G20: Three G20 protesters granted bail

Posted on December 7, 2006 by @ndy

Three G20 protesters granted bail
Sasha Shtargot and Andrea Petrie
The Age
December 7, 2006

THREE demonstrators accused of violence at the G20 city protests last month were granted bail last night.

Students Rosalie Delaney, 19, of Parkville, and David Vakalis, 19, of Brunswick East, and Dominic Richardson, 24, a part-time sales assistant from Brunswick, were charged with offences, including riot and affray. Vakalis was also charged with conduct endangering persons.

A bail hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told that Richardson pushed a wheelie bin against a police barricade in Collins Street during the November 18 protest in an attempt to breach it. At the same time, others threw bottles, bread and milk crates.

The court was told that Delaney, a Melbourne University student, threw a wheelie bin at a police brawler van on the corner of Exhibition Street and Flinders Lane, damaging a window.

Magistrate Dan Muling granted bail with conditions to the pair and ordered them to face court on March 22.

Vakalis faced an out-of-sessions hearing at the St Kilda Road police complex last night. The hearing was told that he threw wheelie bins, street signs and milk crates at police vehicles. A call to Crime Stoppers put police in touch with his university. Police raided his house yesterday and charged him with eight offences. He was bailed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court today.

See also : ‘Blood and politics in the street’, Nick Coe, The Bulletin, November 20: “There were warnings this gathering of global money-men could spark trouble. Protest organisers rightly pointed out that they could not control the behaviour of every individual. But at the very least, their demonstration allowed radical groups an opportunity to infiltrate, and autonomously plot their mayhem.”

On riot and affray: five years ago, in June 2001, a number of workers, including former AMWU state secretary Craig Johnston, engaged in a so-called ‘run-through’ of two businesses (Johnson Tiles and Skilled Engineering) involved in a protracted industrial dispute. The case eventually boiled down to the ‘Skilled Six’. On August 27, 2004, the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal decided to jail Johnston: “In a surprise move, three appeal court judges overturned an earlier suspended jail sentence handed down by Judge Joe Gullaci in the Melbourne County Court, and imprisoned Johnston for nine months…

Significantly, Johnston is the first union official to be jailed since the 1983 three-month incarceration of Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) national secretary Norm Gallagher on long-standing contempt charges. Gallagher’s jailing paved the way for the eventual federal deregistration and smashing of the BLF in 1986—part of the Hawke government’s agenda of disciplining militant sections of workers as a precondition for its assault on the social position of the working class as a whole. In May, Johnston received a one-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to charges of affray, criminal damage and verbal assault in exchange for the dropping of a “threat to kill” charge that carried a maximum penalty of 25 years jail.

Johnston was eventually released on May 27, 2005, while the sixteen other workers who also faced charges over their involvement in the initial incidents “were convicted and fined up to $3000 over the invasions after pleading guilty to unlawful assembly”.

That’s history. Now law:

    Riot

    Riot is a common law offence based on the concept of “breach of the peace”. The prosecution must prove that three or more people were gathered together, with a common purpose, with an intent to assist each other, using force if necessary, against anyone who opposed them, and also used or threatened force or violence in such a manner as to terrify reasonable people.

    Police may also have a situation declared as a riot by having a magistrate read aloud the riot proclamation (“reading the riot act”).

    Affray

    Affray is also a common law offence. The prosecution must prove that there was fighting or violence used by one or more people against another or other people, or an unlawful display of force, and this might cause a reasonable bystander to be terrified.

Buggered if I can find the relevant legislation online but…

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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3 Responses to G20: Three G20 protesters granted bail

  1. muchslacker says:
    December 8, 2006 at 12:08 pm

    In Victoria, there is no relevant legislation: that’s what the FLS blurb above means when it says that riot and affray are common law offences (roughly: offences deriving from judge-made law rather than statute). (Although there is a statutory offence of ‘Rioters demolishing buildings’!). This means that you have to go to the caselaw to work out what it’s all about.

    FYI:

    Encyclopaedic Australian Legal Dictionary:

    Riot
    Criminal law
    At common law, an offence involving an assembly of three or more persons who use force or violence with intent to achieve a common purpose in such a manner as to alarm a bystander (possibly hypothetical) of reasonable firmness and courage: Boxer (1995) 14 WAR 505; 81 A Crim R 299. In some jurisdictions, the common law offence of riot has been abolished and replaced by a statutory offence: for example (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 s 93E. In New South Wales, the offence consists of the use or threat of unlawful violence by 12 or more people present together for a common purpose where their conduct would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his or her safety: (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 s 93B. Each person using unlawful violence for the common purpose is guilty of the offence of riot: (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 s 93B. Proof that an accused took part in a riot requires showing an accused participated in the riot and was not merely present at the riot scene: Boxer (1995) 81 A Crim R 299.

    Affray
    Criminal law
    A criminal offence at common law or under statute involving the use or threat of unlawful violence towards a person, which would cause a person of reasonable firmness to fear for his or her personal safety: (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 s 93C; Attorney-General\’s Reference (No 3 of 1983) [1985] 1 All ER 501. A person of reasonable firmness need not actually be present, nor be likely to be present, at the scene: for example (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 s 93C.

    Halsbury\’s Laws of Australia:

    [130-12185] The code jurisdictions and Victoria. In the Northern Territory, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia, participation in an unlawful assembly or a riot is an offence. Queensland law also makes special provision for unlawful assemblies and riots involving prisoners. Participation in these particular assemblies or riots attracts a higher maximum sentence. In Victoria, participation in unlawful assemblies and riots is a common law offence. The code provisions have been interpreted as declaratory of the common law and are interpreted on that basis.

    Maximum penalties are five years (unlawful assembly) and 10 years (riot): (VIC) Crimes Act 1958 s 320.

    [130-12190] Common law jurisdictions. At common law an assembly of three or more people is an ‘unlawful assembly’ if it is conducted with the intention to commit a crime by open force or to carry out any lawful or unlawful common purpose in such a manner as to give firm and courageous people in the neighbourhood reasonable grounds to apprehend a breach of the peace. A lawful assembly of three or more people may become unlawful if a proposal is made to it to commit a violent act to the disturbance of the public peace, and the proposal is acted upon. A riot only exists when all five of the following elements are satisfied simultaneously:
    • (1) three or more people assembled;
    • (2) for a common purpose;
    • (3) who embark upon the execution of that common purpose;
    • (4) intending to help one another by force if necessary; and
    • (5) who use such violence as to alarm at least one person of reasonable firmness and courage.
    The requirement of a common purpose means that participants in a riot may be jointly charged only if they were contemporaneously involved in the alleged riot.

    Criminal Law Victoria

    OVERVIEW OF RIOT, ROUT AND UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY
    [141,000] Overview and statement of offences
    Riot, Rout and Unlawful Assembly are all aimed at preventing groups of people (ie, three or more people) gathering in a manner which threatens public security. The three offences can be connected by a logical continuum. In essence, an unlawful assembly is where three or more people gather for the purpose of committing a crime involving the use of violence or to carry out any purpose in an unlawful manner. At common law an \”unlawful assembly\’ developed into a \”rout\” as soon as the assembled persons did any act towards carrying out the illegal common purpose which had made their assembly unlawful. A \”rout\” became a \”riot\” as soon as this illegal purpose was put into effect forcibly by persons mutually intending to resist any opposition: Halsbury\’s Laws of England (4th Ed, 1976) Vol 11 para 856 to para 862: as cited in Boxer v R (1995) 81 A Crim R 299 at 302; 14 WAR 505. Similarly, it has been stated that:
    \”It is said that the distinction between a riot, rout and unlawful assembly is that the first is a tumultuous meeting of persons who are guilty of actual violence; the second where they endeavour to commit an act which would make them rioters; and the last where they meet with an intention to make a riot, but neither carry their purpose into effect, nor make any endeavour towards it.\” (Archbold, Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice, 39th edition, p 1500, par 3574): cited the CCA(Vic) in R v McCormack [1981] VR 104 at 107; (1980) 2 A Crim R 405 at 409. An accused charged with riot may be convicted of rout or unlawful assembly where the prosecution fails to establish all the elements of riot. For example, see R v Cook [1995] 2 Qd R 77; (1994) 74 A Crim R 1.

  3. Pinkpisces says:
    March 22, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    Darling, I CANNOT EVER understand the pain you felt n went through for such a LONG TIME x

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