The Townsville Bulletin was in the sights of the Antonio family in Bowen this week, after a coroner finally concluded that the boyfriend did it. The ‘Pie will tell you what TV decided to edit out of the parents post-finding interview.
Legal questions abound this week. The rules of parole are again under the spotlight, after the drug-fuelled murderous frenzy of man just released from jail who went berserk in Wulguru…
… and The ‘Pie will also tell you what the Bulletin didn’t (because it didn’t know but should have) about another parole violator set free by a Townsville jury, only to kill again. This raises again the question of what juries should be allowed to know about an accused. And why seasoned sub-editors are vital to a real community-minded newspaper.
And we have our share of bizzaro doings this week … yes, yes, the usual from American politics, but the real doozy is the cunning plan to get rid of the feral goats on Pelorus Island … well, we want to be the innovative country don’t we? Why not ‘suicide dingos’?
The CIA Would Be Proud
It is this ‘getting your goat’ story that has activated the imaginations of the world’s media, summoning up images of Bay Of Pigs wacky intrigue and elements of Henry Lawson’s The Loaded Dog.
In summary, as the ABC reports, the Hinchinbrook Council has authorized the importation of dingoes onto (humanly) uninhabited Pelorus Island off Lucinda, to knock off the feral goat population, who are contentedly munching through rare rainforest.
But an ‘only in North Queensland’ element is the eye-popper. None of the usual ‘well done, oh good and faithful servant, here’s a mutton chop for you’ for these canine cleansers … each dog has been embedded with a poisoned capsule which is timed to automatically trigger after two years, sending it’s carrier to permanent Dingo Disneyland.
You couldn’t have made it up, and for once, the Astonisher didn’t have to. And the plan remains on track, despite the unsurprising more-than-slight bladder leakage from the usual suspects. But Bentley knows that goats are social creatures, and like all unsuspecting goats, believe in the benefit of the doubt … Bentley doesn’t think they’re too fussed about a few newcomers to their island paradise.
Meanwhile, In What Is Left Of America …
Those who whinged about an eight-week election campaign here would never cut the political mustard in America … a year has passed and we know now only who will be the candidates for President … The Trumpet v The Clint. And now we face four months of this now almost tedious circus.
The ‘Pie reckons the real fun is going to be watching the various gals on either side standing by the their man or woman. Michelle Obama has been had her speeches plagiarized by the Trumpet’s strumpet Melania. There’s already some great side play.
And if you thought this would make you want a wire brush for your eyes …
… you’ll probably want to sprinkle some hydrochloric acid on it after this.
Larry Pickering, what did you start with those calendars all those years ago?
Its More Serious Back On The Local Scene
The Rachel Antonio saga reached another milestone during the week, when a coroner was of the opinion that Rachel was killed by her boyfriend at the time, Robert Hytch, who has already been acquitted of her murder by a trial jury. The details have had mass media coverage, but one sidelight you won’t be seeing in the Townsville Bulletin was brought to The ‘Pie’s attention by a totally trusted source.
During a TV interview, Rachel’s father Ian Antonio told the reporter that the Townsville Bulletin had made their lives hell. The verbatim quote, which A Current Affair apparently chose not to run was ’The Townsville Bulletin is shit. What did they do to us? I can’t tell you on TV, but they’ve got a lot to answer for’.
The ‘Pie’s trusted informant was unable to give any background on the comment, but the bad blood is nothing new. After a previous hearing, Ian Antonio attacked and punched Bulletin photographer Scott Radford Chisholm several times before being pulled away. The reason for this week’s comment and that previous physical outburst has never been explained. And you sure won’t hear about it from the paper. You’re only hope of getting that side of the story would be if Ian Antonio feels strongly enough to reveal his grievance to an independent blogger. Yes, like The Magpie.
A Grim Tale Of The Law Becoming A Deadly Ass
About the time in the late 90s when Rachel Antonio disappeared, there was a criminal trial holding Townsville’s attention.
Two decades ago, drifter Paul Banbery was charged with the rape and attempted murder of a woman he dragged under the Denham Street bridge, bashed with a brick and raped. But the jury was hampered by the laws governing what information a jury may know about an accused’s past, and in the end, decided there wasn’t the solid evidence to convict. So he was acquitted.
But Banbery never made it out of the court complex to undeserved freedom … South Australian police were waiting to arrest him as a parole breaker who had illegally left SA after serving time for an almost identical offence. This was, and remains, a devastating revelation for several jury members. And it can only get worse.
In 2014, the same Paul Banbery, who has spent most of his 54 years in prison for various violent sexual offences, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his landlady and burying her body in bushland outside Kalgoorlie.
The Townsville trial raised many questions about information available to a jury (and it must be said here that defence counsel simply did their job within the rules, no responsibility can be levelled at them – in fact, in legal terms, they did exactly what was required of them).
The established argument is that a person should be tried solely on the charged offence(s) and his/her antecedents should not colour a jury’s deliberations. But perhaps it could be argued for a change in the law for those who commit their crime while on parole, particularly if it is for a similar offence. A clear propensity for a particular type of offending could be considered. An already convicted wrong doer must surely sacrifice some rights otherwise afforded someone with a hitherto clean record. After all, they changed the law on double jeopardy (being tried more than once for the same crime), so moving forward is not impossible.
If the rules had been different, at least one woman would be alive to today.
Is Parole Too Easy?
And indeed, if a sorely needed review of not just the parole rules, but those who administer them had been undertaken as called for several years now, the tragic events at Wulguru during the week may not have happened. There is the persistent and justified belief that the desire for rehabilitation overcomes reality all too often in parole hearings, so if evidentiary rules should be broadened, parole rules should be tightened markedly. And perhaps more practical people on parole boards.
And Sub-Editors Aren’t Just About Grammar And Spelling
The ‘Pie cannot find any record of the Bulletin reporting the Banbery matter last year, despite its much boasted ‘national and global coverage’. But the matter, linked as it was to a prolonged and heated local debate at the time, should have been reported in Townsville. And would have been, if a solid local sub-editors bench had been maintained, backing up the Chief of Staff. Subs retain the knowledge, almost the folklore of a community, an invaluable store of local knowledge and memory which was, and at a stroke (by that asinine boofhead Michael Wilkins, the Ogre of Ogden Street) wiped out on a financial whim in favour of money-pinching ‘centralized subbing’. A shining example of journalistic vandalism at its worst.
This is but one example of how News Corpse holds this community in contempt, seeing it as no more than a cash cow.
But to end on a less weighty note …
Was Caitlin Jenner An Organ Donor?
The Limpicks are upon us, with all the attendant furor about drugs and Russia …
