I thought our legal system was bad enough, but Australia’s appears even worse – particularly if you come from, say, Taiwan.
Meghan Hopper is the daughter of a prominent local businessman in Queensland. She was arseing about with her iPhone (apparently using Google Maps) when she slammed into Taiwanese fruit-pickers Chen-Chuan Yang and Kwan-Jun Wu. Yang was killed, and Wu severely injured. Hopper said she did not see either of the innocent parties. She was 17-years old and driving on P plates at the time.
Laughably, Hopper was awarded a 30-month suspended sentence for all this.
The sentence was considered to be too lenient by the Attorney-General (AG) and it was appealed. The AG said:
I appealed the sentence of Ms Hopper because I felt her sentence was manifestly inadequate,
I note the Court of Appeal agreed that ordinarily this offence would demand a sentence of imprisonment.
Incredibly, the appeal was lost and the court ruled that the original sentence would stand. The AG subsequently added:
Even so, the court [of appeal] did not hand down a prison sentence and I must respect its decision.
He also added that he had no further avenue of appeal.
To make matters worse, a “respected” former traffic cop has waded in. I’ve put the word “respected” in inverted commas because Garry Church, the person referred to, is a long-time friend of Hopper’s uncle. So obviously he is TOTALLY unbiased on the subject. He is also completely devoid of any logic, and you can only offer thanks to whatever God you believe in that you never had someone like this working against you. He says:
“I don’t by any means condone what Meghan has done in taking a life and seriously injuring another, and I certainly don’t condone the second incident where she was caught using a mobile in the Brisbane area.
“Having a driving licence means you take a big responsibility when entering our road for yourself and other road users and this responsibility shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
But he said he did not believe sending a young person for jail was warranted in this case as it did not involve speed, alcohol or any deliberate act.
Have you ever heard such complete bollocks in your life? In the UK, what Hopper did would have got her sent away for up to 14 years (though being a woman, our Courts would probably have gone for a sentence way down at the lower end).
And it gets even worse. Five months after her spoilt brat attitude killed Yang, she was stopped in Brisbane by police after she was caught using her mobile phone while driving.
The Appeal Court totally ignored that detail, or the fact that she clearly hadn’t learned any sort of lesson. Her well-to-do family hired a lawyer who – at the original trial:
…put in a sterling performance and kept the teen out of the big house.
His address was professional and impeccable.
He told the court Hopper had “found religion” since the incident. Looks like she forgot it again when she was driving around Brisbane.
The stupidity doesn’t stop there. At the appeal:
The Queensland Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed Mr Bleijie’s [the AG] appeal despite all three justices agreeing the sentence was manifestly inadequate.
Two of them exercised their discretion not to interfere based on Hopper’s rehabilitation attempts and psychologist visits since sentence.
The Aussie judges are on a more distant planet than UK ones, it seems. How can you agree that the sentence is inadequate, then turn down an appeal to have it sharpened?
Justice Hugh Fraser said new evidence showed Hopper had benefited from not having a custodial sentence.
Yes, and she showed what benefit that was 5 months later when she was caught using a phone at the wheel of her car. Again.
Apparently, there are over 7,000 other people serving jail terms in Australia for lesser crimes than this. It is worth reading that whole article just to get a handle on how stupid the Australian legal system appears to be, especially over this affair.
Let’s just go into theoretical territory a moment. Nothing to do with Hopper or her wealthy family with it’s obvious connections to the local police force, you understand. You can imagine how – if you had the right connections, and if the courts were corrupt enough to respond to such connections – you could put sufficient pressure on them to get an ultra-soft sentence for a crime which would ordinarily warrant a much harsher outcome. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
One thing we can conclude with some confidence. The life of a Taiwanese fruit-picker is worth a lot less than that of a dumb and spoilt little Australian rich girl as far as this Australian court is concerned. I wonder if they’d have behaved as leniently if it had been a Taiwanese fruit-picker who had slammed into Meghan Hopper? I doubt it.