VBN 145 Spring.5.indd - Victorian Bar

Cairns Villeneuve-Smith QC as counsel
assisting Barry Beach QC on the Board of
Inquiry into allegations against members
of the Victoria Police. Your close textual
analysis found and exposed the repetition
of particular phrases in confessions
claimed by a particular police officer to
have been made to him. Numerous and
disparate people accused of different
armed robberies each confessed, saying
that, on being seen in the robbery: ‘I took
off with the speed of a thousand gazelles.’
And later each said to the same officer:
‘Gee officer, you know I done it, but I can’t
say so.’
Nearly ten years later, as DPP, and
through the reports of your Consultative
Committee, you, in a way, completed the
work you’d begun in the Beach Inquiry. As
we’ve heard, this class of verballing was
addressed by mandating the recording of
police interviews in indictable matters. So
intense was police feeling about the Beach
Inquiry that a Law Institute, Bar and
Police Liaison Committee was established
to work on de-fusing the situation.
The Committee’s first social function
was a dinner at the restaurant at Russell
Street police headquarters. Striving to
ensure the success of the evening, the
Committee selected the most humorous
and entertaining after-dinner speaker it
knew. At the dinner, upon your being
introduced, the Police Association representatives,
en masse, got up and very noisily
walked out of the dinner. They missed a
brilliant speech.
In 1977, you accepted Frank Vincent’s
invitation to join him in going to Alice
Springs to represent Aboriginal defendants
there. From vilification by police here,
you went to vilification by the press in the
Territory over the Hucketter case. Your
instructing solicitor, Pam Ditton, was
evicted from her flat when the landlord
discovered she was instructing you.
For weeks at a time, you went up to the
Territory in what you described as a ‘time
of very great racial prejudice’ to the ‘culture-shock’
of ‘Australians being treated,
and living in the conditions that Aboriginal
people experienced in Alice Springs
and surrounding areas in 1977’. In 1982,
you went full-time as Director of Legal
Services for the Central Land Council, and
took your family. Your friend, Frank Vincent,
spelled out the risk to your professional
future. This was not the time to go
away – on the verge of being a credible
applicant for Silk. Others at the Bar said it
was madness. You went anyway, and for
more than two years.
You said you saw the trial work you had
been doing as ‘band-aiding’. And went on,
and I quote: ‘The people really needed
to get the land back, to get that sense of
identity and self-esteem, and to get … an
economic base from which they could
properly decide their role in society.’
There’s a great article by your successor
at the Central Land Council, Bruce Donald,
on the work of so many who worked to
bring about the grant of freehold title of
Uluru to its traditional Aboriginal owners.
There are many Victorians, including:
Geoff Eames, Ross Howie, Mark Hird, the
late Ron Castan QC and, of course, you.
Your Honour sat with distinction on
many occasions on the Full Court. The
former Chief Justice Phillips recalls that
the first sitting with him on the Full Court
was not with as much dignity as others.
The dark prince
Is Hamlet paralysed by indecision?
Or, as one critic suggests,
is he just an angry young dickhead?
To be sure, his soul is finely calibrated.
Yeah, he is purposeful too.
But, for ****’s sake,
why won’t he do something about it?
NIGEL LEICHARDT
Mr Justice Marks, who suffered from
back pain, had overseen the installation
of ergonomic, whiz-bang, gas-fired Bench
chairs.
During the hearing of the appeal, your
chair sprang a leak and started deflating
and you started descending from view. It
is not said whether your descent was God’s
answer to prayers of counsel appearing, to
whom you were asking pointed questions
at the time but the Chief Justice says he
fought off the ignoble impulse to let events
take their course, and called the fastest
adjournment of all time, thus preserving
your judicial dignity. Well that it should
happen to your Honour, because you have
never eschewed a little bit of drama.
On behalf of the Victorian Bar, I wish
you and your wife, Karin, all the very best
in your retirement. We hope to see a lot
more of you at the Essoign.
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16 VICTORIAN BAR NEWS Spring 2008