This is the only official website authorised by Mr Julian Knight, a former Army Officer Cadet at Royal Military College at Duntroon in Australia’s national capital city, Canberra.
Julian is an intelligent and ambitious Australian Melbourne-born lad who had joined up to serve his country as a lifetime Army career soldier. He was born in 1968 and within 10 days reared under an Army family and by age 17 he joined up and trained as an Infantry Trooper training with the Australian Army Reserve (26 Nov 1985 to 15 Mar 1987) and then as an Officer Staff Cadet at the Royal Military College (RMC) at Duntroon with the Australian Regular Army (12 Jan 1987 to 24 Jul 1987).
[SOURCE: Julian Knight’s Certificate of Service in The Australian Army]
WHY the Hoddle Street Shootings? The victims and the public still have no answers, while media commentators keep either guessing or stepping into a psychiatrist role, missing the bleeding obvious, because they had no idea of the prelude of torment, and ignorantly failed to investigate.
The content of this website contains mainly articles and material authored by Mr Julian Knight, whom since 1987, having pleading guilty on 28 October 1988 in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the Hoddle Street Shootings in Melbourne in 1987, has served more than his maximum 27-year custodial sentence.
Further background and details about Mr Julian Knight on this website will be posted in due course and explaining the hateful persecution he experienced by a culture of torment whilst at Royal Military College at Duntroon, his subsequent psychotic unleashing – his regrettable alcohol-fuelled state of depression, temporary insanity and rage that sparked the notorious Hoddle Street Shootings on the Sunday night of 9th August 1987.
The shooting rampage took place just 16 days after Knight’s honourable discharge in absentia from the Australian Regular Army, at a time of post-Duntroon systematic targeted physical and psychological abuse, persecution and bastardization over the preceding six months whilst at RMC. However, it is noted that the media at the time and since, has failed to connect this real compounded cause and its catastrophic effect. The reasons are a combination of media ignorance of psychiatry and of Duntroon and the ADF’s reactive campaign of silencing, scapegoating and misinformation to cover up its relentless bastardisation of Staff Cadet Julian Knight.
This was a tragedy that had Duntroon management been respectful of its officer cadets, it should never have happened.
The Hoddle Street Shootings are a sad indictment on Australia’s ADF – of how such hateful, sustained treatment of this intelligent, successful and disciplined Army Corporal with an exemplary record before being accepted into Duntroon, was during his officer ‘training’ and indoctrination, targeted and condemned to a psychotic state to go hatefully postal.
Hate inculcates hate.
In Mr Knight’s own words:
“On 6 June 1988, the Presentment against me was filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne (Case No T557 of 1988). I was formally charged with 7 counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder.
In early October 1988, following negotiations with the Office of Public Prosecutions, it was decided that I would plead guilty to all charges in the Presentment filed against me (7x counts of murder and 46x counts of attempted murder).
It is my understanding that these negotiations involved input from the Army. Part of my plea agreement with the Crown and their main condition was that no evidence of the bastardization I had experienced at Duntroon would be led during my plea hearing. In return, the Crown undertook that it would not oppose the setting of a minimum term to the Life sentence I was certain to receive.
It was made clear by the Crown that if we went back on this agreement, by raising the issue of bastardization at Duntroon, the Crown would renege on its promise not to oppose the setting of a minimum term and would treat the plea hearing as a contested proceeding.
On 28 and 31 October 1988, my plea hearing was held in the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne before the Honourable Justice George HAMPEL. ..My time at Duntroon was addressed briefly during the first day of my plea hearing…but no acts of bastardization were detailed.”
[SOURCE: Extracts from Army Officer Staff Cadet Julian Knight (3204059) CSC Bo 5266, Personal Account Statutory Declaration to Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART), pp.89-90, whilst a prisoner, declared in Port Phillip Prison in the State of Victoria on 26 November 2013.]
Pleaded Guilty and Sentenced on a Duntroon Plea Bargain
At the 1988 hearing, Mr Julian Knight honoured his agreement with the Crown by not raising any evidence of the bastardization he had experienced at Duntroon as any form of defence or contributory causation for him committing the Hoddle Street Shootings.
Duntroon military management was clearly aware of the likely connections by the media that would arise from Staff Cadet Knight’s psychological and physical persecution during his Duntroon training experience in the immediate months (Jan-Jul 1987) leading up to the Hoddle Street Shootings psychotic outburst in August 1987. So Duntroon military management went into full survival mode.
On June 26, 1987 Warner Bros. released the Stanley Kubrick movie Full Metal Jacket – a shocking exposé about the US Marine abusive training culture.
Watch trailer of Full Metal Jacket
Mr Julian Knight was sentenced in Court 4 of the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne, on Thursday the 10th November 1988 by sentencing judge Mr Justice George Hampel for a minimum non-parole term of 27 years. This was coincidentally dated Mt Julian Knight’s arrest on 9th August 2014, the night of the Hoddle Street shootings, after which he was held in custody (prison), so his release date was to be 10th August 2014.
Victorian Government has since reneged on its plea bargain promise with this soldier
However, politically motivated the Victorian Government (Liberal Party on 2nd April 2014 instead reneged on prosecuting Crown’s plea bargaining agreement with Mr Julian Knight of 1988 to pass specific legislation to disallow his release by passing the following amendment legislation on 20th November 2013 specifically targeting Mr Julian Knight’s incarceration ahead of the due expiry of Mr Julian Knight’s 27-year non-parole term.
CORRECTION AMENDMENT (PAROLE) ACT 2014 (No. 18 of 2014) – SECT 3 – New Section 74AA inserted – “74AA Conditions for making a parole order to Julian Knight”.
This political usurping of the judicial system in Victoria represents not just a denial of natural justice for Mr Julian Knight, but a flagrant undermining the powers of separation which are enshrined under the Constitution of Australia 1901.
This legislation is political and unjust. It means that political interference with the Crown in Victoria makes Mr Julian Knight effectively a political prisoner in Australia for the term of his natural life. This deserves to be a matter for the High Court of Australia.
This website is former Army Trooper Julian Knight’s story, with contributions from his mates.
This website seeks to tell the truth of what really happened, warts and all.
Australian Army Reservist Trooper Julian Knight, before Duntroon
