11 July 2013

Allegedly firelighting Todd Elphick already on bail for with a Hughes shooting link

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has another triumph of the ACT Judiciary with one Todd Elphick already out on bail for conspiracy to shoot the latterly (but not entirely relatedly) murdered Brendan Welsh accused of burning down a house in Monash.

Police treated the blaze as suspicious, and their investigations led to the arrest of Todd Elphick, 27, later that afternoon.

He was charged with arson and with contravening a protection order.

Elphick faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon, pleading not guilty, and making an application for bail.

… at the time of the alleged arson, he was already on bail for conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm in 2010.

Those charges relate to an alleged plan to help Kai Yuen, 28, shoot Brendan Scott Welsh, also 28, in the foot in May 2010.

Mr Welsh was later ambushed and murdered by Yuen outside the Hughes shops.

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IrishPete said :

IrishPete said :

bundah said :

We now have news that Elphick will serve no further jail time for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Brendan Welsh by Kai Yuen.While the maximum penalty is five years he was sentenced to 225 days by Justice Hilary Penfold(yet another light sentence) and given that he’s already served 225 days in custody he got his get out of jail free card.

I must admit, having read the judgement in the Yuen murder, he can consider himself fortunate that he wasn’t found guilty of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm for it was bloody obvious that he was aware of Yuen’s intentions and participated in the ambush.

I hate to say “I told you so”

Anyway, hopefully he’s on remand in custody now for the alleged arson.

IP

And again http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/monash-fire-accused-loses-latest-bid-for-bail-20130801-2r1k8.html

IP

No one even cares that the first trial was aborted over questionable evidence. He was cleared of all charges that he denied at the second trial. The jury took less than 10 hours to clear Mr Elphick of all charges… Obviously there were serious problems with the DPP’s case and the evidence of the witnesses. He was dealt with harshly by Justice Refshauge in sentencing and is now back in the community, it is unlikely, but hopefully he has learned his lesson

IrishPete said :

bundah said :

We now have news that Elphick will serve no further jail time for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Brendan Welsh by Kai Yuen.While the maximum penalty is five years he was sentenced to 225 days by Justice Hilary Penfold(yet another light sentence) and given that he’s already served 225 days in custody he got his get out of jail free card.

I must admit, having read the judgement in the Yuen murder, he can consider himself fortunate that he wasn’t found guilty of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm for it was bloody obvious that he was aware of Yuen’s intentions and participated in the ambush.

I hate to say “I told you so”

Anyway, hopefully he’s on remand in custody now for the alleged arson.

IP

And again http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/monash-fire-accused-loses-latest-bid-for-bail-20130801-2r1k8.html

IP

milkman said :

An argument for retrospective abortion, if ever there was one.

Or he could join the Young Liberals and significantly raise the tone of the organisation.

bundah said :

We now have news that Elphick will serve no further jail time for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Brendan Welsh by Kai Yuen.While the maximum penalty is five years he was sentenced to 225 days by Justice Hilary Penfold(yet another light sentence) and given that he’s already served 225 days in custody he got his get out of jail free card.

I must admit, having read the judgement in the Yuen murder, he can consider himself fortunate that he wasn’t found guilty of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm for it was bloody obvious that he was aware of Yuen’s intentions and participated in the ambush.

I hate to say “I told you so”

Anyway, hopefully he’s on remand in custody now for the alleged arson.

IP

We now have news that Elphick will serve no further jail time for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Brendan Welsh by Kai Yuen.While the maximum penalty is five years he was sentenced to 225 days by Justice Hilary Penfold(yet another light sentence) and given that he’s already served 225 days in custody he got his get out of jail free card.

I must admit, having read the judgement in the Yuen murder, he can consider himself fortunate that he wasn’t found guilty of the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm for it was bloody obvious that he was aware of Yuen’s intentions and participated in the ambush.

CraigT said :

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

CraigT said :

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html

correction, the article does mention imprisonment, but it does not make a direct link between it and reduced crime:

“But this decline was not the result of more of those involved in misdemeanors being incapacitated from further crimes by being in prison: prison stays for misdemeanors are short and only 9.4 percent of misdemeanor arrests result in a jail sentence, the authors note. Furthermore, an increase in misdemeanor arrests has no impact on the number of murder, assault, and burglary cases, the authors finds.”

We probably both need to read the full report to get the complete picture.

IP

“The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime, the study finds.”

“The contribution of such deterrence measures (the “stick”) offers more explanation for the decline in New York City crime than the improvement in the economy, the authors conclude. Between 1990 and 1999, homicide dropped 73 percent, burglary 66 percent, assault 40 percent, robbery 67 percent, and vehicle hoists 73 percent. The authors’ model manages to explain between 33 and 86 percent of those declines. “

In other words, the *worst* thing you can do is a softly-softly approach whereby criminals know that they are guaranteed bail and even if they breach conditions of bail, they are guaranteed some dimwit like Refshauge will give you the benefit of his twisted logic to let you roam loose to commit further crimes.

Nope, you are still misunderstanding this quote – it is referring to the probability of arrest. It makes no mention of courts, or bail. I hate repeating myself.

IP

farnarkler said :

The judiciary in the ACT need to be reminded of what happened to Justice Ray Watson’s wife.

Justice Watson was a judge of the Family Court. So it’s unlikely he ever granted anyone bail, locked them up, or acquitted them. So as well as failing the taste test, this post also fails the relevance test.

IP

farnarkler said :

The judiciary in the ACT need to be reminded of what happened to Justice Ray Watson’s wife.

You don’t seriously think that bringing up the circumstances of what occurred to his wife is in any way going to change the attitude of the judiciary here,do you? Sure there is little doubt in my mind that Len Warwick is one of worst,vindictive,human beings this country has ever seen,who,remarkably, has not been brought to justice for his horrendous crimes against the judiciary and others some 30 years ago.

Besides you need to remember that Tezza Higgins was given a severe flogging by one of his drug addicted sons and it didn’t change his sentencing approach one bit.

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

CraigT said :

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html

correction, the article does mention imprisonment, but it does not make a direct link between it and reduced crime:

“But this decline was not the result of more of those involved in misdemeanors being incapacitated from further crimes by being in prison: prison stays for misdemeanors are short and only 9.4 percent of misdemeanor arrests result in a jail sentence, the authors note. Furthermore, an increase in misdemeanor arrests has no impact on the number of murder, assault, and burglary cases, the authors finds.”

We probably both need to read the full report to get the complete picture.

IP

“The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime, the study finds.”

“The contribution of such deterrence measures (the “stick”) offers more explanation for the decline in New York City crime than the improvement in the economy, the authors conclude. Between 1990 and 1999, homicide dropped 73 percent, burglary 66 percent, assault 40 percent, robbery 67 percent, and vehicle hoists 73 percent. The authors’ model manages to explain between 33 and 86 percent of those declines. “

In other words, the *worst* thing you can do is a softly-softly approach whereby criminals know that they are guaranteed bail and even if they breach conditions of bail, they are guaranteed some dimwit like Refshauge will give you the benefit of his twisted logic to let you roam loose to commit further crimes.

Blen_Carmichael8:55 pm 16 Jul 13

farnarkler said :

The judiciary in the ACT need to be reminded of what happened to Justice Ray Watson’s wife.

Dude, I would clarify that comment if I were you.

The judiciary in the ACT need to be reminded of what happened to Justice Ray Watson’s wife.

breda said :

Welcome – I have just awarded you the first Richard Refshauge Award for the triumph of hope over experience.

Any award linked to Refshauge is just plain wrong unless of course it’s a ‘mully’…

breda said :

IP, that you had to resort to comparing human adults with puppies says it all. You seem to think that an adult who has time and time again defied every reasonable attempt to modify his/her behaviour is just like a naughty puppy.

Welcome – I have just awarded you the first Richard Refshauge Award for the triumph of hope over experience.

Sorry, it says more about your limited knowledge of psychology.

IP

IP, that you had to resort to comparing human adults with puppies says it all. You seem to think that an adult who has time and time again defied every reasonable attempt to modify his/her behaviour is just like a naughty puppy.

Welcome – I have just awarded you the first Richard Refshauge Award for the triumph of hope over experience.

IrishPete said :

breda said :

In the ACT, where habitual criminals with eye-wateringly long records of offences and of committing further offences/not showing up etc are “counselled” by judges and magistrates, and then allowed to skip-to-my-lou back out into the community, what do you expect?

Just like with drink-driving, repeat offenders are the biggest hazard to the public, and should be treated accordingly.

Humans are animals. So I’ll use an animal analogy (if you doubt it, bear in mind that Pavlov’s research on dogs was pretty much the start of all knowledge about learning):

your puppy is regularly chewing the furniture; do you think it is more effective to:
a) one in ten times, beat it harshly when you get home from work to find it has chewed the furniture
b) every time it chews the furniture, punish it immediately, and mildly?

b) is harder to achieve, but is always going to be more effective. You can argue over the degree of the punishment, but you must first achieve a high probability of punishment, and speedy punishment. Our criminal justice system fails on both those counts. In the ACT it fails on severity too.

IP

Valid points IP,humans are essentially animals and while most are disciplined and have respect for others there are a very small percentage,in our society at least,who I believe are quite simply lowlife trash.

I seriously believe that some of them can never be rehabilitated,so what to do with them,is the difficult question.The other equally important question is how do we change the mindset of Corbell and the judges who continue with the same old flawed approach.

Unfortunately the fact that most people in society are largely apathetic and have little or no interest in expressing their opinion to the legislators and judiciary so the end result is that wholesale necessary change is unlikely to ever occur and the unacceptable situation will continue to rear its ugly head.

breda said :

In the ACT, where habitual criminals with eye-wateringly long records of offences and of committing further offences/not showing up etc are “counselled” by judges and magistrates, and then allowed to skip-to-my-lou back out into the community, what do you expect?

Just like with drink-driving, repeat offenders are the biggest hazard to the public, and should be treated accordingly.

Humans are animals. So I’ll use an animal analogy (if you doubt it, bear in mind that Pavlov’s research on dogs was pretty much the start of all knowledge about learning):

your puppy is regularly chewing the furniture; do you think it is more effective to:
a) one in ten times, beat it harshly when you get home from work to find it has chewed the furniture
b) every time it chews the furniture, punish it immediately, and mildly?

b) is harder to achieve, but is always going to be more effective. You can argue over the degree of the punishment, but you must first achieve a high probability of punishment, and speedy punishment. Our criminal justice system fails on both those counts. In the ACT it fails on severity too.

IP

In the ACT, where habitual criminals with eye-wateringly long records of offences and of committing further offences/not showing up etc are “counselled” by judges and magistrates, and then allowed to skip-to-my-lou back out into the community, what do you expect?

Just like with drink-driving, repeat offenders are the biggest hazard to the public, and should be treated accordingly.

CraigT said :

CraigT said :

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html

correction, the article does mention imprisonment, but it does not make a direct link between it and reduced crime:

“But this decline was not the result of more of those involved in misdemeanors being incapacitated from further crimes by being in prison: prison stays for misdemeanors are short and only 9.4 percent of misdemeanor arrests result in a jail sentence, the authors note. Furthermore, an increase in misdemeanor arrests has no impact on the number of murder, assault, and burglary cases, the authors finds.”

We probably both need to read the full report to get the complete picture.

IP

CraigT said :

CraigT said :

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html

The source you cite makes no mention of imprisonment. What it shows is that offenders are deterred by the increased probability of detection.

As for whether this particular crime (arson) would have been prevented by Mr Elphick being locked up, well that
a) relies on him actually being guilty of this one, and only him, which remains to be proven (and if it was witness-related, he might have been able to organise it from within prison)
b) it relies on him being found guilty of the one he is on bail for
c) relies on him actually having being given a prison sentence for the one in b) that
d) would have kept him off the streets for the date of the arson. As he has spent a considerable time inside on remand, it will take a substantial prison sentence for him to actually serve any more time. This being the ACT, the chances of that are pretty slim;
e) relies on him not offending more rapidly and seriously on completion of whatever sentence he is given; prison can be a brutalising place, that can actually make people worse instead of better.

Any decent criminologist, or cop for that matter, will tell you for deterrence to have a hope in hell of working, justice needs to be certain and swift – the figures you cite are referring to certainty, the chances of being caught. What are the clearance rates for burglary or car theft in Australia? Under 10% every time I look. So a burglar can be pretty certain they won’t be caught, so why would they worry about the sentence they will get if they are caught?

Everyone thinks they are such an expert on crime and criminal justice that they won’t actually listen to experts.

I’ll leave your offensive comments to say more about you than they do about me. If you trawl this site you’ll find plenty of posts where I bemoan the slow trials and slow and lenient sentencing in the ACT. Bail is another matter, innocent until proven guilty.

IP

CraigT said :

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html

IrishPete said :

The trial took place in May this year. Hardly a rapid performance. It was a jury trial so we can’t blame the judiciary entirely. I think the DPP, AFP and defence lawyers (private and Legal Aid) all contribute to the delay. It has become a culture.

IP

Interestingly, according to *you*, lockiung people up doesn’t prevent crime.

In this case, it would have.

In New York, they finally got sick of enduring crimes for the sake of a corrupt judicial system geared towards encouraging crime in order to extort money from the public purse to benefit lawyers, and they decided to gaol the criminals. Not-so-amazingly, it actually worked.

When arrests of burglars increased 10 percent, the number of burglaries fell 2.7 to 3.2 percent. When the arrest rate of robbers rose 10 percent, the number of robberies fell 5.7 to 5.9 percent

The police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime,

Who’d have thought that locking up an extra 24% of criminals would coincide with a reduction in up to 65% in property crimes? Not Irish Pete, that’s for sure – he’s got some uni textbook written by an ex-criminal lawyer that tells him otherwise.

I would suggest that Elphick was an accessory before the fact to the murder of Brendan Welsh given he was aware of Yuen’s intention and drove Yuen to the location of the ambush and murder. I’m puzzled as to why a jury was unable to reach a verdict on Elphick’s role in the plan for it’s fairly clear he was an accessory.

But we all should be very well aware by now that the wheels of justice turn at a snails pace and we have Corbell and the judiciary to thank for that.

An argument for retrospective abortion, if ever there was one.

The trial took place in May this year. Hardly a rapid performance. It was a jury trial so we can’t blame the judiciary entirely. I think the DPP, AFP and defence lawyers (private and Legal Aid) all contribute to the delay. It has become a culture.

IP

IrishPete said :

He wouldn’t be on bail if he had been tried – he’d either be serving a sentence (possibly in prison) or a free man, cleared. Surely you wouldn’t want someone languishing in prison for three years awaiting trial?

IP

If it meant they weren’t out burning down people’s houses, then yeah, I would. But flippancy aside, I get where you’re coming from IP. The real issue is that no-one should have to wait 3 years for a trial, it’s a bloody great piss-take and a testament to the incompetence of the ACT judiciary.

crazycanberra4:51 pm 11 Jul 13

He did go to court there was a hung jury so bail continued. Someone like him should most certianly be keep behind bars !

Jumping Jesus Christ, if only it were possible to rationalise the systematic eradication of people like this with still being a half-decent human being. How can he still be on bail for a crime committed in 2010? He should be convicted or acquitted by now, surely? The ACT courts are an utter disgrace, they are as much to blame for the arson attack for letting troglodytes like Todd mingle with actual human beings instead of locking them up like they’re supposed to….
Sorry for the rant, I try not to gripe about the courts like an old Laura Norder windbag but the situation here would be laughable if it weren’t so fecking infuriating.

Which triumph are you referring to? The fact he was on bail, or the fact that 3 years after being charged he hasn’t been tried yet? He wouldn’t be on bail if he had been tried – he’d either be serving a sentence (possibly in prison) or a free man, cleared. Surely you wouldn’t want someone languishing in prison for three years awaiting trial?

IP

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