A former federal court judge, a one-time darling of the left, is in jail over lying to get out of a $75 speeding fine.
Considerable taxpayer resources were devoted to investigating Marcus Einfeld over the matter. And fair enough too, the community expects very high standards from judges, even former judges.
We certainly expect them not to lie to the authorities, whether under oath or otherwise.
But as serious as Einfeld’s error of judgment was, his sentence of a minimum two years imprisonment seems motivated principally by a desire to please an angry mob of people who pay their speeding tickets and parking fines without resorting to lying.
The sentence in our view is grossly excessive for his victimless crime, reflected perhaps in the salivating Police officer – NSW Fraud Squad boss Colin Dyson – who did a rather gleeful doorstop outside the court. Nailing a judge, particularly a bleeding heart lefty one was no doubt a delicious moment for the cop. He savoured it in a gloating way we thought rather unbecoming of a Police officer, but his joy left us wondering whether justice was actually done. If he thought the sentence was right then it was probably at the outskirts of the range.
If judges are going to give unpopular defendants tougher penalties to appease the mob then we might as well dispense with them and let sentencing be handled by Australian Idol style SMS balloting.
Before you summon up the speeding fine rage that comes from paying thousands of dollars and losing precious points and scoff at our suggestion, consider another person recently sentenced to a minimum of two years in jail.
TWO YEARS FOR HUBBY KILLER
A Victorian woman, Margaret Uttley, who killed her husband, Stephen. She claimed her husband was a violent, gun-wielding drunk who woke her one night with a gun pointed at her. Stephen was also a bad Dad, the wife insisted, ignoring the kids at Christmas and birthday times. He was dead, of course, making it a little tough for him to defend himself against these claims.
She claimed shooting him was an accident. Despite that, the ABC reported:
The court heard she had told a friend if she could shoot her husband and get away with it, she would.
However, on Derryn Hinch’s show on 3AW this week, we heard people who knew Stephen Uttley well call in to protest vigorously over this characterisation of him. In any event, her lawyer Phillip Dunn didn’t run a battered spouse argument, they ran very successfully with self-defence. His sister said he didn’t think Stephen Uttley had a serious drinking problem at all and thought it was disgraceful his memory was being besmirched:
‘He was a quiet, gentle person. He was no angel, admittedly he did start to drink a lot more after Mum died, but he was nothing like they were making him out to be’.
“He was a lovely introverted person who did not deserve to die like that. It makes me absolutely sick to the stomach. He adored Margaret. She was his life, basically.
We don’t – and cannot – know the truth.
But what we do know is what she admitted to Police after they became suspicious, searched her premises and made their grisly find of the remains of Stephen Uttley.
Uttley shot her husband dead, burned his body to a crisp on a rubbish pile before burying him and later digging his four month old corpse and reburying him in a deeper grave. At all times the ghoul then lied – including lying to Police – about her husband’s whereabouts. She said he’d gone to the Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
And for seven years, she maintained this lie, deceiving authorities, their four children, friends and others.
Stephen’s sisters told the court the killing had a devastating effect on them:
“I will never have closure because I still don’t know what happened,”
Another said her brother’s killing would haunt her for all time:
“This is a despicable event which will now be in my mind for the rest of my life.”
And for all that she got two years jail.
The same sentence as Marcus Einfeld, whose crime had no victim but himself.
Ridiculous.
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