DPP Malicious Wounding Case - JulianKnight.com.au

The following six photocopied documents of one-page each, include various legal correspondence between the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Public Prosecutions, the firm of solicitors and barristers representing Julian Knight (Crowley & Chamberlain), and the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory.

They are all in relation to the then forthcoming pending malicious wounding criminal case ‘Police v KNIGHT‘ (CC3792) prepared as the Police prosecutions case in advance of the scheduled court hearing set for 10 November 1987.

The documents are dated between 31st August 1987 and the scheduled court case date of 11th November 1987, that is, where a date has been supplied. These have similarly been obtained through Freedom of Information from the Magistrates Court of Australian Capital Territory, though many years after the 1987 case. We estimate these copies were obtained around 13th May 2014.

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Editor’s observations and notes:

These documents are all dated AFTER Knight’s Hoddle Street mass shooting spree in Melbourne (in the state of Victoria) of 9th August 1987, being 2 months after his bail hearing, and three months before his scheduled criminal hearing. Both hearings, 5 months apart, being interstate in the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory (where Duntroon is situated.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had added its criminal charges against Knight since its interviews of him later on the same day of the stabbing on 31st May 1987. So the charges were now: (1) Malicious Wounding, (2) Assault occasioning bodily harm, and (3) Common Assault.
Of note, the additional opinion by arresting AFP Police First Constable Shane Austin to add a more serious charge of “Wounding with Intent to do Bodily Harm” was subsequently dismissed for some reason, based upon the subsequent documents closer to the criminal hearing date. May be Austin was overruled by his Police superiors or the DPP. [SOURCE: AFP Minute Paper by Austin of 14th August 1987 (being just days after Hoddle Street – so clearly biased) (A copy of this is included the next webpage ‘Prosecution Abandons Case’.]
A number of documents are not included on this webpage, since they relate to the changed circumstances with criminal court case hearing that Knight could not attend due to him being remanded in prison in Melbourne and having already immediately confessed his shooting crimes to Victoria Police. Instead, we include those documents in the next webpage, because these provide a different array of insights of the recent back story leading up to Hoddle Street.
At some time between the bail hearing date and the Hoddle Street crimes, as Defendant in the stabbing case ‘KNIGHT v (ACT) Police’, Knight had secured the legal representation of Canberra law firm Crowley and Chamberlain (barristers and solicitors). This was either likely probono given that Knight was broke, else his father was paying Julian’s legal fees, as the most likely person close to Knight who would have had the financial capacity and will to do so.
Knight also still had a $5000 bail self-surety to pay if he failed to appear under his summons to the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory for his criminal hearing on 10th November 1987. This then subsequently was not going to happen, given that his crimes in Melbourne were of such a severity well beyond the comparative minor charges he faced back in the ACT, as listed above.
The Hoddle Street ‘massacre’ had quickly gone viral in the Australian media nation-wide. It was one of the worse mass shootings in Australian history up until that time. The public outrage and pressure would have been not politically shrewd for then Victorian Labor’s Premier John Cain Jr. to approve Knight transfer interstate nearly 700 km to Canberra to appear in court for the comparative minor prior criminal charges of malicious wounding. This is speculation of course.
Yet, surprisingly the ACT still demanded Knight’s scheduled court appearance in their territory summoned for 10th November 1987, irrespectively. Bizarrely, within Australia, governments still term such a transfer of an accused person, ‘extradiction’.
By 31st August 1987, despite there being 15 witnesses and expert witnesses that had supplied statements in this matter, the Australian Federal Police had decided not to subpoena any of them for the forthcoming criminal hearing in Canberra.
Yet the first document shown here, the AFP on this same day, 31st August 1987, (3 weeks after Hoddle Street) oddly still indicated its intention to proceed with the criminal case hearing as stated in its letter to the Department of Public Prosecutions. This included the AFP arresting Knight with a warrant…..from the custody of the Victorian Police? Read extract below. Clearly the author was living under a rock and wanted reading the newspapers, TV radio dominated by Hoddle Street and Julian Knight at the time. Canberra does tend to exist in its own bubble.

But then this same letter was signed 1st September 1987 corrected over a week later by someone in AFP, thus…

This correction reads: “***Note: I advised I. Bermingham (try ‘R’. Bermingham, Acting Deputy Director of DPP) of the preferred course of action on 10th September 1987.***” The second signature of the handwritten correction dated 11th September 1987 is identified as by C. A. Giles, for Acting Deputy Director of DPP (Canberra) – since it is the same signature as letter of 14th August 1987, which we provide a copy of in the next sequential webpage.

The sequential webpage to this ACT criminal case Police v KNIGHT‘ (CC3792) follows: >Prosecution Abandons Case

Political Prisoner in Victoria since 2014

This is the official website of Australian Soldier Julian Knight.

Having duly served the Supreme Court of Victoria’s imposed sentence of 27 years for his immediately confessed mass crime, unelected politician Denis Napthine usurped the judiciary and illegally imposed indefinite detention. Instantly in 2014 Julian Knight became not a criminal, but a political prisoner of the Victorian Government No. 49821 held at Port Phillip Prison | formerly Army Corps of Staff Cadet No. 5266 at the Royal Military College Duntroon | formerly Australian Army Reserve Trooper No. 3204059.

*Soldier: We consider the title of Soldier to be a noble profession the moment a civilian signs up to serve Country, followed by training, experience and sacrifice in battle. So we duly grammatise it with a capital ‘S’. ADF personnel (whether a ‘Soldier’, ‘Sailor’, ‘Aircrew’, or any other ADF role, from Day 1 to serve their country (Australia) instantly becomes a special member of our vital Australian Defence Force.

From Day 1 sign-up, each Army recruit deserves this capital title ‘Soldier’ despite pre-trained, pre- experienced, pre-active service, pre-medal recipient, pre-veteran, pre-wounded, pre-KIA.

Such military ‘sign up’ is so much a distinct and a higher calling that most other professions / trades.

Let no person who has ever ‘signed up to serve their country‘ ever hold any doubt of their rare courage to serve. We Australians as CIVVY citizens hold a profound civilian duty to respect and be proud of what these relative few committed souls put their lives in harm’s way and continue to champion and protect our fortunate way of life in Australia. They proudly follow in the legacy of our forebears of similar ilk who hard-fought and sacrificed.

Sadly increasingly these are forgotten brave heroes. History repeats. Sadly, negative and dangerous mis-training of those so committed risks outcomes like Hoddle Street (1987) and Full Metal Bullet (1987). Both a bully bad year of Soldier negative recruitment training.