[The Knighthood’ as collective authors of this herein website, comply with the Australian Copyright Act 1968, No. 63, 1968 (Compilation No. 58) amended from 16th January 2019, Part III, Division 3, Clauses 41, 41A and 42 in our ‘regurgitating’ the cohort of published media outpourings on Julian Knight in this section of this website ‘Media Scrutiny’. We do so for the purpose of review, criticism, satire and correcting the fake news reporting and propaganda. The Knighthood’s critique are included in the context wrapped in square brackets, bold italic text.]
15 September 2016: Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight loses bid for compensation over alleged Duntroon abuse
By James Hancock
[Knighthood rearrangement: This image is by AAP, not News Corp Australia. It is one of many of Julian Knight attending court accessible on media hub and bandied around by various media agencies on numerous mastheads. It has long become a clichéd image, again used lazily by the ABC.]
[Knighthood rearrangement: We herein re-arrange the sentences because the topics published were in an unrelated jumbled mess. Some journalist! ]
‘Mass murderer Julian Knight has lost his legal fight to be considered for compensation for alleged abuse while an army cadet.
Knight is serving a life sentence for fatally shooting seven people and injuring 19 others in Hoddle Street in 1987.
He represented himself in the Federal Court on Thursday, as three security guards watched on from the public gallery. The court heard Knight served as an army cadet for six months in 1987 and was allegedly injured by senior cadets at the Royal Military College, Duntroon in Canberra. He has previously claimed the massacre never would have happened had it not been for his treatment at Duntroon.
Compensation Application for his abuse in the ADF
Knight made the application when reparation payments to prisoners could be held in trust pending their release, but the government later changed the rules to exclude those convicted of serious crimes, which attract penalties of more than 10 years in jail.
The Commonwealth’s barrister Tim Begbie said the government had a right to vary the terms of any compensation. “[The scheme is] a pure gratuitous benefit that may be paid by the government and varied as the government sees fit,” he said.
(Knight’s) application to be considered for compensation was knocked back by the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART). Justice Mordecai Bromberg also rejected Knight’s application. “There is in my view no relevant restriction imposed on any act of the ministers or the director of the taskforce,” he said.
“I appreciate that it may not have been the strongest application … but it was made in good faith,” Knight said. Knight argued that the change was a “churlish decision” and in breach of the Australian Constitution.
Knight was ordered to pay the Commonwealth’s legal costs and he acknowledged his limited ability to pay.
[Knighthood correction: No, Knight as a prisoner was never going to pay any court costs. This statement about costs is typically bandied around various media. Yet is is false. Knight as a prisoner denied income has never had to pay court costs, nor ever been able to afford such costs.]
Last month Knight was declared a vexatious litigant for life, which means he has to seek court permission to launch new legal action.’
[Knighthood Fact Check: No, the Supreme Court did not declare Julian Knight a vexatious litigant. It was a politician who did. Victorian Labor’s Attorney-General Rob Hulls MP (in the Bracks Labor Government) on 19 October 2004 enacted legislative changes to specifically declare Julian Knight to be a “vexatious litigant” pursuant to section 21(2) of the Supreme Court Act 1968 (Vic). Then Justice Smith (SCA) made an order preventing him from commencing – without leave of the Court – any legal proceedings, for a period of ten years. This is the first only person in Victoria to cop such targeted treatment and overruling of the judicial process by the legislature/executive. The media need to get their facts right. By just repeating a big lie many times doesn’t make the lie truthful, dudes.]
[Knighthood correction: Fact Checks: No, Knight’s Federal Court case was simply an appeal against the DART rejecting his same compensation claim for abuse in the ADF. The DART was improperly influenced by politicians prejudiced against Knight specifically. On 5 May 2016, the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, and the Minister for Justice, the Hon Michael Keenan MP, advised the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART that where an applicant for a reparation payment under the Defence Abuse Reparation Scheme has been convicted of a serious crime (one attracting a maximum sentence of over 10 years), that no reparation payment should be made to them. They changed the rules midstream. An appeal does not constitute vexatious legal action. Whereas the political interference of the DART process was indeed corrupt conduct by both Commonwealth ministers. Yet, the wa no compunction for the DART Chair Len Roberts-Smith to agree to the ministers’ requests, and they were only opinions not directives. Knight’s appeal was ignored by the court on spurious grounds by Justice Bromberg.]