The Canberra Times has the concering news that recidivist and deadly disqualified driver Amber Jane Westin is back on our streets (one hopes not the roads but she has form) after Justice Richard Refshauge overturned her four month sentence for breaching her decade long driving ban.
Westin appealed against the severity of her sentence to the Supreme Court, with her legal team arguing that Magistrate Grant Lalor had imposed an excessive jail term.
This morning Justice Richard Refshauge upheld the appeal, finding Westin’s breach of the driving ban was contumacious but did not merit the four-month prison sentence.
He resentenced Westin to six weeks’ jail, backdated to January 12, and released her immediately.
She has picked up another year on the driving ban to ignore.
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FFS, When will they sack these morons nd get someone in who will hand out real punishments to these scumbags.
Westin deserved to be locked up for 20 years in the first place, now they are just letting her do whatever she wanted.
On the plus side we have been given the opportunity to improve our word power with contumacious: Willfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.
Hold up a moment, what’s this legal team she has? Is she so rich she can afford a legal team???
Ten bucks she’s in front of a beak inside 6 weeks.
David Opas and Ray Watson. Sometimes victims or friends/relatives of victims of crime aren’t satisfied with the sentences given to criminals.
caf said :
Lol. I certainly had to look that one up.
This little cow is the scum of the earth. I have it on good authority (a friend who was visiting someone on the ward where AW was having the scratch on her knee treated after she ran a red without a licence and in doing so killed an innocent woman) that the little cow was yelling from her room “Who cares? She was a f#$%ing old bitch anyway”
I’m willing to bet she’ll be before the courts again soon enough. Hopefully the magistrate will grow a pair and justice will be served before she kills another innocent person. She obviously doesn’t give a crap, why would she ever change?
Well the magistrates stood up, once again the supreme court lets down the ACT community.
This seems like a reasonable decision. We wouldn’t anything so radical as consequences to be put in place for those who habitually break the law.
I wonder if they have taken into consideration the impact on the family of the woman she killed whilst on the run. I dont think the community at large would be too happy with this either.
I guess the message to the cmmunity is, you can pretty much get away with killing someone in this town, particularly if you are on the run. No doubt she would have played the ‘mother’ card in her defence.
johnboy said :
Im not sure that it happend like that JB. She got four months which says everything about her culpability in the first place. What good is to come of a four month sentence after she already had taken a life in a horror event. Make a bad event just a bit worse for what? What does the community get from it? Other than piece of mind for those wanting blood. That doesn’t cut it. Anyway the court hireichy is nothing new. Judges don’t feel the media or pressure thrown around them. I would probably throw the book at everyone if I were a Magi in court room one on a monday.
cranky said :
Would you bother putting $10 on Black Caviar? If you want any sort of price, make it 6 days. Or 6 hours.
farnarkler said :
No no no – *we* (the taxpayer & ratepayer) are so rich we can afford to pay the fees for the recidivist scum’s legal “team”.
It’s nice to be rich, eh?
This is just my $0.02, but I’d feel a lot happier if this person was dead.
I wonder how the family of the lady she killed feels about Refshauge. They must be very forgiving.