Gerard Baden-Clay's murder conviction downgraded

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal found there was not enough evidence to prove real estate agent Gerard Baden-Clay intended to kill his wife in 2012, and his murder conviction was downgraded from murder to manslaughter.

His lawyers told the court that he could have killed his wife unintentionally during an argument and in a panic, he removed her body, dumped it near a creek, and pretended to be the distraught husband.

And that is why the judges involved in this case should be removed.

Scratches he said were caused while shaving

Thankfully, Acting Attorney-General Cameron Dick said he will take legal advice on whether the decision should be challenged.

"I have requested legal advice about the prospects of success of an appeal against the decision" he said in a statement.  "Once that advice has been received and considered, a decision will be made as to whether an appeal should be lodged.

But Justice Fraser wrote in a statement.  "Smothering the Crown thesis was a reasonable possibility but while there was also another reasonable possibility available on the evidence, the jury could not possibly have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the element of intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm had been proved" he wrote.

We remember well how Bayden-Clay played the grieving husband and father for weeks, right up until he was charged, and when he said the scratches on his face were caused while shaving, nobody believed him.

Last year he was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 15 years but if this downgrading to manslaughter stands, he could be out in no time.

Queensland Law Society President Bill Potts said the Court of Appeal made the right decision, however unpopular it may be. 

"Whilst they found that the judge had not misdirected the jury, they found that the crown, the prosecution, the people who bring the charge, had not excluded the reasonable hypothesis that Mr Baden-Clay had not intended to kill his wife.

"The difficulty is this...even though he lied essentially through his teeth about very important matters, showed no remorse and in fact callous actions so far as his wife, notwithstanding all of that, the jury still have to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is no other reasonable hypotheses open."

".... This is not a court of popularity or of public opinion, it's a court of law, it's a court of justice" he said.  "The public can be well satisfied, whether they have a view as to his innocence or guilt...that our courts have looked at all of the facts and all of the evidence and have made a decision based on law, not on emotion."

Clever words indeed, but the public has already made up its mind which is unlikely to change - that this man is as guilty as sin and downgrading his crime from murder to manslaughter is an utter disgrace and a shocking miscarriage of justice.

Tiger Woods and ex-wife now best friends

It's taken six years but it looks like Tiger has succeeded in getting back into his ex-wife's good books and  now refers to Elin Nordegren as his 'best friend.'   He had a serious talk with his children about why mummy and daddy are no longer living together, telling them it was because he made some serious mistakes.

"I just wanted them to understand before they get to internet age and they log on to something or have their friends tell them something...I want it to come from me, so that when they come of age, I'll tell them the real story.  I was to blame, so I'm taking the initiative with the kids."

However, he said he wouldn't change what happened in 2009 when his 12 mistresses were revealed but wishes he had been more open with his Swedish ex-wife.  "Having the relationship I have now with her is fantastic, she's one of my best friends...we are able to pick up the phone and talk to each other all the time.  We both know that the most important things in our lives are our kids."

"I wish I had known that back then."

He's resigned to the fact that his career may be over because of back surgery for a pinched nerve. "I've reconciled myself to it" he said.

Yolanda and David Foster marriage over

Despite rapidly growing numbers of Australians being diagnosed with Lyme Disease, the prevailing viewpoint within the Australian medical community is that "there is no evidence of Lyme disease in Australia."

The Lyme Disease Association of Australia thanked Senator John Madigan for his continued efforts to have Lyme and Lyme-like disease recognised in Australia.  Senator Madigan, with the support of Senators Wang, Leyonhjelm, Day, Lazarus, Lambie, Xenophon and McKenzie successfully secured a motion to establish a senate enquiry into the debilitating illness.

And it's about time.  People with this disease are being portrayed as attention-seeking hypochondriacs like Yolanda Foster who has just announced her split from 65 year old David Foster, after only four years of marriage.

The popular star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is devastated and anonymous associates of the couple are saying David got fed up with her illness.

However, she admitted that she and Foster had been growing apart in recent years which led to the split.  "It's just life...I'm sure you've all witnessed a break-up before...work, my health, his job, the children,.....life is overwhelming for everybody.....it's a lot of work to keep it all together.

As an older Australian, I know all about how deadly ticks can be. Removing ticks from family, friends and pets over the years is a common occurrence for most people who enjoy life outdoors and two pet dogs died as a result of finding the tick too late.

So when Yolanda Foster says she is going to concentrate all her efforts into getting well so she can "teach the world a lesson about Lyme Disease", I wish her all the luck in the world.

Paedophile Robert Hughes appeals his sentence

The Court of Criminal Appeal is reviewing Robert Hughes' conviction. The hearing heard that prisoners are making his life hell in Goulburn jail and had hot water thrown at him recently, even though he's always been in segregation at the maximum-security prison.

Hughes is serving a non parole period of six years for 10 counts of sexual and indecent assault on four young girls in the 1980s and 1990s.

The judges agreed there was no denying he had experienced rough treatment from the inmates and Justice Monica Schmidt said "including having hot water thrown at him, which seems extraordinary in the custodial environment we're discussing."

Hughes' barrister Phillip Boulten SC claims the trial judge was wrong to refuse separate trials for each complainant.   Then there were the pre-trial comments on social media and interviews with Current Affair and Womans Day magazine.

His lawyer said "This is the only case I have ever seen where the complainant was paid $100,000 to go on TV and make these allegations before they went to the police."  He said they were used to "call out" and bring forward any other victims abused by Hughes when they were a child."

And it worked, they came forward and he was finally extradited from Britain and charged.

Hughes was found guilty in April 2014.  In sentencing, Judge Peter Zahra described him as a sexual predator who systematically exploited young girls and then relied on his position to ensure his victims' compliance and silence.

If the Court of Appeal lets this man go free on these technicalities, it will be a disgraceful miscarriage of justice and paedophiles like Robert Hughes will have nothing to fear from the Australian legal system.

Edit 21/12/2015:  FORMER Hey Dad ...! Robert Hughes has lost his appeal against his conviction for the sexual and indecent assault of a number of young girls.  The Court of Criminal Appeal had this morning thrown out the case, meaning the 67-year-old will still have to serve his minimum six year jail term for the assaults on girls in the 1980s and 1990s.

Stereosonic 2015 Sydney

Sylvia Choi's death at the Stereosonic music festival in Sydney last weekend has highlighted Australia's backward attitude towards keeping patrons of music festivals safe. 

We didn't know that Europe has a proud record of no reported deaths at music festivals in 25 years.  Why?  Because they test the pills before they take them.

Based in Canberra, Johnboy Davidson who runs one of the world's largest online databases for ecstasy pill reports, and Professor David Caldicott, an emergency department consultant in Canberra, pioneered festival drug testing at the Enchanted Forest Raves in South Australia.  But for some reason it was shut down by the Howard government and since then - nothing.

The sheer purity of the pills currently for sale is uncertain as more drugs arrive from overseas, mainly from south-west China and many have never been seen here before.

But in Europe and Canada, it's different.  An organisation such as DanceSafe arrives the morning of the festival with a crate full of laboratory equipment and patrons queue to have their drugs tested. Sometimes it's even subsidised by the government at no cost to the patrons. 

Earlier this year, 29 year old Amy went to the Shambhala Festival in Canada.  She said punters were queueing for over an hour to have their drugs tested and there was even a warning board about dodgy drugs that were being offered for sale among the crowd.

"They took a small sample and ran a colour test" Amy said.  "It gave me peace of mind to know that me and my friends would be safe."

But there's always someone ready to pour cold water on a good idea. Even though Ms Choi was the fifth person to die at an Australian music festival this year, and 120 people needed medical assistance last weekend, NSW Deputy Premier Troy Grant uttered these pearls of wisdom. "The first thing we need to do is stop people taking drugs."

And then he added "At what cost?  Who pays for it?  Do we have to spend taxpayers money to stop people killing themselves and causing harm?"

There is an alternative, but it's not guaranteed.  You can buy a personal testing kit but Australian proprietor Steven Bourk admits the kits are not sophisticated enough to detect all the latest drugs coming into the country.

Professor Caldicott says testing pills would be many times cheaper than deploying 200 police and drug dogs, around one tenth of the cost in fact.  The drug checking program is supported by the European Union which has lots of evidence to prove that it works.

So it seems we must wait for another young person to die before the government will admit they have lost the war on drugs and fix the problem.

Another music festival death in Sydney

Nobody knows why our kids think you must take drugs at music festivals, but we can guess.  To achieve maximum enjoyment of the night, you need something that will take you to heights not achieved with alcohol alone, they tell their friends.

Last Saturday, 28 November 2015, another young woman went out to have the time of her life, and never came home.   Her name was Sylvia Choi and she died after ingesting ecstasy with alcohol and possibly MDMA mixed with water. 

The effects of MDMA include feelings of mental stimulation, emotional warmth, empathy toward others, a sense of well being and decreased anxiety.

But Ms Choi wasn't a naive young thing with no life experience, she was a 25 year old qualified pharmacist.  When she collapsed on the dance floor, valuable minutes passed before she arrived at a medical tent and she was pronounced dead at Concord Hospital a few hours later.

Today, Blooms the Chemist, where she worked, issued a statement.

'Blooms the Chemist is saddened by the news that one of our bright, well-respected pharmacists, Ms Sylvia Choi lost her life at Sydney's Stereosonic.  Our tight-knit community has received the news of her passing with disbelief and is struggling to come to terms with the loss of a much-loved member of our team.  We extend our deepest condolences to Ms Choi's family and ask the broader community to respect their privacy during this difficult time.'

A 22 year old British tourist, who was with another group of friends, had a lucky escape when she was released from Westmead hospital after being in an induced coma.

Even though people attending the concert know these drugs are made by criminals in someone's backyard shed, they have complete trust and faith that nothing will happen to them.  Paramedics treated 120 that night who became gravely ill from a bad reaction to drugs, and nine were taken to hospital.

Police are investigating the possibility the substances taken by Ms Choi were manufactured locally by people she knew.

French ban on Muslim headscarves upheld

Christine Ebrahimian is a French national, born in 1951, who lives in Paris.  Working as a social worker in the psychiatric department of a Paris hospital, she did not have her contract renewed because she refused to remove her head covering, following complaints from patients.

She took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and today, she lost her appeal.

From the European Human Rights website

Judges ruled  that a decision not to renew a French social worker’s contract, who refused to remove her veil, did not breach human rights law.

In its judgment in the case of Ebrahimian v. France (application no. 64846/11) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been

 no violation of Article 9 (right to freedom of religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court noted that wearing the veil had been considered by the authorities as an ostentatious manifestation of religion that was incompatible with the requirement of neutrality incumbent on public officials in discharging their functions.

 The applicant Christiane Ebrahimian, had been ordered to observe the principle of secularism within the meaning of Article 1 of the French Constitution and the requirement of neutrality deriving from that principle.

According to the national courts, it had been necessary to uphold the secular character of the state and thus protect the hospital patients from any risk of influence or partiality in the name of their right to their own freedom of conscience.

 The necessity of protecting the rights and liberties of others – that is, respect for everyone’s religion – had formed the basis of the decision in question.

The court found that the national authorities had not exceeded their margin of appreciation in finding that there was no possibility of reconciling Ebrahimian’s religious convictions with the obligation to refrain from manifesting them, and in deciding to give precedence to the requirement of neutrality and impartiality of the state.

The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France covers 47 members countries.  Founded on 5 May 1949 by 10 governments, the organisation seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention of Human Rights on the protection of individuals.