Optimising the inquiry into child sex abuse

Police

Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who forced the inquiry, can advise on which NSW police it might be unwise to use as investigators. Likewise former Federal Police officer Ross Fusca. He has said he was offered an inducement to make an investigation into Wheat Board bribes of $300 million to Saddam Hussein "go away".

Special Prosecutor

Alan Dershowitz, a US lawyer, said judges and lawyers know that "almost all" accused are guilty. The adversary system convicts fewer than 50% of guilty defendants. (The French and German inquisitorial systems convict 95% of guilty defendants.)

Some sex crime victims (and taxpayers) will thus also be victims of the adversary system when trials are held. The figures suggest that a Special Prosecutor will get the best possible results.

Justice Phil Woodward's inquiry into the assassination of Donald Mackay revealed the truth about the Griffith Mob. A Special Prosecutor was not appointed; no mobsters were charged); the conviction rate was zero.

ICAC lacks a Special Prosecutor. In its first six years, ICAC recommended corruption charges against 208 people; 63 were convicted. Conviction rate: 30.2%

The Fitzgerald inquiry had a Special Prosecutor, The Hon (as he later became) Doug Drummond QC, His office ran from 1989 to 1994. Charged: 238; convicted: 148; conviction rate: 62%.

Drummond told me last year: "The total costs [of the Special Prosecutor's office] were $19,098,730, not including the salaries paid to the police officers seconded to the special prosecutor's office."

A Special Prosecutor should be appointed immediately to work in parallel with the inquiry.

The bad news is that some states have given accused a choice of trial by (untrained) judge alone, or trial by jury.

Lawyers will presumably advise pedophile suspects to opt for judge alone. Janet Fife-Yeomansreported (The Australian, 27 August 1994): "Figures from the NSW District Court show that the jury convicted in half the cases while the judge, when hearing a case alone, convicted in only a quarter."