Tip offs from residents in the remote area of Dunedoo finally led to the capture of Gino and Mark Stocco. And along with the two fugitives, police found the body of 68 year old Rosario Cimone, caretaker of the leased property, in a shallow grave not far from the house. The two men were working on the property when an argument broke out. Cimone asked them to leave because he was worried they would bring unwanted police attention to his farm, and when they refused, they shot him twice in the stomach with a shotgun.
It's alleged that Mr Cimone, born in Italy, had connections to the Australian branch of the Calabrian Mafia and had a long history of cannabis cultivation offences. His leased Pinevale property is 13 kilometres off the main road and is so isolated, it doesn't even exist on Google maps. Mr Cinome was sentenced to four years prison for farming 14,000 cannabis plants and illegal possession of firearms in the 1980s and his son Phillip 35, was also convicted in 2013 of cultivating 1000 cannabis plants on a remote property near Bundarra.
Police think it's unlikely the Stoccos had any ties to Mr Cimone's Mafia connections because they were too unpredictable, never staying long in one place and always on the move. On Monday, when the pair were driving in the Goonoo State Forest, 60 kms west of Dunedoo, two forestry workers spotted the Landcruiser draped in lengths of hessian. They alerted police who found a set of tyre tracks leading directly to the farm.
On Tuesday, police met in Goulburn to plan their attack. On Wednesday, Gino and Mark Stocco were inside the house when heavily armed police told them to come outside with their hands up. When Gino refused to take his hands out of his pockets, he was forced to comply and got a black eye for his trouble.
The pair face 17 charges including murder. Until this case hit the headlines, we had no idea that the Calabrian Mafia is alive and well in Australia. I guess if nobody knows about it, police aren't under pressure to do something about it.
The principal of a primary school in Victoria suggested that Muslim children could walk out of assembly while the national anthem was sung. Yes, you might think this could never happen in Australia but it did.
And it wasn't the children's fault, it was this woman - Cheryl Irving - who is responsible for this nonsense. She pointed out that during the month of Muharram, Shi'a Muslims do not take part in joyous events such as listening to music or singing because it is a period of mourning.
So this ridiculous incident went something like this.
The school was gathered in the hall for assembly. When two children said 'welcome to our assembly' a teacher came forward and said that all those who felt it was against their culture to sing the anthem may leave the building. And they did - 35 to 40 pupils left, and after the national anthem was sung, they all came back again.
Apparently the school has the full backing of the Victorian Education System and if this is true, they need to be re-educated in how to teach Muslim children about Australia and not encourage the parallel culture of Islam that already flourishes in our society.
However, the Education Dept of NSW has a different view. "It is not acceptable for any student in a NSW public school to walk out during the anthem and disciplinary action would be taken against the student" a spokesman said.
Pintupi woman Yukultji
Napangarti displays a dead feral cat which was caught by the Kiwirrkurra
community. Last year the Central Desert Native Title Services introduced a
bounty for cats caught on Kiwirrkurra land to encourage the community to put
more effort into the hunt.
When Pintupi hunters from the Kiwirrkurra community in the Gibson Desert in central Australia catch a feral cat, they have two tasks. The first is to lop off a bit of the tail to give to Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS) in exchange for a $100 bounty.
The second is to cut out the stomach, which goes into a dedicated, rather stinky freezer to await the attentions of ecologist Rachel Paltridge, who sifts through the stomach contents in front of a crowd of interested locals on her regular visits to the community.
Paltridge is looking for clues for the cat’s distribution and hunting habits in the entrails, as well as any remnants of threatened species, such as the bilby.
“We don’t often find any bilbies in cat stomachs in central Australia but that partly reflects the low numbers of bilbies in the area – we’d have to be lucky to get the one cat that ate a bilby,” Paltridge told Guardian Australia.
“Other threatened species like the great desert skink we find a bit more. But I am sure that they are eating bilbies – at least the young ones.”
Pintupi and other central desert tribes have been hunting feral cats for their meat for generations, but handing over their stomachs for science is a relatively new step. The CDNTS introduced the bounty for cats caught on Kiwirrkurra traditional lands last year to encourage the community to put more effort into the hunt.
The small, extremely remote community near the Northern Territory border, about 1,200km east of Port Hedland and 850km west of Alice Springs, is one of a few communities where cat hunting is still actively practised.
The hope is that the bounty, which is just enough to cover petrol costs and some compensation for time, will help preserve the rapidly dying skill and provide scientists such as Paltridge with data on the population and eating habits of local feral cats.
In the first 18 months of the scheme, bounty has been claimed for 18 cats. Kate Crossing, a CDNTS land management officer, said that was a pretty good result.Cats are hard to catch, much harder than goanna and kangaroo, the other main bushfoods in the area, and are prized accordingly.
“Pintupi people see cats as a good food source and also as a medicinal food source,” Crossing told Guardian Australia. “A young man has recounted to me about how as a young fellow he was sick and his family went out and got a cat.”
Pintupi women Yukultji Napangarti and Christine Michaels hold up a dead feral cat.
Crossing said while most people from central desert tribes have memories of hunting and eating cat in years past, very few actively practise the skill today, which affects both cultural knowledge and land management.
“The two go hand in hand, being on country to do patch burns and walking around and hunting,” she said. “And that patch-burning is really good for the habitat of native species, particularly bilby.”
The community has applied for a $50,000 grant from the West Australian government to fund a four-month trial of monthly hunting trips to targeted areas within the 4.2m hectare Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area, including areas of known bilby habitat.
Crossing said the project would allow their “elite strike-force team”, a group of about a dozen highly skilled cat hunters, to work with ecologists to monitor and actively reduce cat predation on threatened species.
The grant would also allow Pintupi trackers to be trained in the use of western hunting techniques such as shooting, baiting, using detector dogs and rubber-lined leg traps. Paltridge said a similar project with the Nyirripi people over the border in the Northern Territory had shown that working with skilled Aboriginal trackers to lay cat traps significantly increased the success rate.
The use of baiting would be limited, however. The WA government released a new type of cat bait, using 1080 poison in a kangaroo-chicken sausage, in June, but it cannot be used in areas where Kiwirrkurra hunters might catch cats for bushmeat, or in areas with a high dingo population, because dingoes also prey on feral cats.
But Paltridge said that over a small area, strategic use of traditional hunting methods could be effective.
“We see this approach to threatened species conservation as an important alternative to relying on predator-proof fencing to protect rare wildlife,” she said.
A nine-year-old girl had wanted to go to her school disco but her father insisted she ride with him on his new dune buggy before it rolled over and killer her, a court has heard.
Crown prosecutor Andrew Tinney, SC, told the County Court on Monday that Ricky Stephens, 40, had just bought the buggy and wanted to take it for a drive around a paddock near his Yarra Glen property.
Stephens, who had never before driven a buggy or anything similar, took his daughter, Sophie, 9, and stepson, Cameron, 11, for a drive on the left-hand drive Arctic Cat Wildcat 4WD all-terrain vehicle fitted with driver and passenger bucket seats.
Sophie was seated unrestrained between her father's legs when he attempted to do a burnout, lost control and the buggy rolled over just before 6pm on September 6, 2013.
Sophie was thrown from the buggy and struck by the vehicle as it rolled. She died at the scene while Cameron suffered minor injuries.
When police arrived, Stephens, who pleaded guilty to one count of dangerous driving causing death and one count of reckless conduct endangering life, was calling out, "what have I done? What have I done?"
In an interview at Lilydale police station, Stephens told police he and the children had been "pretty eager" to get out and take the buggy for a drive.
He said he was driving over a mound of dirt and "I went to just give it a bit of a bucketful to make it spin out a little bit and as it done that, it just bit into the grass and just went into like a slow motion flip over".
Stephens told police no-one was wearing a helmet even though he was usually very strict about that sort of thing. "I just let my guard down tonight," Stephens said.
When asked if there was a reason he didn't think about seatbelts on the night, Stephens said he was eager to start driving and the decision would cost him for the rest of his life.
He told police the children were "laughing and just having a wow of a time".
Questioned as to why he had performed multiple burnouts, he said, "just because the kids were excited". He was estimated to have been driving at 34km/h when the buggy rolled over.
In an emotional victim impact statement read to the court, Sophie's mother, Tanya Exton, said her daughter had been the couple's "miracle" baby after being born three months premature and she had grown up to be a gorgeous young lady.
Ms Exton said Sophie had wanted to go to her school disco that night but Stephens insisted she stay with him because riding on the buggy would be more fun.
She said the image of Sophie's tiny lifeless body lying next to the buggy towering over her after the accident was something she saw every time she closed her eyes.
Ms Exton said Stephens, whom she married in 2006 before they separated six weeks later, had had just one job to do and that was the make sure his daughter was safe.
Defence barrister George Georgiou, SC, told the court Stephens did not intend to kill his daughter but accepted full responsibility for her death.
Mr Georgiou said Stephens had been seeing a "spiritual reader" to help him deal with his grief, his profound remorse and feelings of guilt.
Father and son Gino and Mark Stucco have been on the run from Queensland and NSW police for eight years. But when they shot at two highway cops during a high speed chase near Wagga on 16 October and rammed a police car last Thursday, the game changed and police suddenly got serious. Gino 57 and Mark 35 used a high pressure petrol pump, usually reserved for trucks, to steal $200 worth of fuel before heading south on the Hume Highway. Their stolen 2013 white Toyota Landcruiser has a 180 litre fuel tank with the capacity to travel 800 kms between refills.
Police have conceded they could be anywhere within an 800 kms radius of Gundagai. Gundagai service station owner Kieran Pearce said the locals are disgusted with the way police have handled the manhunt. "I think they are concerned about why they haven't been caught" he said. "It's sort of perplexing to see how they just blatantly drive around on main highways and not be caught." The Stoccos are wanted for a number of crimes and property offences in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
Not only have father and son been on the run for eight years, police had them in their sights and let them go.
On a lonely stretch of road outside Mangoplah, two Wagga highway patrol cops notice a suspicious number plate on a silver Nissan Navara and motion it to pull over. It doesn't stop and a high speed chase follows. Unaware that Gino and Mark Stucco are inside, the two officers are shocked when suddenly the passenger starts firing multiple rounds into their car. So what did they do? They abandoned the chase and let them go. 'Our police force is useless, they had them in their sights and let them go' the media said. Others believe police did the right thing - by abandoning the chase, they put the lives of the officers and innocent motorists first. It's easy to pontificate on what the officers should have done but surely they have the right to practice caution when their lives are threatened. Australians don't carry guns in their cars so this would have been a very rare experience for the two officers. Oct 16 Gino and Mark Stucco shoot at police in Wagga Wagga. Oct 18 Steal a Toyota Landcruiser with NSW plates Oct 19 Refuel at petrol station at Euroa Oct 20 Steal 3 sets of number plates in Tumbarumba Oct 21 Seen entering a supermarket in Bairnsdale Oct 22 Ram a police car near St James Oct 24 Stole $200 worth of fuel at South Gundagai There are other offences including stealing the identities of family and friends and a priest to defraud $20,000 to fund a three year cruise around Australia's east coast. When Gino's marriage ended, they bought a yacht with his $100,000 divorce settlement. And the hunt continues.
Yesterday in a remote community of Yuendumu, Teddy Jangala Egan's family was posthumously awarded the Northern Territory Police Force's highest bravery award, the Valour Medal.
Tedddy Egan is the first indigenous recipient of the medal that rewards extraordinary bravery in perilous circumstances and has been conferred on only 13 police officers since 1998. About Teddy Egan Tracker Teddy Egan Jangala skills
have been used by Police in Central Australia on a number of occasions to track
offenders.
Teddy is famed for the legendary capture of Billy Benn in 1967. On 5 August, Benn ran into the bush after shooting a man at Harts Range. The next day, Sergeant Len Cossins of Alice Springs and Lake Nash Constable Blake Jobberns were wounded after being shot by Benn while searching a nearby range. On the grounds of insanity, Billy Benn was eventually acquitted of the murder charges and went on to become a famous Aboriginal artist, one of our finest.
Although
many of his family were trackers, Teddys mother taught him the skills. He said
tracking a human being was easier than tracking kangaroos, dingoes or
snakes. “People
make too much mess and end up sitting in the shade.”
The chase marked a milestone for Teddy - his first ride in a helicopter. “The wind was blowing too much,” laughed Teddy who was equipped with a feed of Kentucky Fried Chicken and water. “Once we left the ground it was alright.” Teddy’s account of the ride conflicts with one eye witness though. “He was holding onto anything he could, even his toes were curled,” said Acting Superintendent Rob Farmer.
After being released from prison, in a strange twist of fate, Egan and Benn became good friends. Teddy Egan died in 2011 and his friend died a year later.
In Broome, Western Australia, after beating his mother senseless, Mervyn Kenneth Douglas Bell took her 10 month old baby boy and assaulted him over a 15 hour period. The baby was bashed, tortured, raped, and burnt.
At his trial, the baby's mother, Tamica Anne Mullaley told the court that she went with Bell to his cousin's house where they were all drinking. An argument broke out and she left for a friend's house three doors down. When she returned a short time later, the group was still arguing and as she started walking back towards her friend's house, Bell hit her from behind.
He ripped her clothes off and bashed her as she lay naked in the street, then got into a car and tried to run her over before a neighbour arrived to stop him. She was taken to hospital with a ruptured spleen and kidneys, a fractured collarbone and broken ribs.
While she was in hospital, her father tried to collect the baby from a friend's house and when he arrived at the hospital to see her the next morning, he told her the baby was missing. Not long after, police arrived and told her the baby was found and taken to Karratha Hospital but died from his injuries.
Bell received a life sentence for the murder and five years for the assault on Mullaley but killed himself in his cell in September.
Yesterday the baby's mother Mullaley faced court for kicking and spitting at police but received a suspended sentence from Magistrate Stephen Sharratt.
"What happened to her made a great deal of difference to the way she reacted to police. Those wounds would have killed her without medical intervention" he said. "She's gone understandably awry... spent months in hospital....I just can't jail her for what she's gone through. If ever there was a time for a court to be merciful, it's this matter today."
Former Rugby League player Hazem el Masri, his ex-wife Arwa Abousamra and their three beautiful children were lauded as the perfect Muslim family. He was the gentleman of the NRL, the quiet family man who never got angry on the field or off it - ever. He was admired and respected by everyone and became an ambassador for White Ribbon, an organisation that campaigns to stop violence against women. But something went wrong and the family was split apart last year by divorce.
Yesterday we learned that 39 year old Masri will face court tomorrow charged with assaulting his new wife at his home in Bankstown on Monday night. Ex-wife Ms Abousamra immediately came to his defence and issued a statement to the media. "Hazem never as much as raised his voice to me, even in an argument. We separated two years ago but remain the best of friends." She said the thought of her ex-husband striking a woman was "incomprehensible" and that she had to be the primary disciplinarian of their three children because "he just didn't have the heart." "Hazem's respect for women is beyond reproach, as is his character" she said. In 2009, El Masri was named the inaugural Women in League's Favourite Son, awarded for being a role model to younger players and a person whose off-field characteristics "embody the true values of the Rugby League community." The NRL was quick to react to the shocking news and so was White Ribbon, both cutting him loose as Ambassador. Chief Executive Libby Davis said "White Ribbonis very disappointed to learn of the charges laid against former Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldog's player and former White RibbonAmbassador Hazem el Masri". And so say all of us.
This is the distressing story of three generations of children born into the depravity of incest and sexual abuse. Nobody knew they existed until authorities discovered the adults and children living like animals in an isolated camp in remote bushland not far from Canberra in NSW. They removed 12 children under the age of 16 and AVOs had to be taken out to stop the adults from physically trying to bring them back to camp after they were placed in foster care. Two sisters bought the property in 2009 and soon after, the rest of the family followed from interstate. The younger children were enrolled in a small bush school with remedial teachers, and the others in high school. Apart from Centrelink benefits, two men worked as labourers for the local council and sometimes sold firewood. But as time went on, the children's attendance at school dropped off and their starved appearance and filthy clothes caused teachers and the local bus driver to contact Social Services. But it took two years for them to act and in June 2012, the authorities were sickened beyond belief when they arrived unannounced at the squalid camp - a row of ramshackle tents, sheds and caravans, with no toilets, showers, electricity or running water. The children had never used toilet paper and didn't know how to use a toothbrush. After the children were removed, the truth about what went on emerged and it was shocking - intergenerational incest and child sexual abuse involving children as young as five. Away from their families, the children began showing inappropriate sexual behaviour and told carers they had engaged in sexual acts with each other and watched adults having sex on the farm every day. Brothers had sex with sisters, uncles with nieces, and fathers with daughters.
Genetic testing revealed that all but one of the 12 children removed had parents who were closely related. According to court records, the Colt grandparents - Tim and June - married in New Zealand in 1966 and came to South Australia during the 1970s with their six children. June Colt was born to parents who were brother and sister. Betty Colt slept in the marital bed with her brother and the children were encouraged to copulate with each other and with adults. Some were intellectually and physically impaired, couldn't speak properly, covered in sores and racked with disease. The children also mutilated the genitals of animals. Three of the daughters, Rhonda 47, Betty 46 and Martha 33 and at least one of the sons Charlie, formed the elder members of the family group in the bush camp. Betty had 13 children. Now Betty Colt (not her real name) who came to Australia as a child, is being held in Villawood Detention Centre, awaiting deportation back to New Zealand. In November 2014, she was found guilty of plotting to remove a child from foster care and of recruiting her other child to assist in the kidnapping. She was sentenced to one year in prison. Under the new law, Australia will deport convicted criminals who serve 12 months in prison. There is debate as to whether deporting our cousins across the ditch who have spent most of their lives in Australia is fair and ethical, but unless Betty wins her appeal, she's going home.
The Australian Health Services Union (HSU) sued Kathy Jackson in the Federal court for setting up a slush fund using union money to live a life of luxury. They accused the former HSU secretary of using union funds for holidays, jewellery, entertainment, artworks and making cash withdrawals whenever she felt like it. It was also alleged she stole up to $100,000 to fund her divorce from former union figure Jeff Jackson. In August 2015, the Federal Court found her guilty and ordered her to pay $1.4 million in compensation to the union for misappropriated funds. And then she did something that made her look guilty - she filed for bankruptcy just before the trial began and chose not to attend. This is the woman who sent former union boss Michael Williamson to prison and had Labor MP Craig Thomson kicked out of Parliament for using his union credit card for prostitutes. And now she's been found guilty of dipping into union funds herself. So if she knew she was guilty, why did she do it? At one stage Kathy Jackson was a hero, but now she's nobody's friend, a thief in the eyes of the public and hated by her former union colleagues. When she found a dirt-covered shovel on her doorstep at 3 am one morning - a message from her union that meant "we are going to bury you" - she refused to give up and bravely kept going. And it's not over for Kathy Jackson yet, she's appealing the $1.4 million civil finding against her and there is a criminal investigation underway that could lead to more trouble, so she's probably asking herself if it was worth it. Yes it was worth it. The good old days when union bosses had the power to rip off members is over, thanks to Kathy Jackson. No longer will they be able to help themselves to union funds, they've fixed it so it can never happen again.
Simon binner 57, who is suffering from motor neurone disease, plans to end his life this coming Monday, 19 October 2015 at the Eternal Spirit Clinic in Basel, Switzerland. Mr Binner who lives in Surrey says he is forced into this brutal pre-planned death because of the UK's cruel law against assisted suicide.
On his LinkedIn page he writes "I was diagnosed with aggressive motor neurone disease (MND) on 7 January 2015 and as I was driving home, I decided what I would gladly have to do when my time was upon me."
He describes how his MND accelerated very rapidly. The doctors thought he would last until 2018, but they were wrong.
He would love to postpone his trip until after Christmas but time is running out - he must go while he is able to walk unaided onto a plane. His 85 year old mother will also be on that plane with the rest of the family.
Being diagnosed with MND would be devastating as it is one of the cruellest ailments suffered by man. It's a rare, progressive and debilitating disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord. In time it will lead to weakness and muscle wasting and affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.
Yet our governments still persist in denying us the right to end our own lives, even with extreme examples like this.
