Yeah.

And, and knowing, knowing that, you know, "Oh, everyone's gonna be talking about me as a potential rapist," yeah, that will impact your mental health.

But that doesn't, in my view, ma- justify the making of a suppression order.

Now, the big concern for me is not just the number of these, right? Like, that's an issue.

But okay, let's just imagine every one is legitimate.

Part of my problem is- We have to fight these suppression orders with our hands tied be- behind our back.

And what I mean by that is if you're talking about safety, um, "Your Honor, my client's, um, at risk, um, of, uh, uh, from, um, the defendant in another case.

Mm.

Yeah.

And, and knowing, knowing that, you know, "Oh, everyone's gonna be talking about me as a potential rapist," yeah, that will impact your mental health.

But that doesn't, in my view, ma- justify the making of a suppression order.

Now, the big concern for me is not just the number of these, right? Like, that's an issue.

But okay, let's just imagine every one is legitimate.

Part of my problem is- We have to fight these suppression orders with our hands tied be- behind our back.

And what I mean by that is if you're talking about safety, "Um, Your Honor, my client's, um, at risk, um, of, uh, from, um, the defendant in another case.

Mm.

Justin, if I'm in my home asleep at night and I have my two infant children in the house and a person breaks into my house with a machete, am I allowed to shoot him?

Short answer is yes.

And, Ross, by the way, can you do me a favour and always remind me to not go over to Ross's house unannounced ever, ever.

But short answer is, Ross, yes, you can.

What is, I think, being proposed here is this sort of move to what's called Castle Law.

And it's not that much different.

There's a few nuances, though.

And if castle law is ever enacted, it ain't ever going to be unenacted, is it? No party is going to go to an election with a promise to get rid of castle law.

Is that a, is that a defense against a serious crime like rape?

Well, no, it's not, whether you're in Canberra, Port Macquarie, Noosa, wherever it is, uh, ignorance is, is no defense.

But here, just keep in mind, he pleaded guilty, so it's no defense.

That is, uh, it, it doesn't go to your guilt or innocence.

But it is, it is a relevant factor when you consider then sentencing once someone's been found guilty.

So yeah, that, that's the, the, the distinction here.

Now, one thing I've gotta say though, I don't know that there's too many society...

I mean, do, do we honestly think that 12-year-olds don't know right from wrong?

Is that a, is that a defense against a serious crime like rape?

Well, no, it's not.

Whether you're in Canberra, Port Macquarie, Noosa, wherever it is, uh, ignorance is, is no defense.

But here, just keep in mind, he pleaded guilty.

So it's no defense.

That is, uh, it, it doesn't go to your guilt or innocence.

But it is, it is a relevant factor when you consider then sentencing once someone's been found guilty.

I mean, do, do we honestly think that twelve-year-olds don't know right from wrong?

Uh, is that fair that the lawyers get $37.5 million?

Gee, it does, uh, it does sound a bit tough, doesn't it? And, uh, as you say, it probably doesn't, uh, really pass the pub test.

Um, as, uh, as you just said there, as usual, the lawyers always win.

I'm certainly not, uh, here to, uh, sort of, uh, defend the lawyers in this case.

I don't know much about the details of the case.

But these things, these class actions happen like this because, uh, in 2020 the law changed to allow contingency fees.

So lawyers can do no-win, no-fee, uh, type arrangements, and that means if there's a settlement or a win in court, the lawyers get an uplift.

Yeah.

But why are, in this case, convicted perpetrators getting to keep their name out of the media?

Yeah, well, they shouldn't be.

And of course, we, we're talking about two high-profile cases, but I can tell you there are dozens of them.

Uh, not just rape cases.

There's all sorts of, uh, defendants out there, uh, who have been able to, um, achieve anonymity through this, I say, loophole in the law.

And the way it's done, and I might say, um, Carr was for three years, I think Tom Silvani, uh, across, um, four different courts, the magistrates court, the county court, the Supreme Court, and even up into the court of appeal, and 12 different hearings with two barrister teams, um, managed to keep their names secret for, um, you know, a combined five years.

Three for Carr, two for Silvani.

What does reform look like? What needs to change, Justin Quill?

So is it being played too much, the so-called mental health card?

Oh, absolutely no question.

Like, no question.

I can't tell you how much is being played.

When this was brought in, in 2013, the Open Courts Act was passed.

The ironically named Open Courts Act was passed.

And it includes a provision for a judge to make a suppression order to protect a person's safety.

That is that the court would have a suppression order and then you were barred from reporting that the suppression order existed.

So is it being played too much, the so-called mental health card?

Oh, like, no, absolutely no question.

Like, no question.

I was like, I can't tell you how much has been played.

When this was brought in, in 2013, the Open Courts Act was passed, the ironically named Open Courts Act was passed, and it includes a provision for a judge to make a suppression order to protect a person's safety.

Now, of course, back in the gangland days, that was used to protect people informers who were at risk of being knocked off, and for good reason that power was included.

But no one, I was involved in the drafting at the time, and I can tell you, no one was thinking about safety.

That is that the court would have a suppression order and then you were barred from reporting that the suppression order existed.

Would you have a guess as to what range...

Yeah,

well,

first thing I should say is I agree with you on both the outrage and the upset by the community.

This is a culpable driving.

That's what he's been, he's been guilty to.

Culpable driving carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.

Now, the average, the average is between seven and a half to eight years for culpable driving.

So if the police rule no offence detected, is that enough to win a defamation case?

Well, not necessarily.

It's quite complicated.

And perhaps if I delve into the specifics of this particular case, I don't think there's any doubt that there was contact.

I think that's clear from the video from Matthew Guy, my redeeming.

So it would probably just turn on whether or not she believed there was force.

And one person's significant force is another person's light touch.

Get on with your life.

So if the police rule no offence detected, is that enough to win a defamation case?

Look, not necessarily.

It's quite complicated.

And perhaps if I delve into the specifics of this particular case, I don't think there's any doubt that there was contact.

I think that's clear from the video from Matthew Guy, my redeeming.

So it would probably just turn on whether or not she believed there was force.

And one person's significant force is another person's light touch.

Get on with your life.

So, so Justin, has the premier given, uh, given the public a reason as to why it's gonna be delayed for so long?

Uh, look, um, the reasons she gave were more, um, as I understand, I must say I wasn't at a press conference, but, um, I understand she focused more on why it's taken so long to get to here.

And that was really just, "Well, we needed a lot of time to think these things through." That was the, the crux of it.

So I'm not sure whether she has given a reason as to why they, they can't be implemented immediately.

I'm, I'm not sure.

The, I must say the changes themselves are good.

Uh, I, I think they're, they're important and, and this is part of the reason why I'm surprised it's taken so long to get to where we are because I think these are, um, frankly, fairly obvious changes.

I think, I think I know what that means, but can you help me understand what does that actually mean, follow the money?

Is the system officially broken?

Yeah, look, I guess, [laughs] I guess you could say that.

It's, uh, uh, once the clearance rates, um, uh, fall behind the, the number of new cases coming in, obviously it just gets worse and worse and worse and it, uh, it snowballs.

Uh, I mean, the, the, the big numbers were in the county court where I think in one year, December '24 to December '25, so fairly recent figures, uh, um, the, the figures blew out from 600 pending cases to over 3,000.

Um, now I, I don't know what it's gonna be December '25 to December '26.

That'sThat's a scary number

So Justin, this must mean a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of people because I'm imagining waiting to go to court could cause a lot of anxiety

Yeah.

Can you explain what happened today?

This all is, I guess you'd say, the culmination of almost a decade of him being in the headlines.

He first really hit the headlines in a big way, in this context, in August of 2018 when Channel 9 opposed an injunction, uh, application by him and got the right to report his name in the context of allegations that he had committed these war crimes and these murders in Afghanistan while in the SAS for Australia.

He sued straight away, and, uh, they filed a defense.

The trial was, uh, delayed because of COVID, or just about like everything, uh, else.

It ultimately started in, um, I think, uh, June or July of 2022, and it went for effectively two years.

Not the whole time, of course, but it was 110 days of sittings across 14 months.

There were five counts of alleged war crimes of murder.

Why are we the suppression state? Why do we have more suppression orders in this state than every other state combined?

Yeah, look, my theory is that it probably comes from something nearly 20 years ago when we had the gangland war and you had all sorts of cases crossing over against each other, drug cases, murder cases, corrupt police officers involved in some of these cases, and there was probably a need... for more suppression orders than normal.

And it got into the psyche.

I think barristers now ask their clients, you know, would you like a suppression order? I think it's almost part and parcel of the first interview a barrister has with it.

Now, you ask any person whether they're charged with murder, rape or drink driving, would you like your name in the paper or not in the paper? We all know what they're going to say.

And so I think then you get more applications for suppression orders, puts the judge in a tough position and Therefore, you get more suppression orders.

What are some of the reasons they are granted? What sort of justifications would a defence counsel have to make to convince a judge that a suppression order is warranted?

Yeah, well, putting this case aside, there's a whole stack of reasons.

Did you expect this verdict this afternoon based on the evidence that was presented over the course of the trial?

Look, I probably did, but I always thought it was going to be close.

And to be frank, the longer the deliberations went on, the more the chances that the jury were going to find reasonable doubt increased.

So, look, if they'd come back this afternoon and found not guilty, I wouldn't have fallen off my chair.

But I did think it was probably more likely than not they were going to find her guilty.

Unusual, Justin, that the Crown case wasn't able to put forward a clear-cut motive.

Yeah, I mean, there was hints around, you know, a bit of a dispute with the husband over, you know, childcare payments and the like, and there was some pretty basic criticism of the victims by Erin Patterson in some WhatsApp groups some months earlier.

That criticism was...