Crocodile tears

Death for Top End pedestrians ... Differential charges for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal driving offenders ... NT Chief Justice enters the fray in the case of a manifestly inadequate sentence for a non-Aboriginal hoon ... Fresh emails surface ... Buffalo Bruce in Darwin has the story

More confusion emerges about the conviction and sentencing of Jake Danby, the abusive non-Aboriginal hit-and-run offender who killed an Indigenous man and severely wounded another while speeding in Darwin.

Danby escaped a custodial sentence and the fact that he is a relative of the NT Attorney General Marie-Clare Boothby adds colouration to the story.

Last week Justinian kicked off some Top End drama by publishing a letter from the Chief Justice, Michael Grant, ticking off the acting head of the AG’s Department, Leonique Swart.

Grant was incandescent that Swart had stymied the release of his media statement to local reporters at The Australian, telling them their report of Justice Sonia Brownhill’s sentencing in the Danby case was “incorrect”.

Following Buffalo’s scoop, more correspondence has been released by the AG’s department, as officials scramble to protect their posteriors.

This includes the text of Chief Justice Grant’s email to the reptiles at The Australian, Paige Taylor and Liam Mendes.

Grant was unhappy that they had compared the court’s slap on the wrist for Danby with a custodial sentence a month earlier for another offender, Stephen Rioli, an Indigenous man who while driving his car killed a young woman identified as “CN”.

Acting Justice Lex Lasry sentenced Rioli to three-years-and-six months imprisonment, suspended after he served 18-months.

Lex Lasry – from his Vic Supreme Court days

Grant argued the comparison of the sentencing for Danby and Rioli was “misleading” because, apart from the hit-and-run offence, Riolo had also been convicted of driving dangerously causing the death of the Aboriginal woman, which in this case attracted a three year prison sentence for him.

It begs the question, why was Danby only charged with the lesser offence of failing to stop at the scene of the accident.

That is a decision that must have been made while Lloyd Babb SC was the Northern Territory DPP.

Lloyd, as we know, had done ten years as the NSW DPP, appointed by Attorney General Greg Smith, who claimed that he had a “calming effect” on people he met.

It appears Lloyd couldn’t shake prosecuting out of his blood and eight months after finishing as the chief prosecutor in NSW he fetched up in Darwin in March 2022 as the NT DPP.

Babb: Danby charged with the lesser driving offence

We’ve asked the DPP’s currently leaderless office, what was the basis of the decision not to charge Danby with dangerous driving causing death.

As we go to press we have not heard back. The process is sensitive, as Danby is the stepson of the Attorney General’s sister and his sentence is subject to an appeal.

His offence was objectively much more serious that Rioli’s. He was travelling at 80 kph when he hit the two pedestrians – the shocking video of the incident shows that after running over the first victim he continued at the same speed, his foot firmly planted on the accelerator. Up to the time of the offence on June 13, 2024, he had been a regular user of methamphetamine.

Later he sent vile, racist texts to an associate:

“I hit the cunts at like 80kms. One of the blokes elbow went through my windscreen, so I reckon one of them has gotten at least a fucked elbow. I tried to slow down, so I maybe hit them at like 60-70. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll be able to claim his Centrelink for taking out another oxygen thief …

2 niggas jumped out onto the road and I hit them. Tried to slow down but the dumb cunts were jaywalking.”

The full tirade, which Justice Brownhill simply said was “shockingly callous”, can be found in her sentencing reasons.

Brownhill J: Danby’s behaviour was aberrant

She considered that Danby showed remorse, his offending was aberrant, and he had pleaded guilty – yet he only handed himself in after he knew the police were close to finding him.

In Stephen Rioli’s case, a minute after his car hit the young woman he walked back to her and tried to pick her up. Being unable to do so, he went the short distance to his home, woke his partner and told her what had happened.

He then returned to the scene of the accident, contacted emergency services and waited for them to arrive.

Lasry found Rioli to be a man of good character, remorseful, no relevant priors, yet was morally culpable. “Good character” was not a finding made by Justice Brownhill in Danby’s case.

Despite the gloss put on it by Chief Justice Grant, there is an ocean of difference between the way the two offenders responded to these fatal events, yet their respective culpabilities as managed by the criminal justice system failed to reflect those differences.

Lloyd Babb has not been far from controversy as the NT DPP. He has been roundly birched in the pages of the NT Independent, which revealed he had hired his son and daughter-in-law for short-term positions at the DPP’s office, which were not publicly advertised.

The Independent also reported there was also a “surprise internal promotion of a junior staffer to Senior Crown Counsel – alleged to be a close friend of Mr Babb’s – after she was previously rejected for two lower roles by separate independent hiring panels due to her lack of experience”.

Attorney General Boothby has kept schtum about these irregularities. She is widely referred to in Darwin as Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro’s “useful idiot”.

Local barrister John Lawrence SC in an article from last January, referred to the “Boothby and Babb Show” where they joined forces in a performance to deflect concerns about the overwhelmed Darwin Local Court.

Such is the independence of the various arms of government in the territory.

Correspondence from lofty sources