Victims

Many of us wouldn’t know about the Right to Silence - a good thing. It’s only when you experience a criminal trial, either as the victim or the accused, that you will be exposed to this part of our justice system which provides the accused with, amongst other things, the right to not take the stand throughout their trial.


It’s a shock for most victims, who by the way, are not afforded this luxury, as they enter the courtroom seeking answers which often will not come.

More than 750,000 matters are initiated within the court system each year, with the vast majority (85%) resulting in guilty pleas and immediate sentencing.  But there are some crimes that have spectacularly low plead rates, and arguably are those cases where victims are most vulnerable. 

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  • St. Michael says:

    06:58pm | 24/08/12

    Again, Jonty, you keep forgetting something that years of watching criminal trials and presumably years of judges’ and lawyers’ addresses to juries should have taught you: the person is not on trial, the accusation against them is.  The person on trial is presumed innocent.  Only the most twisted logic turns… Read more »

  • St. Michael says:

    06:53pm | 24/08/12

    @ Jonty: “If the person is innocent, there should be nothing to fear…” Oh dear.  You were doing so well until you said that. Read more »

 

One day at a time is how the Huxley family coped after Lauren (centre) was bashed. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

Bashings, killings, rapes, shootings, stabbings, and murders – we hear about them every day, with alarming frequency.

Crime is so much part of our lives that the horrifying detail of them flits through our consciousness faster than it took me to type this sentence.

Rarely do we stop and think – properly – what these people, the victims of these terrifying stories, are actually going through.

We’re numb to their pain, and perhaps for good reason. But how do they do it?

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  • Rosalee says:

    01:41pm | 16/10/09

    Nina has taken hold of a negative event and created from that experience positive effects. Such action is heroic and should be treated with respect, not denigrated as some kind of ‘agenda’. Appropriating the problem of violence and translating the issue of violence into some kind of arena for comparing… Read more »

  • Rob says:

    05:57pm | 03/07/09

    You didn’t object to Nina’s agenda-pushing comment, Caili. I suspect you may have an agenda of your own. Read more »

 

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