Director of Public Prosecutions

I've got this fantastic quote from the High Court, of course, in a case called Kozyrov and Victoria 2022.

Ms. Kozyrov was a prosecutor in Victoria with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and she was assigned to the Sexual Offenders Prosecution Division.

And she ended up suffering some vicarious trauma as a consequence of the exposure to that work.

And she ended up suing the state.

And there is one further clause.

The director of public prosecutions may grant an informant indemnity from prosecution, which means immunity from being charged over what they come forward and say.

Put those two provisions side by side, and you can see exactly who this is aimed at.

It is aimed at somebody who was there, or who was told at the time, or potentially someone who helped afterwards, who has spent 50 years of not saying so.

Interestingly enough, uh, Ben Carroll is now saying he's gonna back it, he's gonna give it more money, but the e- end of the day is will anyone be charged? And, uh, appointing a special prosecutor, we've had special prosecutors in the past, and, uh, charges weren't laid.

'Cause the end of the day, does it still has, have to go before the Director of Public Prosecutions here in Victoria? Um, time will tell, but, uh, end of the day it's all about accountability.

Accountability for our public funds.

Okay.

Now, that's one part of the proceedings this week.

The other part is that while she's fighting to overturn her convictions, the Director of Public Prosecutions is mounting their own appeal against her sentence.

So you may remember Last September, she was given life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years.

And there was a lot of chatter about whether that was strict enough.

And was there anything else that the prosecution raised?

Yeah, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kassane, who has been leading the appeal from the prosecution side the last two days, he had some really good quotes when talking about the seriousness of Erin's offending.

And these comments were made in the context of him saying that she should not have a non-parole period at all.

And he said today, and this is a direct quote, this was offending of the utmost cruelty involving enormous betrayal.

She's enlisted Richard Edney and Veronica Drago.

And on the prosecution side, we actually had the Director of Public Prosecutions today himself, Brendan Kissane, leading the team, and then he was joined by Jeremy McWilliams, who was actually the prosecutor in the Tom Silvani trial, which was a big case here in Victoria.

And as you said on last episode, Erin did not appear in court today in person.

She appeared via video link.

Communication in the way it's set out in the law in relation to this, you know, what we're dealing with here, is talking or direct communication, not just simply seeing someone from meters away.

Um, so they were very quick t- to shut this down.

Mr. Cassane for the prosecution, the Director of Public Prosecutions, he said that this ground should fail.

Yeah, it did seem like a bit of a stretch, I think.

It was, uh, they want it overturned, or she wants it overturned.

The other is the Director of Public Prosecutions fighting the sentence imposed, so they want it to be tougher.

That's the short of that.

Erin Patterson's defense will argue a substantial miscarriage of justice occurred during her trial.