so they were they were found out that way. And
(18:12):
the other interesting thing about the mobile telephone that I
learned then and we'll never forget, is during the offenses,
Miss c as she was called by the court, heard
her own ring tone her phone had been taken from her,
and heard her ring tone, which was the real slim
shady eminem two thousan. Yes, that's right. She saw one
(18:36):
of the offenders at his phone with that and saw
it was her phone. But in the end they gave
her back her phone. But he had put his SIM
card in there because he liked the phone ring tone
or both and used it that night. Perhaps he used
it to ring people and didn't want it on his phone,
or was or who knows, probably as simple as wanted
(18:57):
to try that phone out. But then, as I learned
for the first time in the preparation for that case.
Every phone, even then the old Nokias, the phone sends
a message of the call, and the SIM card sends
a separate message of the call, so it could be
proved that the call was made with his sim card
(19:18):
and her phone, so that linked them so that he
couldn't get out of it at all, even though of
course he said I was at home, it wasn't me,
someone who looked like me, and so forth.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
So this kind of technological side of investigation that was
fairly new.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yes, it really was. It was the first sexual assault
case I'd ever done that was investigated like a murder.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Because I've heard it said that the brief of evidence
that you got was as good as you would get
from a murder, which is impressive in a sexual assault case.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It really was, And it was such a big strike
force of about a dozen fantastic detectives who many of
whom had homicide experience. They did it like that, So
it was not just a usual case of at that
time of alleged sexual assault, where there'd be a statement
from the complainant and perhaps a statement from a doctor
(20:12):
and a statement from a police officer saying, we arrested
the guy and he wouldn't say anything, and that's that,
and that was all you got. But in this case
there was so much more CCTV and all the phone evidence,
which was fascinating.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Which makes your job easier, right, I mean, it's not
an easier case, but you want as much detail as possible.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That's right. And as much as we know that it
still doesn't prove whether sexual intercourse is rape or not.
In a case like this, it sure does. In the
back of buildings, with men coming and going, different cars
coming and going, and more and more offenses taking place,
it was obvious that that complainant and all the other
(20:56):
complainants were there against their will and certainly not consenting
to these waves of men who were arriving.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Can you tell us a little bit more about the
names that people might remember, and it's the reason it's
called the Scaff rape. So the Muhammad and Blal scaff
who were the kind of ring leaders or Balal was
the ring leader?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, what was the setup?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
They were the brothers that were kind of running it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, yeah, they were in a sense. Bill Al was
always involved and Muhammed was a bit of a runner
for him. Muhammed was only sixteen at the time and
he well he's still in the news, Yes he is.
He's still in the news. But he was sixteen and
(21:53):
bill Al was eighteen. I'm not trying to take away
from their crimes, but there was something. There were a
few features in their upbringing that seemed to scream out
that they weren't necessarily brought up to respect young Australian women. Yeah,
that was very clear from their supporters and members of
(22:16):
their family and the way that they would harass the victims,
well at the time complainants, but imagine that that women
associated with them were harassing.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, you're kind of touching around the edges on the
racial motivation side of this case, which is kind of
what the media ran with. You know, it got this
huge This is a racially motivated attack and it kind
of was stemming from the fact that the victims were
being called things like ossie pigs. You deserve it because
you're Australian. How did that side of things overtake this case,
(22:52):
particularly in the media.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yes, Well, as I've always said, I wouldn't have ever
mentioned any racial aspect of it, except that those were
the words that were said by some of the offenders
during the rapes, and so they brought it on themselves
in a sense. But that was very bad for the
(23:13):
Lebanese community, very bad because they wore it all and
every Lebanese person you know, felt like that the finger
had been pointed at them, and that was most unfair,
most unfair, because this is a very tiny proportion of
people who would act like this, and it's very very unfair.
And in the book I do tell the story about
(23:35):
naming the offenders because.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
They were under suppression because they were kids.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yes, that's right, and even the naming bill Al's name
would have would have named Muhammad or in a sense
because brothers and everything like that. But I made the submission.
In the end, I didn't know whether I should or not,
but I made the submission to name them after a
young Muslim law student who I was teaching at the time, lecturing,
(24:01):
said they've got to be named otherwise our whole community
has to wear it, that it should be put the
blame should be put on the people who did it,
not on the whole community, and that you can't argue
with logic like that. And the judge agreed, and so
they were all named, and whilst their names now are
(24:21):
so well known, but it is better than blaming a
whole racial group.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Definitely. It's a shame we don't really know the other
names as well, you know, we just know the Scaff brothers.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, well they were named. But because there were two
Scaffs and Bill al was in all the trials, they're
the ones that have worn it.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
How were they caught in the end? Was it with
the mobile phones that did.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yes, that was the main thing, the mobile phones. But
not all were caught. Only nine of the fifteen were caught,
and one or two of them did got almost nothing
really because certain proofs weren't available against them. There are
five or six who got away with it.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
And so we will never know.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
No, probably not, probably not. I don't think there's DNA,
but you never know. There was so much DNA taken
and methods of DNA keep coming back.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
There ended up being a number of trials in this gaff.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yes, gang reps.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Were you involved in all of them?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yes? I was, and so in fact in the end
there were trials involving four complainants, two in one trial
and two separate other ones, and there were other complainants
where there were pleas of guilty entered that they were
(25:44):
a little less serious. But by then the offenders knew
that they were going to jail anyway, and they might
as well fess up to some of the others. And
the point had been made and long sentences were imposed.
Bill E's still in None of the others.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Are He's the only ones still in prison? Yes, because
something that stands out to me when you look back
at this case is how they acted in court. There
was no remorse, was there?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Oh no, they were laughing. They were terribly badly behaved.
But it must be said that that they weren't very bright.
You know, they were tested and their IQs were exceedingly low.
You know, that's something that has to go into the
(26:31):
mix about whether they it was almost borderline on whether
they should be sentenced as hard as people with average
at least average intelligence.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But like laughing in court and falling asleep.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Throwing things at people and yes, laughing and disappearing and
being on the ground and screaming out things, and they
clearly had no respect for the judicial system. Do you
know that something happened to me only about a month
or two ago and I didn't even expect to tell
(27:06):
you this today because it just came back into my
mind thinking about the other offenders. One of the other
offenders who was right in there with and his name
was MG. It was and it became I was taken
off a retrial in relation to him because of a lecture,
(27:26):
so he ended up and because that trial didn't succeed,
even though he did time for one in which it
did succeed. I do believe that he was involved in
the other case that he was acquitted of because he
had very distinctive hair. But anyway, I digress. Two months ago,
I was walking in Park Street, Sydney. I just got
(27:50):
out of an uber with some friends who were going
a different way and I was just going to peel
off and I was crossing Park Street to go and
get a cab or bus or whatever. It was dark,
and there was a beautiful white Ferrari purring at the lights.
And I do like cars a lot, and it had
(28:10):
gone old trim and it was really new and I'd
never seen such a beautiful Ferrari and it was making
this beautiful noise. And I must confess that as I
walked across in front of it, in the dark. I
was looking for it and looking at it, looking at everything,
and did not looking at the driver. When I got
to the other side, the window wound down and said Margaret,
(28:32):
and I said hello, and he said do you know
who it is? And I said no, but I like
your car and he said it's it's MG and he
sped off. And I wasn't frightened or anything, because he
had a big smile on his face. And my goodness,
he's got a Ferrari and I haven't.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
But that's so many decades later as well.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yes, yes, but I suppose my face is still about.
And I am told as recently as yesterday that criminals
in jail's talk about lawyers a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
That's so eerie.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Though, yes, it was so eerie. Idn't even believe it.
And I texted my friends and I said, you can't
believe what just happened. I'm just telling you in case
anything happens now. But he wasn't menacing, but he wanted
you to know he was there. Though he was pretty
triumphant well.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
As you were mentioning. And I want to dig into
it because he was acquitted of one OF's charges. Tell
me about being taken off the retrial.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yes, well, it is an interesting case, and I think
a wrong case. I do think it was a wrong
case because I was invited to give a prestigious lecture
in two thousand and five to the University of Newcastle.
It's called the Sinninian Stephen Lecture, and I was one
of the few people more lowly than a judge who'd
(29:54):
ever been invited to do it, and the Dean paid
me a great honor in asking me, and so I
prepared a lecture. It's a lecture very carefully and most
of it wasn't about any cases at all. Most of
it was to try to be in s firing to
the first year law students who were the target audience,
about the power that that one gets from being a
(30:17):
lawyer and how to be good with it and how
you know. I even said such things as it would
be the worst nightmare of a prosecutor to think that
he or she had prosecuted someone who was actually not guilty.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
But she's a pretty obvious thing, you would think, I
would think.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So I hope that that always is the case. And
so I thought it was good. But the Dean had
asked me to comment because he said, so many of
the students wonder why all the scaff cases are still
limping on through the system, and it just hasn't come
to an end, and there's more trials and then there's
an appeal, and then there's a re trial and all
(30:57):
that business. So I just gave a bit of a
background of the allegations and the way it's gone through
the courts. And I didn't even mention their names. I
don't know if the names were public by them, probably not.
I didn't mention their names. I mentioned them by initials
so as to differentiate the cases and make it clear.
And this is a university lecture, and it's pretty normal
(31:19):
for lawyers to be able to lecture student lawyers about
cases even though they're still ongoing. When you're just mentioning
the things that are in the public domain, about the
course of the trials and the appeals, and why they're
still going five years after the offenses and we're still
(31:40):
going for years after that. In two thousand and seven,
when the fellow, now he's now got a ferrari, was
up for trial again, some lawyers who didn't want me
in the case. That's all it was about. They've told
me since thought they'd take a point that they didn't expect,
but they thought it'd buy some time with the Court
of Criminal Appeal, saying that I should never be as
(32:03):
a prosecutor. I should never be talking about cases that
I might be in the future, publishing something, they said publishing.
Actually I didn't publish anything.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
So you're a Crown prosecutor. You're going to know if
you're doing something that's legally dubious.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yes, that's right. But this point was taken and a
judgment was given by the court, and leading judgment was
then a judge who later went on to have some
experience in sexual assault, but who said since I didn't
know how bad it was for victims for years, but
he took me off it. He took me off the
case and said I shouldn't be in it because I've
(32:37):
made public comments about a case I might be in.
And so the victim didn't come back. She didn't want
to come back again, and they changed the legislation so
that her evidence could be read and so forth. But
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
She didn't come back again because you were taken off.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, that's right, And I promised her that I would
stay with her through it always and I couldn't keep
my promise, but I'd go to anyway, and someone else
did the case, not with the same knowledge. I'm not
being at all critical, but there are things that had
to be put across to a jury anyway, it was
not successful. So Ferrari man, Well, anyway, I shouldn't say that,
(33:18):
because you have to be things have to be proved
beyond reasonable doubt, and it wasn't. And that's exactly how
the court, the system should should prevail. But that's just
my thoughts, and maybe I've gone too far yet again, but.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So well, as far as we know, none of them
are doing appeals right now, so if fine.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, that's right. I think we're allowed to talk about
it now. And that's just my view, no one else's view.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's well known though that it's very hard to get
a rape conviction, and even looking at this case, you know,
the amount of appeals and the amount of charges that
weren't able.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
To it was much harder than than it is now.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
But why do these cases struggle so much compared to like, I.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Don't think they do really really, yes, I think there's
plenty of people being convicted nowadays. Oh, yes, plenty of
people being convicted, and in fact there's few people being
convicted where perhaps you know an appeal will produce a
different result. And if one looks at the raw statistics
(34:21):
about how many convictions there are, and I don't even
think that's changed a lot. If it is said that
there's any slight reduction in conviction rates, it's because there
are so many more complaints now. And I don't want
to offend anyone, and I hope that everyone understands what
I'm saying, but that in terms of seriousness objectively, and
(34:46):
I know that for every victim it's their subjective feeling.
But there are so many cases now in relation to
well relationships sex that is, one person thinks it's been
agreed to and one person doesn't, and perhaps it could
be in the context of consensual sex to a certain
(35:06):
extent or a certain number of times, and then something more.
I'm not diminishing anyone's experience, but they're also harder to prove,
because the more aspects of things that are done to
someone that are against their will, the easier it is
to prove. So, just as an example, if the complainant
(35:29):
has removed her own clothes, gone somewhere private, got into
bed with someone, decided to sleep with someone. It's going
to be a bit harder to prove that there wasn't
consent to something happening. It's just a bit harder to
prove because there are two sides to the story, and
the truth of the matter is no one really knows
except those two people.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Which is hard to hear. Like you say, but you're
speaking from like a courtroom perspective, through a lawyer's eyes.
It's much harder to distinguishes than say the scaff rapes
that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
And there can even be each side might there might
be no dishonesty from either, but each side might remember
it in a different way. And that I suppose that's
where where communication is so important, and maybe that is
why it's a good idea to change it to let's
have the specific conversation rather than the old days of
(36:26):
just a look in the eye and things that came
from Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
You mean asking for consent.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yes, that's it, but not just generally, because many cases
are cases where consent to certain acts have taken place,
but there's got to be ongoing consent and continuous consent
but many people say, oh, that's stupid, because you know,
I'm in a relationship and we don't talk about it
(36:54):
and all that. But well, perhaps everyone has to have
ground rules with people, and every couple's different.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And I would also argue that people that do feel
like they've been sexually assaulted and raped in that scenario
do deserve to be able to go to and fight
for justice.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Of course, of course they do, and they are and
they are permitted to and they're given every ability to
make it easier. They don't have to be in the
same room. They can do it by AVL, they can
have as many breaks as they like, support person, all
the things, all the things that we pioneered when I
was prosecuting these types of cases.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, there were some changes in criminal procedure after scuff,
weren't there.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, that someone doesn't have to come back time after time.
So the evidence is recorded now audio and visual, and
so it can be used well even if the complainant
doesn't want to come back or well, it doesn't matter
whether she does or she doesn't. I mean, she could
(37:56):
if you wanted to, but that recording is there for
the future.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with Australian barrister and prosecutor kneen Up. Next,
I ask Margaret about the release of one of the
more high profile members of the scaff Rapes. Do you
still read the headlines on the scaff story because they
are still popping up. You mentioned Muhammad before he was
(38:24):
released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yes, I like to see how everyone's going.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And we you know, we had another complainant come forward
a few years ago. She was all over the media.
You know, it was something that was such a big
part of your life.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Yeah, yes, well it was for a few years and
it certainly caused me well to be taken off.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, it was a lot of your own.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
But it's sort of embarrassing and yes, that's right. But
the good thing was that in the judgment, my whole
lecture is recorded, so I'm pretty proud. I'm still proud
of it and it's still a great lecture. And so
things happened for a reason. They might seem terrible at
the time, terribly offensive, but we have to get resilient
(39:09):
and go through that. In the course of professional life,
people see things differently I'm sure that wouldn't happen. Now
that's two thousand and seven. Imagine not being even given
the opportunity to be represented in a case like that,
which I wasn't wasn't asked question about it, wasn't asked
any explanation, wasn't given the opportunity, just was done and
(39:30):
I was off.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I want to ask about one of the cases you've
worked on in your second act in defense, Craig Faulbig.
People will know that name. Kathleen Folbig was sentenced in
the nineties or early two thousands for the murder and
man sort of her four children, and you came to
represent him in twenty eighteen. How did that come up?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I did. I was briefed by Craig Folbick's solicitor to
appear in an inquiry before Reg Blanche QC, who was
the first DPP, and he appointed me a Crown prosecutor
back in nineteen ninety and I'd worked for him as
a elicitor in the DPP and since its inception, and
(40:14):
so he was given the task of an inquiry into
the convictions of missus Folbig to see whether he agreed
with them, and so for the first time she was
cross examined. She hadn't been cross examined in her trials,
as was her right, And I was instructed by Craig,
(40:35):
and through his lawyer, I came to know Craig very well.
He's a very fine man, and on any view of it,
a victim, a victim of the loss of four children.
He died recently, did he. He died within the last year,
and he was quite young, still only in his fifties,
(40:56):
and he went on to have another child, a son,
with a new partner. But he died after the last decision.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
So he saw Kathleen freed. Yes, it is something he
doesn't think should have happened.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
That's very true. That's very true. And I have a
lot of insight from his suffering, and he told me
often how he kept trusting her and kept trusting her.
But anyway, we know what's happened since. However, I cross
examined her, and I cross examined her on her diaries.
(41:34):
There's a lot of damaging materials there. And at the
end of that inquiry, Justice Blanche decided that he was
more fortified in her guilt than had been the case
even up to the High Court. Really and that was
on the basis of a number of well on the
basis of her cross examination, and we knew about the
(41:57):
possible genetic difficulty suffered by two out of four of
the children. One of the children, he was found to
be not breathing Patrick early in his life life, but
he was saved for a while. He ended up blind
and epileptic until he died a few months later with
(42:21):
having stopped breathing. But anyway, there was a very big
scientific campaign, and well it.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Was interesting for you because you had not a small part,
but you kind of played a part in the middle there,
but not in the start and then at the end,
so you kind of got to see it all unravel.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yes, yes, that's right. It was very interesting cross examination.
I think I cross examined this is fold big for
a day and a half and.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
The first person to do so. Yes, I want to
bring up Ikak because half free up is very.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
It makes me laugh.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Well, it was made into such a big deal. They
dug into your life. They splashed it all over the news.
It was, you know, your private life, which you've made
a very big deal to make leave private, was kind
of put out in the media all for them. To
work out that you've done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
That's right. In fact, it was totally misconceived from the
start because someone told them that somehow someone found out
that my son's then girlfriend had a crash and found
out that as it happened, she wasn't tested at the scene.
But that's because the crash was so bad the car
was written off. The ambulance came and took her to
(43:39):
the hospital where her blood was taken. Straight away. She
went by ambulance with lights and sirens and her blood
was taken. No alcohol, no drugs, and we knew that
on the night and.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
For it to become part of an Eykak inquiry.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, and that's right. And as I kept saying to them,
she was tested, she was tested, and they do you
know that? They is it? Well? I think they thought
that the police had helped me or something, but I
wasn't there and neither was my son. And her phone,
the driver's phone, was left in the car with her
handbag because the car writen was t bone. She was
(44:16):
pinned by the seat belts up on the side of
the car. She really did have chest pain when the
ambulance came. And that's that. But the timing has always
seemed very odd to me because I just completed a
stint of about eighteen months as a commissioner inquiring into
(44:38):
the investigations of pedophile priests in Newcastle historically, and I
just the day before this crash, I had given my
report to the Governor and so I was going back
to my job. But there were all these rumors swirling
about me being appointed as Supreme Court judge. Now Gemma,
(44:59):
I swear had I been offered, I would have said no,
and just by means of a little bit of proof
of that. In two thousand and seven, the then Attorney
John Hat's sister Goss who's now head of VIKAC, which
I think he's the best head they've ever had, frankly,
and things probably being done properly now there at last.
But in two thousand and seven I was rung up
(45:22):
by the Attorney General and he said, oh, well it's
your turn, District Court judge. You're going to take the appointment.
I said, no, what No one ever knocks us back.
And I said, oh I am And he said why
And I said, look, I don't think I'm really judged
material because whenever I'm doing a moot or something, and
one person speaks I think, yeah, that's really good, and
(45:43):
then the next person speaks on that's really good too.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And I can't do much empathy.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
I can't even choose, and I want to give both
the prize. And I said, I really don't think that
I'm very good at judging. Just leave me on a side,
give me a side to work at four And that's
where I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
When you think about it, it's a very hard job, like, yes,
it's to me. It's that typical, like everyone expects you
to keep climbing the ladder and you're like, no, I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah laterally, that's right. I had a great career and
I loved it, and I wasn't too sure that i'd
like it. And you know, I already had my own
superannuation as a crawn prosecutor. A lot of people go
to be judges because if you do ten years, you
get superannuation, and that's why a lot of barristers will
(46:32):
leave the bar and go and do it. I think
I think that no one's told me that, but that
must be the attraction. But it didn't have that attraction
for me either, And everyone that I've known who's become
a judge. It's like losing your best friend to the
priesthood or the nunnery, because you basically never see them again,
certainly not in the same way. If you see them
(46:52):
at any function or something and you call them judge,
they don't correct you, and there's no more lunches or
drinks after work at the pub. They think that everyone's
going to be looking at them, and to one or
two I've said, don't worry, they won't be looking at you.
They'll be looking at me. I won't even notice you.
But no, they won't go. They sort of their lives
(47:14):
become a little more insular, which is pretty ironic because
what you need to do criminal law is to know
what's going on. And I got the bus here and
walk the rest of the way. I love getting public transport.
I love hanging around in ordinary department stores, grocery stores, pubs,
footy I love finding out what's really going on and
(47:37):
what's the use of just going around in a shaff
driven car not talking to anyone.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
That's so interesting and interesting that you had that foresight,
And for them to be like, but why not, you're
turning is down? Yes, but this all happened as Ikak
was sniffing around.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Well, yes see how I changed the subject.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Then I did let us get back to it. But
you kind of a bit of a rat there, Well.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Oh, yes, that's right. I think that there may have
been forces at work here didn't want to see me. Well,
we had that in common. No one wanted me to
be a judge, mostly me. I think some people may
have wanted me to, but some people didn't want me
to be. And this and this was all just a
big distraction which had the inevitory when when it was
(48:19):
looked at by wealthy the Ikak inspector, who the person
who looks over k got hold of it straight away.
I didn't even have to ask him to. And he
initiated an investigation and found that they'd acted illegally, unjustly,
unfairly and with great prejudice against my family and me.
(48:39):
And so there's a very damning report and that. But
then even when a person there persisted on such personal basis,
someone I'd known for ages anyway and worked with for ages,
but persisted and tried to get my boss to punish
me for something to do with a phone by taking
all these phone messages and engineering a bias against me.
(49:04):
So it sort of kept going on, but luckily it
was sent to an independent, kidding body in Victoria and
the result came back there is nothing, no illegality by
miss Kneen or any member of her family. And you
know that some some newspapers never print that, but some do.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Does it make you angry when you think back on.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
It a little bit, But look, everyone's everyone's life has
hardships in it. And even when that was happening and
I was suspended from work and I was you know,
I was well, I was mainly worried because they were
dragging my family through it. And that's a tactic by
bodies like iye CAC because if there was actually any evidence,
(49:49):
it goes straight to the police, wouldn't it if of
criminality and the police had said, well there's nothing to
see here, there's so but that put that's made I
CAC go after the police there and quiz them. But
so I cacks only exist when there's no evidence. And
so the way one of their tactics is to put
pressure on all their family only members by coming into
(50:11):
the homes and going through everyone's stuff and surveilling family
members to try to make the target go. Make it stop, Okay,
I admit everything, just stop against my family. But luckily
my family is a praetorian guard and we're a martial
arts family and a boxing family, and they all just
(50:33):
just keep fighting, you know, don't worry, We're all in it'
all fight.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Well, they picked the wrong family, but you know.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
And luckily they're not a family who looked at me
and said, oh, you know, what have you done? Oh
I'm so embarrassed by you. They just got prouder and
prouder of me.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
But to me, it seems that you kept getting this
target on your back when you would speak out about something.
You would kind of question processes, or you would be like, hey,
why don't we do this differently?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Or well, that's right, Isn't it kind of ironic that
I was speaking up for victims of rape having such
a hard time and having to go back to courts
over and over again and being treated so badly because
certain people in the system who would now totally agree
with that hadn't yet come around to it, and that
(51:23):
might be taking the credit for it when I was
really pilloried for it. In fact, even down to being
questioned by people who may be ashamed of it. Now,
these prosecutions are just racist prosecutions because they're nice white
girls with blonde hair, and so you're just for Aussies
(51:46):
and against Lebanese people. This is terrible. I was able
to say when I was asked that question by people
who surprised me when they asked it, namely women's groups.
I said, why do you say that they're blonde haired girl? Oh?
I saw one on a current affair. Well, actually she's
(52:07):
an Aboriginal woman who was wearing a blonde wig and
green contacts to disguise her appearance. And when she was
first spoken to on the train by Mohammed scaff He,
noting that it's not entirely clear what her ethnic derivation is,
he said to her, are you an Aussy? Where do
(52:28):
you come from? And she said, I'm as Australian as
they come, So that'll tell them yes. So yeah, yeah,
that kind of quietened the group down.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
What's next for you?
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Thanks? Some people say when are you going to retire?
And I say, do you think I should know? What's that? Well?
Thanks for asking, Jemma, I am going to I've got
a pretty full book of trials. Right into the next year,
and as it keeps happening, people are still asking me
for trials that will probably go into the year after that,
and so I figure that the clientele will decide when
(53:07):
I've had enough, because I've seen people be too old
for this job, although it's a great job for an
older person, because juries trust your wisdom, and especially if
you can render the stories in the common parlance, which
I think I can. From gosh, I spent a lot
(53:29):
of time in pubs drinking beers with my kids and
their mates mentees as well, and that's exactly right. As
long as you keep in touch, it's still a great advantage.
It's a job where being old is quite an advantage,
but it starts to run out, and I hope I'll
have the sense to know that I'm getting a bit
(53:49):
past it in maybe ten years.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Thanks to Margaret for helping us to tell this story
and for sharing so much of her own true crime conversations.
Is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by Me,
Jimma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown.
And a huge thank you to all of you, our
amazing listeners. We're so grateful to have you back for
another year of the podcast. We'd love to hear your
(54:17):
thoughts on the show. Your feedback means so much to us.
One easy way to share your thoughts is by leaving
a review on Apple Podcasts. Just scroll down to the
bottom of your podcast page, click write a review, and
add a star rating. You can also contact us direct
at Truecrime at mamamea dot com dot au. Thanks so
much for listening. I'll be back next week with another
(54:39):
true Crime Conversation.
You're listing to a Mumma Mea podcast. Mamma Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was
recorded on it's early August in Sydney in the year
two thousand and the city is gearing up to host
the Olympics. Two year twelve girls aged seventeen and eighteen
(00:34):
are at Chatswood shopping center chatting to a group of
teenage boys. They're offered a lift home, so they accept.
Hopping into a white van with the group, they're taken
to Greenacre in the city's west, where they're slacked, threatened, pushed,
and raped by a total of eight males. Two days later,
(00:56):
the group strikes again, giving a sixteen year old girl
a lift into the city. Taken to a park and
ambushed by a group of fourteen the teenager is raped
by two of them while the others watch on and laugh.
On August thirty, an eighteen year old woman is approached
by the group on a train to Bankstown. She's persuaded
(01:18):
to get off with them, tricked into entering a public toilet,
and raped over and over. Both there and in two
other locations. She's sexually assaulted by fourteen men and boys
in total over the course of six terrifying hours. As
a final humiliation, they hose her down and throw her
into the street near a train station. In early September,
(01:42):
two sixteen year old girls are picked up from another
railway station in the city's southwest. They're repeatedly raped by
three males over a period of five hours. This series
of horrific crimes becomes known as the Scaff Gang rapes,
named after the gang's ringleaders, brothers Bellal and Muhammad Scaff.
(02:03):
The magnitude of the horror they subjected their victims to
left our country in a state of shock and outrage,
with a judge which describing the offenses as events that
you hear about or read about only in the context
of wartime atrocities. The group, aged between sixteen and twenty,
consisted of up to fourteen boys and men, but only
(02:24):
nine were convicted, sentenced to a total of more than
two hundred and forty years in prison. Only one of
them remains behind bars. I'm Jemma Bath and This is
True Crime Conversations Amoma mea podcast exploring the world's most
(02:46):
notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
most about them. Our guest today led the prosecution of
the two thousand Scaff gang rapes. Margaret Kneen sc has
enjoyed a long career as a Crown Prosecutor and Deputy
Senior Crown Prosecutor, leading hundreds of judge only and jury
criminal trials and appeals in the New South Wales Court
(03:09):
of Criminal Appeal and High Court of Australia. She's recorded
a long succession of convictions against rapists and murderers, including
the butcher of Beager and pedophile Robert Dolly Dunn, and
has served as Commissioner of the New South Wales Special
Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation
of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Roman Catholic
(03:30):
Diocese of Maitland Newcastle. She's had her fair share of
controversy too. At the end of twenty fourteen, she was
investigated by the New South Wales EYEKAC, who were pursuing
her for corrupt conduct. She was accused of perverting the
course of justice for advising her son's girlfriend to fake
chest pains to avoid a breath test after a car crash.
(03:53):
She was fully exonerated and her involvement in the inquiry
at all was revealed to be a big misunderstanding. Retiring
from public office in twenty nineteen, Margaret embarked on a
brand new chapter, doing the complete professional opposite of what
she's done for so long, defending the accused instead of
(04:13):
prosecuting them. Her career is outlined in a chronicle called
The Boxing Butterfly, which explores some of her biggest cases
and moments. Margaret joins us, now, Margaret, you've had a
very big career. Do you have a proudest moment? Is
that something you're even able to do with so many achievements.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I do have one, and it's fairly recent, and it's
in my time as defense counsel. Because my career is
now forty eight years old at the end of this year,
forty eight years of full time work. My goodness, no wonder,
no wonder, I feel tired. The big moment for me,
the biggest achievement was winning a case that perhaps most
(04:57):
people wouldn't have seen the success in. And it's the
case of Coulwynda Singh, who was charged with burning his
wife to death. And I sensed very much a bit
of a racist persecution going on and even that the
Crown was going to get an expert to say that
Indian men burn their wives and on her short list
(05:20):
to prove that this expert, who had never been to India,
by the way, she already had mister Singh's name on it,
and he hadn't been convicted. And as it happened, there
was plenty of evidence in that case, plenty of forensic evidence,
and it all pointed to the deceased woman having set
her self on fire, but not to burn herself. It
was a mistake. She used petrol instead of kerosene. She'd
(05:43):
prepared herself, she'd put a hair up that she usually
had down in a wet towel. She prepared everything, and
hers were the only fingerprints in DNA on the petrol
can and on the lighter. But poor mister Singh, who
is who I could faithfully say to the jury, has
never had a drink, smoke, gambled, didn't have anyone on
the side, so to speak, never been to a brothel, casino, nothing,
(06:05):
Just a hard working guy with a lovely family. It
wasn't him, but he was. He was treated so badly
by everyone who assumed it must have been well that
he did it to her. So it was hard won
victory because the first trial was conducted in a way
which wasn't allowed the second time by the prosecution desperate
(06:26):
for a conviction and breaking it up. Well, even if
she did it, you forced her to and all these
different permutations. But finally, and that was a hung jury.
The second time, we were able to keep the crown
to admissible evidence and the jury very quickly came back
with a not guilty verdict. But he spent a lot
of his own money, he did four months in jail,
(06:48):
and he's just suffered so much. And it just shows
that investigators ought not to jump to conclusions and that
the legal process testing all the evidence is there for
a good reason.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's interesting that you pick a proudest moment from your
I'm going to call it second act, because you spent
so much time on the other side prosecuting cases. What
has it been like spending the last few years in defense?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yes, six years now. I didn't know whether anyone would
brief me. I left the Crown at sixty and thought, well,
that's the sort of where the super comes to a
sort of stop. So let's see what it's like. Will
anyone brief me, But I didn't get any briefs from
the prosecution none, And so I was briefed by many
(07:35):
different defense solicitors, most of whom I'd never worked with.
But there's just so much work, and I'm still turning
it away and booked out well towards the end of
next year. So it's true that I did some wonderful
cases as a Crown prosecutor, and I'm still in contact
(07:56):
with dozens of families, especially bereaved parents of children who
were killed, such as Lindsay van Blanken, whose body was
found in a cricket bag. I'm still friends with her
mum and her sister. But in a sense, Jemma, I've
got to say that it's a bit more of a
challenge on the defense side. It's generally more straightforward on
(08:22):
the prosecution side. If you're on the correct side, and
you should be by the time a trial gets up,
the Crown prosecutor should be very confident of the evidence
and very confident of the way the matter should go
by having made sure that it's all been tested to
some degree and everything checked before someone is put on trial.
(08:45):
But from the defense point of view, being against the
zeitgeist against the publicity and the tendency now it seems
to me for people to make up their mind before
someone is convicted, and so that's a very negative influence
carrying through the trial. And it's very hard for people,
(09:08):
especially people in the public eye, who get put on
because so often it's as though they've already been convicted
just when they're charged, and people forget that as they
would want if they were charged, they'd want the evidence
to be tested and proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Everyone is innocent until they're not.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So is that a welcome challenge for you?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Well, I was daunted by it and thought it might
be difficult to change because I used to be criticized
a lot for this. I get very close to the
people I work with, and I was criticized very much,
and I think, perhaps in a somewhat sexist fashion for
decades for being just affectionate with young women who'd been
(09:49):
terribly assaulted or parents who'd lost a child. And I
warmed to those people and thought it would be easier
for them if they knew how much it meant to
me for them to get justice. And so I've been
criticized for hugging people and having my arm around people
and so forth, showing oh that's it, yes, Oh, yes,
(10:12):
we must have none of us be kind. Yes, that's right,
even if we were you know, mothers and grandmothers and in.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The worst moments of their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes, it is the worst moment of anyone's life to
go through a court process, and the more serious the
case that the worse it is for all parties. And
so you can see that people need kindness. But then
when I was a prosecutor and I saw a woman
just quietly crying, and I knew it was the mother
of the man who had just been convicted of murder.
(10:42):
And I saw her crying there, and she was a mum,
and I just I asked the defense counsel could I
just go and see her? And I ended up holding
her and hugging her because no one else was. So
we have to have humanity in our justice system, because
it's very, very much a part of it. It's not
it's not a mathematical calculation. It's even the determination of
(11:05):
these cases has so much it relies on so much
knowledge of human nature, and.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Court is scary if you haven't been in one. I've
covered them as a court reporter. They're really intimidating places.
And so these families have often never set foot in
a court before, and suddenly there's judges, there's prosecutors, there's defense,
there's criminals, and it's very overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yes, in a bit of an arcane language too, perhaps
deliberately set so that people don't quite know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And the intimidation is deliberate too, to try to scare
people into telling the truth. I don't know if it
really works like that anymore. That, like many other of
the trappings of the criminal justice system, have changed a
lot in the forty odd years I've been in it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It's probably a good segue to bring me to a
sentence in your book that really stood out to me
right at the start in the introduction, and it said,
she has been trenchantly attacked by some colleagues in the profession.
Perhaps they mistook her niceness for weakness. It was an
observation by your co author. What would you say to that,
because that kind of speaks to what you've just been
(12:12):
saying about people looking at you showing empathy and kindness
and positive emotion as a weakness.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
For a few decades. I think it was ago I
noticed that people thought that if you're quite pleasant and
polite with people and nice to people, polite with the
other side, you can't be taking it seriously enough. You've
got to walk in there with a stern look and
don't get too close to people, and be a bit
of an object rather than a person. But well, I've
(12:43):
just continued to do it my way, and if people
don't like it, well, many of the people who don't
like it aren't there anymore, so it doesn't matter, and you've.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Got your achievements to show. You have spoken before about
your own experience of sexual abuse in your childhood. Did
that help to inform your why when you entered this career,
And also, I guess the empathy that you.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Have it certainly did infor me, because because I knew
very well from when I first started working in the
prosecution of child sexual assault in the nineteen eighties, I
knew things that other people who only had a theoretical
knowledge didn't appreciate. And one of the main things is
how child sexual abuse can happen virtually under the noses
(13:29):
of parents. And so it's not really an answer to say, oh, well,
the parents were there, and how could this have happened?
Because so much of it is furtive grooming behavior. And
I also understood that a long time ago, and in
the sixties, when I was a child, there was very
little ability to say something about a respected adult and
(13:52):
be believed. And especially if a child, a small child,
was talking about parts of the body or something that
was regarded as rude or shocking for a child to say,
it was very hard for them to get the message across.
And I remember getting very very sternly treated when I
was trying to tell people who should have known, and
(14:15):
I used, at about the age of six or seven,
use the word penis to try to tell the message,
and I got hit really using that word. So I
didn't bother to tell anyone sell the same people again
until I was an adult.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Just goes to show, though I would hope that nowadays,
you know, young children, I'm teaching my two year old
about consent or trying to yes, teaching him about body parts, like,
we're just so much more knowledgeable.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We are so much more knowledgeable there seem to be
in that generation of people. They weren't all like this,
but there was such a people just take a sharp
intake of breath at the mention of anything sexual. It
was also behind the curtain, and so I think it's
so much more healthy that everyone just takes sexual matters
(15:05):
in their stride and it's not something that only people
of a certain age can talk about it in hush tones.
So good for you with your little boy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You've been involved in so many high profile cases during
your time as a prosecutor and crime prosecutor, too many
to touch on in this episode, so I want to
hone in on one the scaff gang rapes. Would you
say that it's among one of the cases you're asked
about the most.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yes, I'm asked about that the most, really the most.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's a few reasons. Those offenses took place in August
two thousand, so it was kind of a change of
history in a sense, and it was just before the Olympics.
The occurrence of the crimes was a bit concealed by
authorities at the time, so that there wasn't a huge panic.
(15:55):
But there were fifteen men in a gang, not always
all all together, but easily able with the relatively new
invention of mobile phones to get together and to have
sort of a military type operation, just so that there'd
be literally shifts of men coming in to assault a
(16:20):
young woman or two. It was really shocking. The mobile
telephones gave us a lot more detail, and so too
did the victims were extremely articulate and well able to
give so many descriptions of what happened. One victim in particular,
who was involved with this gang over six hours and
(16:43):
four locations. Her memory of it was so impressive because
not just because there was a lot of detail in
a statement that can happen anytime and a prosecutor or
a police officer isn't sure whether it's true or not,
but so much of the detail was able to be
checked because of the other relatively new thing of CCTV
(17:06):
on a railway station. But even details like the one
in the yellow jumper had something to do with his
private area, and that turned out to be true, and
so she was. So she just took it all in,
even through the stress of probably believing at the end
(17:28):
she might be killed, just going through something so terrible,
but remembering so accurately because mobile phones backed up what
she said about he left and he came back, and
so forth, and mobile phones I suppose that this was
the first case where mobile phones were used so much
in the detection of the offenders. And I learned things
(17:52):
like a mobile tower being able to say not just
that it's picked up on that tower, but which of
three sectors the direction of the call comes from. So
even if some of the offenders lived close to the
mobile tower, their home wasn't in the correct sector, and
so they were they were found out that way. And
(18:12):
the other interesting thing about the mobile telephone that I
learned then and we'll never forget, is during the offenses,
Miss c as she was called by the court, heard
her own ring tone her phone had been taken from her,
and heard her ring tone, which was the real slim
shady eminem two thousan. Yes, that's right. She saw one
(18:36):
of the offenders at his phone with that and saw
it was her phone. But in the end they gave
her back her phone. But he had put his SIM
card in there because he liked the phone ring tone
or both and used it that night. Perhaps he used
it to ring people and didn't want it on his phone,
or was or who knows, probably as simple as wanted
(18:57):
to try that phone out. But then, as I learned
for the first time in the preparation for that case.
Every phone, even then the old Nokias, the phone sends
a message of the call, and the SIM card sends
a separate message of the call, so it could be
proved that the call was made with his sim card
(19:18):
and her phone, so that linked them so that he
couldn't get out of it at all, even though of
course he said I was at home, it wasn't me,
someone who looked like me, and so forth.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
So this kind of technological side of investigation that was
fairly new.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yes, it really was. It was the first sexual assault
case I'd ever done that was investigated like a murder.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Because I've heard it said that the brief of evidence
that you got was as good as you would get
from a murder, which is impressive in a sexual assault case.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It really was, And it was such a big strike
force of about a dozen fantastic detectives who many of
whom had homicide experience. They did it like that, So
it was not just a usual case of at that
time of alleged sexual assault, where there'd be a statement
from the complainant and perhaps a statement from a doctor
(20:12):
and a statement from a police officer saying, we arrested
the guy and he wouldn't say anything, and that's that,
and that was all you got. But in this case
there was so much more CCTV and all the phone evidence,
which was fascinating.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Which makes your job easier, right, I mean, it's not
an easier case, but you want as much detail as possible.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That's right. And as much as we know that it
still doesn't prove whether sexual intercourse is rape or not.
In a case like this, it sure does. In the
back of buildings, with men coming and going, different cars
coming and going, and more and more offenses taking place,
it was obvious that that complainant and all the other
(20:56):
complainants were there against their will and certainly not consenting
to these waves of men who were arriving.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Can you tell us a little bit more about the
names that people might remember, and it's the reason it's
called the Scaff rape. So the Muhammad and Blal scaff
who were the kind of ring leaders or Balal was
the ring leader?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, what was the setup?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
They were the brothers that were kind of running it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, yeah, they were in a sense. Bill Al was
always involved and Muhammed was a bit of a runner
for him. Muhammed was only sixteen at the time and
he well he's still in the news, Yes he is.
He's still in the news. But he was sixteen and
(21:53):
bill Al was eighteen. I'm not trying to take away
from their crimes, but there was something. There were a
few features in their upbringing that seemed to scream out
that they weren't necessarily brought up to respect young Australian women. Yeah,
that was very clear from their supporters and members of
(22:16):
their family and the way that they would harass the victims,
well at the time complainants, but imagine that that women
associated with them were harassing.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, you're kind of touching around the edges on the
racial motivation side of this case, which is kind of
what the media ran with. You know, it got this
huge This is a racially motivated attack and it kind
of was stemming from the fact that the victims were
being called things like ossie pigs. You deserve it because
you're Australian. How did that side of things overtake this case,
(22:52):
particularly in the media.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yes, Well, as I've always said, I wouldn't have ever
mentioned any racial aspect of it, except that those were
the words that were said by some of the offenders
during the rapes, and so they brought it on themselves
in a sense. But that was very bad for the
(23:13):
Lebanese community, very bad because they wore it all and
every Lebanese person you know, felt like that the finger
had been pointed at them, and that was most unfair,
most unfair, because this is a very tiny proportion of
people who would act like this, and it's very very unfair.
And in the book I do tell the story about
(23:35):
naming the offenders because.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
They were under suppression because they were kids.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yes, that's right, and even the naming bill Al's name
would have would have named Muhammad or in a sense
because brothers and everything like that. But I made the submission.
In the end, I didn't know whether I should or not,
but I made the submission to name them after a
young Muslim law student who I was teaching at the time, lecturing,
(24:01):
said they've got to be named otherwise our whole community
has to wear it, that it should be put the
blame should be put on the people who did it,
not on the whole community, and that you can't argue
with logic like that. And the judge agreed, and so
they were all named, and whilst their names now are
(24:21):
so well known, but it is better than blaming a
whole racial group.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Definitely. It's a shame we don't really know the other
names as well, you know, we just know the Scaff brothers.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, well they were named. But because there were two
Scaffs and Bill al was in all the trials, they're
the ones that have worn it.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
How were they caught in the end? Was it with
the mobile phones that did.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yes, that was the main thing, the mobile phones. But
not all were caught. Only nine of the fifteen were caught,
and one or two of them did got almost nothing
really because certain proofs weren't available against them. There are
five or six who got away with it.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
And so we will never know.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
No, probably not, probably not. I don't think there's DNA,
but you never know. There was so much DNA taken
and methods of DNA keep coming back.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
There ended up being a number of trials in this gaff.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yes, gang reps.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Were you involved in all of them?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yes? I was, and so in fact in the end
there were trials involving four complainants, two in one trial
and two separate other ones, and there were other complainants
where there were pleas of guilty entered that they were
(25:44):
a little less serious. But by then the offenders knew
that they were going to jail anyway, and they might
as well fess up to some of the others. And
the point had been made and long sentences were imposed.
Bill E's still in None of the others.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Are He's the only ones still in prison? Yes, because
something that stands out to me when you look back
at this case is how they acted in court. There
was no remorse, was there?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Oh no, they were laughing. They were terribly badly behaved.
But it must be said that that they weren't very bright.
You know, they were tested and their IQs were exceedingly low.
You know, that's something that has to go into the
(26:31):
mix about whether they it was almost borderline on whether
they should be sentenced as hard as people with average
at least average intelligence.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But like laughing in court and falling asleep.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Throwing things at people and yes, laughing and disappearing and
being on the ground and screaming out things, and they
clearly had no respect for the judicial system. Do you
know that something happened to me only about a month
or two ago and I didn't even expect to tell
(27:06):
you this today because it just came back into my
mind thinking about the other offenders. One of the other
offenders who was right in there with and his name
was MG. It was and it became I was taken
off a retrial in relation to him because of a lecture,
(27:26):
so he ended up and because that trial didn't succeed,
even though he did time for one in which it
did succeed. I do believe that he was involved in
the other case that he was acquitted of because he
had very distinctive hair. But anyway, I digress. Two months ago,
I was walking in Park Street, Sydney. I just got
(27:50):
out of an uber with some friends who were going
a different way and I was just going to peel
off and I was crossing Park Street to go and
get a cab or bus or whatever. It was dark,
and there was a beautiful white Ferrari purring at the lights.
And I do like cars a lot, and it had
(28:10):
gone old trim and it was really new and I'd
never seen such a beautiful Ferrari and it was making
this beautiful noise. And I must confess that as I
walked across in front of it, in the dark. I
was looking for it and looking at it, looking at everything,
and did not looking at the driver. When I got
to the other side, the window wound down and said Margaret,
(28:32):
and I said hello, and he said do you know
who it is? And I said no, but I like
your car and he said it's it's MG and he
sped off. And I wasn't frightened or anything, because he
had a big smile on his face. And my goodness,
he's got a Ferrari and I haven't.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
But that's so many decades later as well.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yes, yes, but I suppose my face is still about.
And I am told as recently as yesterday that criminals
in jail's talk about lawyers a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
That's so eerie.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Though, yes, it was so eerie. Idn't even believe it.
And I texted my friends and I said, you can't
believe what just happened. I'm just telling you in case
anything happens now. But he wasn't menacing, but he wanted
you to know he was there. Though he was pretty
triumphant well.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
As you were mentioning. And I want to dig into
it because he was acquitted of one OF's charges. Tell
me about being taken off the retrial.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yes, well, it is an interesting case, and I think
a wrong case. I do think it was a wrong
case because I was invited to give a prestigious lecture
in two thousand and five to the University of Newcastle.
It's called the Sinninian Stephen Lecture, and I was one
of the few people more lowly than a judge who'd
(29:54):
ever been invited to do it, and the Dean paid
me a great honor in asking me, and so I
prepared a lecture. It's a lecture very carefully and most
of it wasn't about any cases at all. Most of
it was to try to be in s firing to
the first year law students who were the target audience,
about the power that that one gets from being a
(30:17):
lawyer and how to be good with it and how
you know. I even said such things as it would
be the worst nightmare of a prosecutor to think that
he or she had prosecuted someone who was actually not guilty.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
But she's a pretty obvious thing, you would think, I
would think.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So I hope that that always is the case. And
so I thought it was good. But the Dean had
asked me to comment because he said, so many of
the students wonder why all the scaff cases are still
limping on through the system, and it just hasn't come
to an end, and there's more trials and then there's
an appeal, and then there's a re trial and all
(30:57):
that business. So I just gave a bit of a
background of the allegations and the way it's gone through
the courts. And I didn't even mention their names. I
don't know if the names were public by them, probably not.
I didn't mention their names. I mentioned them by initials
so as to differentiate the cases and make it clear.
And this is a university lecture, and it's pretty normal
(31:19):
for lawyers to be able to lecture student lawyers about
cases even though they're still ongoing. When you're just mentioning
the things that are in the public domain, about the
course of the trials and the appeals, and why they're
still going five years after the offenses and we're still
(31:40):
going for years after that. In two thousand and seven,
when the fellow, now he's now got a ferrari, was
up for trial again, some lawyers who didn't want me
in the case. That's all it was about. They've told
me since thought they'd take a point that they didn't expect,
but they thought it'd buy some time with the Court
of Criminal Appeal, saying that I should never be as
(32:03):
a prosecutor. I should never be talking about cases that
I might be in the future, publishing something, they said publishing.
Actually I didn't publish anything.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
So you're a Crown prosecutor. You're going to know if
you're doing something that's legally dubious.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yes, that's right. But this point was taken and a
judgment was given by the court, and leading judgment was
then a judge who later went on to have some
experience in sexual assault, but who said since I didn't
know how bad it was for victims for years, but
he took me off it. He took me off the
case and said I shouldn't be in it because I've
(32:37):
made public comments about a case I might be in.
And so the victim didn't come back. She didn't want
to come back again, and they changed the legislation so
that her evidence could be read and so forth. But
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
She didn't come back again because you were taken off.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, that's right, And I promised her that I would
stay with her through it always and I couldn't keep
my promise, but I'd go to anyway, and someone else
did the case, not with the same knowledge. I'm not
being at all critical, but there are things that had
to be put across to a jury anyway, it was
not successful. So Ferrari man, Well, anyway, I shouldn't say that,
(33:18):
because you have to be things have to be proved
beyond reasonable doubt, and it wasn't. And that's exactly how
the court, the system should should prevail. But that's just
my thoughts, and maybe I've gone too far yet again, but.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So well, as far as we know, none of them
are doing appeals right now, so if fine.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, that's right. I think we're allowed to talk about
it now. And that's just my view, no one else's view.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's well known though that it's very hard to get
a rape conviction, and even looking at this case, you know,
the amount of appeals and the amount of charges that
weren't able.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
To it was much harder than than it is now.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
But why do these cases struggle so much compared to like, I.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Don't think they do really really, yes, I think there's
plenty of people being convicted nowadays. Oh, yes, plenty of
people being convicted, and in fact there's few people being
convicted where perhaps you know an appeal will produce a
different result. And if one looks at the raw statistics
(34:21):
about how many convictions there are, and I don't even
think that's changed a lot. If it is said that
there's any slight reduction in conviction rates, it's because there
are so many more complaints now. And I don't want
to offend anyone, and I hope that everyone understands what
I'm saying, but that in terms of seriousness objectively, and
(34:46):
I know that for every victim it's their subjective feeling.
But there are so many cases now in relation to
well relationships sex that is, one person thinks it's been
agreed to and one person doesn't, and perhaps it could
be in the context of consensual sex to a certain
(35:06):
extent or a certain number of times, and then something more.
I'm not diminishing anyone's experience, but they're also harder to prove,
because the more aspects of things that are done to
someone that are against their will, the easier it is
to prove. So, just as an example, if the complainant
(35:29):
has removed her own clothes, gone somewhere private, got into
bed with someone, decided to sleep with someone. It's going
to be a bit harder to prove that there wasn't
consent to something happening. It's just a bit harder to
prove because there are two sides to the story, and
the truth of the matter is no one really knows
except those two people.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Which is hard to hear. Like you say, but you're
speaking from like a courtroom perspective, through a lawyer's eyes.
It's much harder to distinguishes than say the scaff rapes
that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
And there can even be each side might there might
be no dishonesty from either, but each side might remember
it in a different way. And that I suppose that's
where where communication is so important, and maybe that is
why it's a good idea to change it to let's
have the specific conversation rather than the old days of
(36:26):
just a look in the eye and things that came
from Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
You mean asking for consent.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yes, that's it, but not just generally, because many cases
are cases where consent to certain acts have taken place,
but there's got to be ongoing consent and continuous consent
but many people say, oh, that's stupid, because you know,
I'm in a relationship and we don't talk about it
(36:54):
and all that. But well, perhaps everyone has to have
ground rules with people, and every couple's different.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And I would also argue that people that do feel
like they've been sexually assaulted and raped in that scenario
do deserve to be able to go to and fight
for justice.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Of course, of course they do, and they are and
they are permitted to and they're given every ability to
make it easier. They don't have to be in the
same room. They can do it by AVL, they can
have as many breaks as they like, support person, all
the things, all the things that we pioneered when I
was prosecuting these types of cases.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, there were some changes in criminal procedure after scuff,
weren't there.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yes, that someone doesn't have to come back time after time.
So the evidence is recorded now audio and visual, and
so it can be used well even if the complainant
doesn't want to come back or well, it doesn't matter
whether she does or she doesn't. I mean, she could
(37:56):
if you wanted to, but that recording is there for
the future.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with Australian barrister and prosecutor kneen Up. Next,
I ask Margaret about the release of one of the
more high profile members of the scaff Rapes. Do you
still read the headlines on the scaff story because they
are still popping up. You mentioned Muhammad before he was
(38:24):
released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yes, I like to see how everyone's going.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And we you know, we had another complainant come forward
a few years ago. She was all over the media.
You know, it was something that was such a big
part of your life.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Yeah, yes, well it was for a few years and
it certainly caused me well to be taken off.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, it was a lot of your own.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
But it's sort of embarrassing and yes, that's right. But
the good thing was that in the judgment, my whole
lecture is recorded, so I'm pretty proud. I'm still proud
of it and it's still a great lecture. And so
things happened for a reason. They might seem terrible at
the time, terribly offensive, but we have to get resilient
(39:09):
and go through that. In the course of professional life,
people see things differently I'm sure that wouldn't happen. Now
that's two thousand and seven. Imagine not being even given
the opportunity to be represented in a case like that,
which I wasn't wasn't asked question about it, wasn't asked
any explanation, wasn't given the opportunity, just was done and
(39:30):
I was off.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I want to ask about one of the cases you've
worked on in your second act in defense, Craig Faulbig.
People will know that name. Kathleen Folbig was sentenced in
the nineties or early two thousands for the murder and
man sort of her four children, and you came to
represent him in twenty eighteen. How did that come up?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I did. I was briefed by Craig Folbick's solicitor to
appear in an inquiry before Reg Blanche QC, who was
the first DPP, and he appointed me a Crown prosecutor
back in nineteen ninety and I'd worked for him as
a elicitor in the DPP and since its inception, and
(40:14):
so he was given the task of an inquiry into
the convictions of missus Folbig to see whether he agreed
with them, and so for the first time she was
cross examined. She hadn't been cross examined in her trials,
as was her right, And I was instructed by Craig,
(40:35):
and through his lawyer, I came to know Craig very well.
He's a very fine man, and on any view of it,
a victim, a victim of the loss of four children.
He died recently, did he. He died within the last year,
and he was quite young, still only in his fifties,
(40:56):
and he went on to have another child, a son,
with a new partner. But he died after the last decision.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
So he saw Kathleen freed. Yes, it is something he
doesn't think should have happened.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
That's very true. That's very true. And I have a
lot of insight from his suffering, and he told me
often how he kept trusting her and kept trusting her.
But anyway, we know what's happened since. However, I cross
examined her, and I cross examined her on her diaries.
(41:34):
There's a lot of damaging materials there. And at the
end of that inquiry, Justice Blanche decided that he was
more fortified in her guilt than had been the case
even up to the High Court. Really and that was
on the basis of a number of well on the
basis of her cross examination, and we knew about the
(41:57):
possible genetic difficulty suffered by two out of four of
the children. One of the children, he was found to
be not breathing Patrick early in his life life, but
he was saved for a while. He ended up blind
and epileptic until he died a few months later with
(42:21):
having stopped breathing. But anyway, there was a very big
scientific campaign, and well it.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Was interesting for you because you had not a small part,
but you kind of played a part in the middle there,
but not in the start and then at the end,
so you kind of got to see it all unravel.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yes, yes, that's right. It was very interesting cross examination.
I think I cross examined this is fold big for
a day and a half and.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
The first person to do so. Yes, I want to
bring up Ikak because half free up is very.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
It makes me laugh.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Well, it was made into such a big deal. They
dug into your life. They splashed it all over the news.
It was, you know, your private life, which you've made
a very big deal to make leave private, was kind
of put out in the media all for them. To
work out that you've done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
That's right. In fact, it was totally misconceived from the
start because someone told them that somehow someone found out
that my son's then girlfriend had a crash and found
out that as it happened, she wasn't tested at the scene.
But that's because the crash was so bad the car
was written off. The ambulance came and took her to
(43:39):
the hospital where her blood was taken. Straight away. She
went by ambulance with lights and sirens and her blood
was taken. No alcohol, no drugs, and we knew that
on the night and.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
For it to become part of an Eykak inquiry.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, and that's right. And as I kept saying to them,
she was tested, she was tested, and they do you
know that? They is it? Well? I think they thought
that the police had helped me or something, but I
wasn't there and neither was my son. And her phone,
the driver's phone, was left in the car with her
handbag because the car writen was t bone. She was
(44:16):
pinned by the seat belts up on the side of
the car. She really did have chest pain when the
ambulance came. And that's that. But the timing has always
seemed very odd to me because I just completed a
stint of about eighteen months as a commissioner inquiring into
(44:38):
the investigations of pedophile priests in Newcastle historically, and I
just the day before this crash, I had given my
report to the Governor and so I was going back
to my job. But there were all these rumors swirling
about me being appointed as Supreme Court judge. Now Gemma,
(44:59):
I swear had I been offered, I would have said no,
and just by means of a little bit of proof
of that. In two thousand and seven, the then Attorney
John Hat's sister Goss who's now head of VIKAC, which
I think he's the best head they've ever had, frankly,
and things probably being done properly now there at last.
But in two thousand and seven I was rung up
(45:22):
by the Attorney General and he said, oh, well it's
your turn, District Court judge. You're going to take the appointment.
I said, no, what No one ever knocks us back.
And I said, oh I am And he said why
And I said, look, I don't think I'm really judged
material because whenever I'm doing a moot or something, and
one person speaks I think, yeah, that's really good, and
(45:43):
then the next person speaks on that's really good too.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And I can't do much empathy.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
I can't even choose, and I want to give both
the prize. And I said, I really don't think that
I'm very good at judging. Just leave me on a side,
give me a side to work at four And that's
where I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
When you think about it, it's a very hard job, like, yes,
it's to me. It's that typical, like everyone expects you
to keep climbing the ladder and you're like, no, I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah laterally, that's right. I had a great career and
I loved it, and I wasn't too sure that i'd
like it. And you know, I already had my own
superannuation as a crawn prosecutor. A lot of people go
to be judges because if you do ten years, you
get superannuation, and that's why a lot of barristers will
(46:32):
leave the bar and go and do it. I think
I think that no one's told me that, but that
must be the attraction. But it didn't have that attraction
for me either, And everyone that I've known who's become
a judge. It's like losing your best friend to the
priesthood or the nunnery, because you basically never see them again,
certainly not in the same way. If you see them
(46:52):
at any function or something and you call them judge,
they don't correct you, and there's no more lunches or
drinks after work at the pub. They think that everyone's
going to be looking at them, and to one or
two I've said, don't worry, they won't be looking at you.
They'll be looking at me. I won't even notice you.
But no, they won't go. They sort of their lives
(47:14):
become a little more insular, which is pretty ironic because
what you need to do criminal law is to know
what's going on. And I got the bus here and
walk the rest of the way. I love getting public transport.
I love hanging around in ordinary department stores, grocery stores, pubs,
footy I love finding out what's really going on and
(47:37):
what's the use of just going around in a shaff
driven car not talking to anyone.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
That's so interesting and interesting that you had that foresight,
And for them to be like, but why not, you're
turning is down? Yes, but this all happened as Ikak
was sniffing around.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Well, yes see how I changed the subject.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Then I did let us get back to it. But
you kind of a bit of a rat there, Well.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Oh, yes, that's right. I think that there may have
been forces at work here didn't want to see me. Well,
we had that in common. No one wanted me to
be a judge, mostly me. I think some people may
have wanted me to, but some people didn't want me
to be. And this and this was all just a
big distraction which had the inevitory when when it was
(48:19):
looked at by wealthy the Ikak inspector, who the person
who looks over k got hold of it straight away.
I didn't even have to ask him to. And he
initiated an investigation and found that they'd acted illegally, unjustly,
unfairly and with great prejudice against my family and me.
(48:39):
And so there's a very damning report and that. But
then even when a person there persisted on such personal basis,
someone I'd known for ages anyway and worked with for ages,
but persisted and tried to get my boss to punish
me for something to do with a phone by taking
all these phone messages and engineering a bias against me.
(49:04):
So it sort of kept going on, but luckily it
was sent to an independent, kidding body in Victoria and
the result came back there is nothing, no illegality by
miss Kneen or any member of her family. And you
know that some some newspapers never print that, but some do.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Does it make you angry when you think back on.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
It a little bit, But look, everyone's everyone's life has
hardships in it. And even when that was happening and
I was suspended from work and I was you know,
I was well, I was mainly worried because they were
dragging my family through it. And that's a tactic by
bodies like iye CAC because if there was actually any evidence,
(49:49):
it goes straight to the police, wouldn't it if of
criminality and the police had said, well there's nothing to
see here, there's so but that put that's made I
CAC go after the police there and quiz them. But
so I cacks only exist when there's no evidence. And
so the way one of their tactics is to put
pressure on all their family only members by coming into
(50:11):
the homes and going through everyone's stuff and surveilling family
members to try to make the target go. Make it stop, Okay,
I admit everything, just stop against my family. But luckily
my family is a praetorian guard and we're a martial
arts family and a boxing family, and they all just
(50:33):
just keep fighting, you know, don't worry, We're all in it'
all fight.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Well, they picked the wrong family, but you know.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
And luckily they're not a family who looked at me
and said, oh, you know, what have you done? Oh
I'm so embarrassed by you. They just got prouder and
prouder of me.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
But to me, it seems that you kept getting this
target on your back when you would speak out about something.
You would kind of question processes, or you would be like, hey,
why don't we do this differently?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Or well, that's right, Isn't it kind of ironic that
I was speaking up for victims of rape having such
a hard time and having to go back to courts
over and over again and being treated so badly because
certain people in the system who would now totally agree
with that hadn't yet come around to it, and that
(51:23):
might be taking the credit for it when I was
really pilloried for it. In fact, even down to being
questioned by people who may be ashamed of it. Now,
these prosecutions are just racist prosecutions because they're nice white
girls with blonde hair, and so you're just for Aussies
(51:46):
and against Lebanese people. This is terrible. I was able
to say when I was asked that question by people
who surprised me when they asked it, namely women's groups.
I said, why do you say that they're blonde haired girl? Oh?
I saw one on a current affair. Well, actually she's
(52:07):
an Aboriginal woman who was wearing a blonde wig and
green contacts to disguise her appearance. And when she was
first spoken to on the train by Mohammed scaff He,
noting that it's not entirely clear what her ethnic derivation is,
he said to her, are you an Aussy? Where do
(52:28):
you come from? And she said, I'm as Australian as
they come, So that'll tell them yes. So yeah, yeah,
that kind of quietened the group down.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
What's next for you?
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Thanks? Some people say when are you going to retire?
And I say, do you think I should know? What's that? Well?
Thanks for asking, Jemma, I am going to I've got
a pretty full book of trials. Right into the next year,
and as it keeps happening, people are still asking me
for trials that will probably go into the year after that,
and so I figure that the clientele will decide when
(53:07):
I've had enough, because I've seen people be too old
for this job, although it's a great job for an
older person, because juries trust your wisdom, and especially if
you can render the stories in the common parlance, which
I think I can. From gosh, I spent a lot
(53:29):
of time in pubs drinking beers with my kids and
their mates mentees as well, and that's exactly right. As
long as you keep in touch, it's still a great advantage.
It's a job where being old is quite an advantage,
but it starts to run out, and I hope I'll
have the sense to know that I'm getting a bit
(53:49):
past it in maybe ten years.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Thanks to Margaret for helping us to tell this story
and for sharing so much of her own true crime conversations.
Is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by Me,
Jimma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown.
And a huge thank you to all of you, our
amazing listeners. We're so grateful to have you back for
another year of the podcast. We'd love to hear your
(54:17):
thoughts on the show. Your feedback means so much to us.
One easy way to share your thoughts is by leaving
a review on Apple Podcasts. Just scroll down to the
bottom of your podcast page, click write a review, and
add a star rating. You can also contact us direct
at Truecrime at mamamea dot com dot au. Thanks so
much for listening. I'll be back next week with another
(54:39):
true Crime Conversation.
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