Article’s editorial title:
‘Hoddle Street killer’s chilling web prank’
August 14, 2008, by Peter Gregory, presumably a photographer and columnist, but not a journalist since he was not reporting facts in a balance way, but his own bias.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/hoddle-street-killers-chilling-web-prank-20080814-3vbv.html
‘After 17 pages of serious submissions to a parliamentary inquiry, Hoddle Street murderer Julian Knight seemed unable to resist a joke.
In a reference list quoting academic articles, a Supreme Court annual report and a newspaper story, Knight, 40, slipped in a link to a Canadian website, www.julianknight-hoddlestreet/ca.
The site features a one-minute flash presentation, in which Knight is the star of the show.
A black-and-white still photograph captures him while being escorted by police. Short sentences on the screen refer to the Hoddle Street massacre, which occurred when Knight opened fire in Clifton Hill on August 9, 1987. He killed seven people and wounded 19.
“What if this happened in your town?” asks the script.
“Does time heal wounds?”
The final announcements declare: “Coming soon … Coming of Age: 21 years after Hoddle Street.”
Last Saturday was the 21st anniversary of the shootings. The weblink was contained in Knight’s contribution – dated June 19 – to an inquiry into vexatious litigants. He said he was declared a vexatious litigant in 2004, and argued that the inquiry appeared to be addressing a problem that did not exist. According to an issues paper prepared for the investigation, the Supreme Court had declared 14 vexatious litigants since 1928.
Knight suggested the issues paper gave an indication of “making a tendentious, spurious and specious case for increasing the power of government agencies to shut people out of the courts”.
A spokeswoman for Corrections Minister Bob Cameron said yesterday that Knight could not have set up the site, because Victorian prisoners did not have internet access.
The site gives no obvious clues about the identity of its creator. A Corrections Victoria spokeswoman said authorities knew about the website, and had previously intercepted information which Knight had attempted to send to its owners.
She said the site and any correspondence destined for it would be monitored. Last night, a Canadian woman said in an email that she and her husband ran the site. More details are being sought.’
[ OUR COMMENTS: The author of the above newspaper article is referring to a Canada-based website of Leone Delaney, who may not be Canadian, but chose to have the website hosted in Canada away from Australia. The website URL was http://julianknight-hoddlestreet.ca/ and was an incomplete work-in-progress, but seems to have been discontinued and then removed from the Internet in May 2017. We have replicated it here on this website for convenience: https://julianknight.com.au/media-scrutiny/leone-delaney-website/
“More details are being sought“? – well, problem solved for Peter Gregory. Happy to oblige].
‘Peter Gregory is an award-winning journalist with 28 years experience, court, legal and police reporter, who joined Monash University in 2010 as a journalism lecturer. He teaches a journalism and law subject within the newly-formed school of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies.
During his 21-year career at The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Peter was a Walkley award finalist with colleagues Ian Munro and John Silvester for their coverage of the Silk/Miller police murder trial.
He was a multiple winner at the Victoria Law Foundation legal reporting awards. He was twice winner of the Columb Brennan prize for court reporting, including the inaugural winner, and twice highly commended. Other awards include best report in print (twice) and for deadline reporting and promoting understanding of the courts.
Peter is a member of law-related committees run by the Law Council of Australia and the Red Cross. He is a mentor for the not-for-profit organisation New Australia Media.
He is undertaking a PhD in which he will compare suppression orders made in Victoria and South Australia.’
SOURCE: https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-gregory-629