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Australia

Family of Queensland man Ian Seibel, who was killed by speeding, unlicensed driver slam ‘ridiculous’ penalties

Family of Queensland man Ian Seibel, who was killed by speeding, unlicensed driver slam 'ridiculous' penalties

The family of a man who was killed after being hit by an unlicensed and speeding driver north of Brisbane have slammed the punishment handed to the man responsible as “ridiculous” after learning he will spend less than two years in jail.

Manpreet Singh Brar pleaded guilty in the District Court on Thursday to one count each of dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death and driving without a licence.

During a sentencing hearing in Brisbane, the court heard Ian Seibel, 51, was crossing an intersection in Kallangur in the Moreton Bay region with his wife and their dog in November 2020, when they were hit by the 33-year-old’s car.

The court was played graphic dashcam footage of the crash, which showed Brar speeding through a red light, before colliding with another car, then slamming into the couple.

Mr Seibel sustained extensive head injuries and died in hospital several days later.

Ian smiles in a cap.
Ian Seibel was killed by a speeding, unlicensed driver while walking his dog with his wife in November 2020.(Supplied)

A woman in the second car was also critically injured and spent more than two weeks in hospital and “likely would have died” without surgery, the court heard.

The court heard Brar, who is an Indian national residing in Australia on a partner visa, had been driving unlicensed since 2016 and continued to do so after the crash, breaching his bail conditions.

He also has a lengthy traffic history dating back several years which included multiple counts of speed.

Crown prosecutor Chris Cook told the court tests also determined Brar had a low level of cocaine and high level of cough medicine in his system, but it was not alleged he was adversely affected by the drugs at the time.

“He was fatigued having used those drugs earlier,” he said

“He shouldn’t have been on the road that day.”

‘A kind, loving, gentle giant’

Mr Cook told the court it was clear from victim impact statements submitted to the court by family members that Mr Seibel was a “much loved” husband, father, son and friend.

“Mr Brar has caused his unnecessary and untimely death through his actions that day,” he said.

Paula Seibel looks distracted.
Widow Paula Seibel described the current justice system as “a toothless tiger.”(AAP: Jono Searle)

In Paula Seibel’s statement, she described her husband as her “best friend” and “better half”.

“I feel like I am less than a whole person now that I don’t have him by my side,” she said.

“I am beyond angry that I have not had the opportunity to spend the rest of my life with this kind, loving, gentle giant.”

Mrs Seibel made an impassioned plea to the judge, urging her to apply the maximum penalty to Brar, calling the current justice system a “toothless tiger.”

“I hope that my voice will not go unacknowledged and that lan will not be victimized once again,” she said.

“Our society is crying out for harsher penalties… Where is the incentive to stop committing crimes when a mere slap on the wrist is the only punishment received?”

Family ‘beaten’ after sentence

Judge Katherine McGinness acknowledged the “enduring heartache” Mr Seibel’s family would suffer but said there were sentencing considerations she had to make under Queensland legislation.

“No sentence I impose can turn back time or alleviate in anyway the profound pain,” she said.

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Sports

First responders circulating photographs of Gianna and Kobe Bryant’s bodies ‘poured salt in an open wound’, lawyer says

vanessa and kobe bryant sitting at a dining table smiling, kobe has his arm around vanessa and their faces are close together

Vanessa Bryant’s lawyer says first responders “poured salt in an open wound and rubbed it in” by photographing and sharing photos of her husband and daughter’s bodies.

The widow of basketballer Kobe Bryant is suing the LA County sheriff’s department over an invasion of privacy, saying she fears that she or her surviving children could be exposed to the pictures.

The decorated NBA player, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people died in a horrific helicopter crash in January 2020 while traveling to a basketball tournament.

Here’s a recap of what’s happened so far.

Why is Vanessa Bryant suing?

Ms Bryant filed the lawsuit over photographs, taken by first responders on their mobile phones, of the crash site including her husband and daughter’s bodies after they died.

She alleges the pictures were circulated among firefighters and off-duty colleagues, and that one deputy showed them to people at a bar.

Kobe Bryant with his family and wife at a basketball game in Los Angeles.
US federal safety officials blamed pilot error for the crash that killed nine people en route to as basketball tournament.(AP)

The lawsuit filed by Ms Bryant says she “feels ill at the thought that sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, and members of the public have gawked at gratuitous images of her deceased husband and child.”

“She lives in fear that she or her children will one day confront horrific images of their loved ones online,” the lawsuit says.

Ms Bryant is seeking undisclosed damage.

What happened in court?

Ms Bryant’s lawyer, Luis Li, told the jury that the photographs taken at the crash site by a deputy and a fire captain had no official or investigative purpose, and that they were viewed “for a laugh.”

The jury was shown CCTV footage of an off-duty sheriff’s deputy drinking at a bar showing the photos to a bartender, and alleged that the photos had been shown around as many as 30 people.

“They were shared repeatedly with people who had absolutely no reason to receive them,” Mr Li told the court.

gianna and kobe bryant smile arm in arm courtside at a basketball game
Kobe Bryant told the LA Times before his death that his daughter Gianna was “something else” on the basketball court.(Getty: Ethan Miller)

“They [the county] poured salt in an open wound and rubbed it in.”

A lawyer for the county defended the taking of the photos as an “essential” tool for first-responders and said that showing the bartender was “a moment of weakness.”

The defense lawyers told jurors that the fact that the pictures have not gone public showed that leaders in the sheriff’s and fire department did their jobs.

“They’re not online. They’re not in the media. They’ve never even been seen by the plaintiffs themselves,” she said.

“That is not an accident. That is a function of how diligent they were.”

A short, smiling woman in a red dress stands next to a tall bald man in a suit in front of a red Oscars photo background.
Vanessa Bryant was visibly emotional during the first hearing.(AP: Richard Shotwell)

But Mr Li said there’s no guarantee that the photos won’t be leaked in the future.

He said Ms Bryant “will be haunted by what they did forever”, and fears that her surviving children may see them.

What’s next?

The trial is expected to run for more than a week.

Another plaintiff in the case is Chris Chester, whose wife Sara and daughter Payton were also killed in the crash.

Los Angeles County officials have previously argued that Ms Bryant’s “severe and emotional and mental injuries” were caused by the crash, not the pictures, and dismissed the case as a “money grab.”

The county already agreed to pay $US2.5 million to settle a similar case brought by two families of victims of the crash.

Ms Bryant and Mr Chester declined to settle as part of that case.

ABC/wires

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Australia

Victim of paedophile John Wayne Millwood alleges compensation being avoided through diving of assets

Man escorts a bride, whose identity is obscured, at a wedding.

A victim-survivor of Tasmanian paedophile John Wayne Millwood says his abuser has divested many of his assets to family members and third parties and declared himself bankrupt to avoid paying court-ordered compensation.

Millwood, 76 — a former Launceston businessman and art collector — sexually abused the survivor, known as ZAB, over a period of six years in the 1980s.

In 2021, ZAB won a civil Supreme Court case against Millwood, however, the victim-survivor said the compensation amount was now about $6 million — the original order was for a record $5,313,500 — because of interest on the unpaid amount.

ZAB said he made an application to the court to recover the compensation but was now hopeful he could recover the payment through provisions in the Bankruptcy Act.

While ZAB’s lawyers applied to the Federal Court to have Millwood declared bankrupt, before the case was due to be heard in that court, Millwood declared himself bankrupt.

According to a creditor’s petition filed with the Federal Court on behalf of ZAB, Millwood “failed to comply on or before 26 July 2022 with the requirements of a bankruptcy notice served on him on 5 July 2022”.

The case is listed for hearing on September 8, however, according to the National Personal Insolvency Index, Millwood declared himself bankrupt on July 21.

ZAB said he only found that out on August 8.

“Unfortunately, [Millwood’s] self-declaration of bankruptcy will prolong the trauma involved,” ZAB said.

ZAB said he and his lawyers had documents they planned to use in court to argue Millwood had divested assets while the civil court case was underway.

“As the major creditor — now owed $6 million in damages, costs and interest — I will, however, use the significant powers afforded under the Bankruptcy Act to claw back assets from those family members and other third parties,” he said.

“I have no doubt we will succeed in recovering the $6 million I am owed in full, and it will cost Millwood and his family far more in the long run.”

ZAB said law reform was needed “to ensure convicted paedophiles cannot avoid paying compensation to victims in this way.”

“Superannuation laws are in desperate need of reform, as they prevent us from accessing Millwood’s multi-million-dollar self-managed super funds to recover damages,” he said.

Lawyer Angela Sdrinis — who specializes in personal injury claims related to child sexual abuse — said that in her experience, successful plaintiffs often had trouble getting compensation from individual perpetrators.

“One of the things that have been flagged, but unfortunately hasn’t been acted, on was a proposal that legislation be passed whereby a perpetrator’s superannuation would be made available or accessible to successful litigants in matters like these, in cases of child abuse, Ms Sdrinis said.

She said that approach would be “a pretty good start”, but said not all perpetrators had large amounts of superannuation.

John Millwood at reception.
John Millwood was barred by the Parole Board from ever returning to Launceston.(Supplied: Old Geelong Grammerians)

Another reform Ms Sdrinis suggested was to make so-called freezing orders easier to obtain.

“One of the things that can be done in criminal prosecutions is that assets can be restrained, restraining orders can be made so that the assets are held safely, pending the outcome of the criminal process,” she said.

“There’s not really an analogous process in the civil law. Claimants can make applications for what are called freezing orders, but those orders are very expensive to obtain before a court.

“The law relating to freezing orders is pretty much that you’re only likely to get a freezing order if you can prove that the disposal of assets is absolutely imminent — like a ‘for sale’ sign on a house — you really have [to have] that situation.”

Ms Sdrinis said transfers of land and other assets could be reversed by order of the court, “if the evidence is that the defendant disposed of the assets in order to avoid having to pay, but that’s a difficult, expensive and complicated process”.

Record-setting compensation in civil trial

Millwood initially pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court to multiple child sex offences. In the lead-up to his trial, he changed his plea to guilty.

He was sentenced to four years in prison and was given parole in 2019 after serving just over half of his jail time.

ZAB brought a civil action against Millwood in 2018. That case went to trial.

Millwood was unrepresented and did not make an appearance.

Chief Justice Alan Blow ordered Millwood to pay the abuse survivor a record-setting amount of $5,313,500.

In his decision, Justice Blow said the abuse “had devastating consequences for the plaintiff’s [ZAB’s] mental health”.

“His adult life has been affected by his complex post-traumatic stress disorder and his depression in practically every possible way. There are prospects for improvement, but certainly not full recovery.”

The ABC has attempted to contact Millwood through his trustee.

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Australia

Djirringanj man pleading guilty to possessing abalone says native title defense for cultural fishing unaffordable

Close up portrait of young man with serious expression with the sky and mountains in the foreground.

A Wollongong man says he feels relieved after spending almost three years wondering if he would be put behind bars for practicing his culture on his traditional lands.

Djirringanj man Anthony Mark Henry, 21, was today fined $8,300 in Bega Local Court, handed a 12-month community corrections order and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service after he pleaded guilty to possessing 1,093 shucked abalone on the NSW South Coast in 2019 .

He was also fined $3,000 after being found with 58 abalone at Black Head Reserve at Gerroa in May the following year.

Outside court, Henry said he felt “relieved” after spending years afraid to go back into the water and the thought of a possible $50,000 fine looming over his head.

A serious young man and older woman sitting on a large rock by the ocean.
Djirringanj elder Aunty Marilyn Campbell says her nephew, Henry, was diving for cultural purposes.(ABC South East NSW: Vanessa Milton)

“This has been going on since I was 18, and I’m nearly 22, so I’ve had three years wondering if I was going to jail,” he said.

Henry was one of four people initially charged with fisheries offenses after being stopped by NSW fisheries officers on April 2, 2019, north of Tathra.

Two of the people with Henry at the time were underage and had their charges thrown out, while the other man, 21-year-old Walbunja man Brent Gordon Wellington-Hansen from Batehaven, was also fined $8,300 and also handed a 12-month community corrections ordered and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service.

Magistrate Doug Dick told the court he believed the abalone would have been split equally between the four divers to later feed family members for a cultural event and estimated the market value of the catch at around $94,000.

He told the court the charges were “very serious”, adding the marine species must be protected.

“I have to be very careful not to trivialize things,” he told the court.

Henry’s lawyer Tony Cullinan said prosecutors had conceded there was no evidence supporting their claim the abalone was intended for sale when they drew charges of trafficking the species.

A wooden sign with Mimosa Rocks National Park and walks direction in front of a forest.
The four were caught with the catch inside Mimosa Rocks National Park, north of Tathra, in 2019.(ABC South East NSW: Adriane Reardon)

He also said prosecutors had made a last-minute decision not to cross-examine Henry over the cultural significance of the event being fished for on the day.

“This is a high caliber young man on the cusp of his life, and he has a great future ahead of him,” Mr Cullinan told the court.

Under current NSW regulations, an Indigenous Australian can legally possess 10 abalone for cultural purposes each day unless a permit is obtained.

Henry grew up in Moruya and is a registered member of the South Coast native title claim currently before the Federal Court of Australia. As a native title holder, Henry is entitled to take fish and shellfish according to traditional law and custom, without limits.

However, Henry said he did not raise or rely on the “native title defence” during the court proceedings due to the costs involved.

“I took out a bank loan for $10,000 for my lawyer, and I had to plead guilty,” Henry said.

“If I had wanted to plead not guilty, it would have cost 30 to 40 grand to fight it out the whole way.”

He said the onus should not be on traditional custodians to claim native title defense when confronted by fisheries officers.

“Fisheries should ask the question at the time because if we don’t bring it up, then we have to provide it through the courts,” he said.

“I had to show my genealogy to prove who I am.”

Henry said in a submission to the court he should have applied for a permit, but navigating the bureaucracy involved was difficult.

Outside court Henry’s grandmother and Djirringanj elder, Aunty Marilyn Campbell, said cultural fishing permits should be made easy to get and supported Henry’s view that alleged traffickers should be given a chance to claim native title.

“This is a white system trying to change our black system,” she said.

“He wasn’t trafficking. He was diving for cultural purposes.”

Fisheries NSW officers standing outside a courthouse on a sunny day.
Fisheries NSW officers were at the Bega Local Court for the sentencing.(ABC South East: Keira Proust)

A parliamentary inquiry into cultural fishing is currently underway in NSW, looking at why legislation passed in 2009 to protect cultural fishing has not been enacted.

An inquiry hearing was held in Narooma on the South Coast last month, with a second hearing set to take place in Sydney on August 19.

The NSW government has told the inquiry that it does support cultural fishing but that it cannot enact legislation until fishing catch limits are agreed on.

Minister for Agriculture Dugald Saunders told the ABC that there had been an agreement around “looking at a moratorium on prosecutions” while the inquiry was ongoing.

However, he said it would mostly focus on low-level prosecutions.

“In many cases, things are only prosecuted when they are at the severe end of the scale,” Mr Saunders said.

“It’s not for taking a couple of extra fish or a couple of extra abalone. It’s for taking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of extras, not a couple.”

An elderly man standing outside court, looking serious.
Walbunja man Keith Nye was also sentenced for fisheries offenses in early August.(ABC News: Nakari Thorpe)

Last week, Walbunja man Keith Nye was sentenced to a 26-month intensive corrective order for two offenses of trafficking indictable quantities of abalone in NSW.

In July, a district court judge dismissed an appeal by Walbunja man John Carriage to overturn his conviction on fishing-related offenses.

Mr Carriage was convicted last year on six fishing offenses after he was found in possession of abalone at South Durras, also on the NSW South Coast, in 2017.

Both men were ordered not to dive for or possess abalone for two years as part of their sentence.

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Australia

Child grooming charge against South Australian teacher Ammy Singleton dropped

A blonde woman wearing a white blouse and blue jeans sitting in a garden

Charges have been dropped against a female relief teacher who was accused of grooming a 16-year-old boy for sex.

Ammy Singleton, 28, was charged with communicating to make a child amenable to sexual activity at Port Augusta last year.

But on Wednesday, the Port Augusta Magistrates Court heard the complainant no longer wanted to proceed with the charges and the case against her was dropped.

Ms Singleton was a relief teacher at several schools in Port Augusta.

But the court previously heard the allegations had nothing to do with Ms Singleton’s job as a teacher.

“The [alleged victim] … a 16-year-old young male … ​​became aware of Ms Singleton from a picture taken of her without her knowledge at the club,” Ms Singleton’s lawyer Andrew Fowler-Walker told the court in May.

“[The alleged victim] then obtained details of a chat room from his friends.

“In no way was he ever taught by Ms Singleton.”

Earlier this year, the principals of the Port Augusta West, Augusta Park and Flinders View primary schools sent letters to parents advising them that Ms Singleton, who taught each as a temporary relief teacher, had been charged with a child sex offence.

All the letters stated that no students at those schools were involved in the alleged offending.

Under Ms Singleton’s bail conditions she was banned from engaging in any child-related work.

ABC News has contacted the Department for Education for a response.

Ms Singleton did not comment as she left court.

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Teacher Ammy Singleton leaves Port Augusta court

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Australia

Peter Dansie allowed to appeal against his conviction for murdering his wife who drowned in an Adelaide pond

Peter Dansie outside the Supreme Court

Australia’s highest court has allowed a man found guilty of murdering his wife by pushing her wheelchair into a pond to appeal against his conviction.

Peter Rex Dansie, 73, was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife, Helen Dansie, in Adelaide’s southern parklands.

Mrs Dansie drowned in a pond in Veale Gardens in April 2017.

Dansie lost a bid to appeal his conviction in South Australia’s Court of Criminal Appeal two years ago.

Today, two High Court judges dismissed Dansie’s application to appeal, but Justice Kevin Nicholson said he would have quashed the conviction as the evidence did not rule out the possibility that Mrs Dansie might have accidentally drowned.

“It would be dangerous in all the circumstances to allow the verdict of guilty of murder to stand,” Justice Nicholson said.

The High Court then granted Dansie’s application for special leave to appeal the majority decision of South Australia’s appeal court.

Helen Dansie smiling.
Helen Dansie drowned in a pond at Veale Gardens in Adelaide in 2017.(Supplied: SA Police)

The High Court unanimously found South Australia’s Court of Criminal Appeal misapplied the law and has allowed Dansie to appeal against his conviction.

The matter will be remitted to the South Australian Supreme Court for rehearing.

In allowing the appeal, the High Court said the Supreme Court needed “more than mere satisfaction” to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

“The appellant argues that the majority (of the Court of Criminal Appeal) misinterpreted and misapplied the approach required to be taken,” the judgment said.

“The appellant’s argument is well founded.

“The appeal must be allowed.

“What each member of the Court of Criminal Appeal needed to do in order to apply the test … was to ask whether he was independently satisfied as a result of his own assessment of the whole of the evidence added at the trial that the only rational inference available on that evidence was that the appellant deliberately pushed the wheelchair into the pond with intent to drown his wife.”

Divers in Veale Park pond
Police divers searching evidence in the pond at Veale Gardens in 2017.(Supplied: ABC News)

Mrs Dansie’s son Grant said he was “massively disappointed” the appeal had been granted.

“It’s like a never-ending story,” he said.

Dansie previously lost appeal

When Dansie was sentenced to a non-parole period of 25 years two years ago, Justice David Lovell said Mrs Dansie’s murder was the “ultimate act of domestic violence” and described it as an “evil and despicable act”.

“This was a chilling, planned murder of a person whose only mistake was to trust you,” he said.

During the trial, prosecutors alleged Dansie murdered his wife because he regarded her as a cost burden.

Mrs Dansie, a former microbiologist, suffered a stroke in the 1990s that left her with long-term disabilities.

The court at the time heard she was on an indexed pension for life, a large portion of which Mr Dansie was entitled to as her full-time carer.

Justice Lovell established a “dual motive” for the murder—a deterioration in Dansie’s feelings for his wife and an interest in pursuing a sexual relationship with another woman overseas.

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Australia

High Court throws out bid by animal rights activists to challenge ‘ag-gag’ laws preventing them from filming farm practices

High Court throws out bid by animal rights activists to challenge 'ag-gag' laws preventing them from filming farm practices

A challenge to the validity of so-called “ag-gag” laws in New South Wales, which restrict animal activists’ ability to surreptitiously film farming practices and publish the results, has been thrown out by the High Court of Australia.

The group that brought the challenge had told the High Court the laws interfered with animal activists’ implied right to freedom of political communication.

But the government argued the laws were reasonable and necessary to protect farmers’ privacy and safety.

Today, the High Court agreed, finding the laws achieved the right balance.

Group argued law prevented them from revealing animal cruelty

The matter before the court dealt with the Surveillance Devices Act 2007, which regulates the installation, use and maintenance of surveillance devices.

Sections of the act prohibit installation and use of surveillance devices at agricultural properties as well as the publication of a recording or report that was obtained through that surveillance.

The court heard the activist group, a not-for-profit charity, had “agitated and advocated for political and legal changes to animal agricultural practices and animal welfare standards with the objective of ending modern farming and slaughtering practices”.

Close up of pigs on a pig farm in Colombia in April 2009.
The High Court found the laws had a legitimate purpose, in protecting privacy.(AFP: Raul Arboleda)

Court documents state the group had published photographs, videos and audiovisual recordings of animal agricultural practices in New South Wales.

A second plaintiff, the group’s director, had also obtained recordings of the farming or slaughter of animals through “purported acts of trespass”.

Both groups argued the laws “impermissibly burdened their ability to publish information… that showed animal cruelty practices.”

But the court found the provisions of the law had a legitimate purpose, in protecting privacy.

It found that the relevant sections of the act “imposed an incremental burden on a person’s ability to publish records of lawful activities obtained surreptitiously and by conduct which amounted to trespass”.

“[The relevant sections of the act] achieved an adequate balance between the benefit they sought to achieve and the adverse effect on the implied freedom,” the High Court said in its judgement.

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Australia

Alleged murderer Darryl Young had police gun ban overturned years before Bogie mass shooting massacre

Alleged murderer Darryl Young had police gun ban overturned years before Bogie mass shooting massacre

The gunman who allegedly murdered three members of the same family in a rural Queensland town last week was banned from owning a gun license by police more than a decade ago before he successfully overturned the decision.

Queensland Police refused to renew Darryl Valroy Young’s gun license in 2010 after it found he was “not a fit and proper person” to hold firearms.

It added an approval for a license to own four rifles and a shotgun “was not considered to be in the public interest”, The Courier Mail reported.

But the 59-year-old appealed to the Civil and Administrative Tribunal in the same year he needed the weapons to kill feral animals on his sprawling property in Bogie, south-west of Bowen, in northern Queensland’s Whitsundays region.

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Young argued he had not broken laws that would prevent the Queensland Police from renewing his firearms license – which was first acquired in 1998.

“I would like the Tribunal to over turn the rejection notice as I have not broken any laws to stop me having a gun license,” Young wrote.

“…There is no were (sic) in the laws of the gun laws that I have broken to stop me having a gun license… I need my gun license for my business.

“I hope the Court overturns the decision so I can have my license.”

He was charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on Friday following the shooting incident that rocked the town one day earlier.

Police will allege in court three family members – couple Mervyn, 71, and Maree Schwarz, 59, and their son Graham Tighe, 35 – were fatally shot on Thursday by Young at the boundary of their huge properties after the parties agreed to meet the night before.

The other son, Ross Tighe, was left in a critical condition after a shotgun wound to the abdomen. He was able to escape about 40 kilometers in a ute and raise the alarm.

Young appeared at Proserpine Magistrates Court via video link on Monday morning. His legal team did not apply for bail.

He will remain behind bars at a Queensland correctional facility until the case is mentioned again in just under three months on November 1.

Neighbors of the Schwarz’s traveled more than an hour from their town to the courthouse to support the alleged victims and their families.

The Schwarz’s had moved next door to the Young’s in the town with a population of about 200 people after purchasing the 29,000 hectare farm in May 2021.

Police will allege the couple and one of their sons were murdered at the front of the Shannonvale Rd property over an ongoing dispute about boundaries of the homes.

Anyone in the area with information who has knowledge, information of any issues in the area, or spoke with either family, should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Categories
Sports

Carlton captain Patrick Cripps gets two-game ban for hit that left Brisbane’s Callum Ah Chee with concussion

Patrick Cripps runs with his jersey torn heavily at the shoulder

Carlton’s finals hopes have been dealt a huge blow after Captain Patrick Cripps was handed a two-match ban for his high bump on Brisbane’s Callum Ah Chee.

Cripps caught Ah Chee high in the second quarter after jumping in the air to contest a loose ball.

That hit concussed Ah Chee, who was subbed out of the game.

The AFL’s match review officer graded the rough conduct incident as careless conduct, high contact and high impact, drawing a two-match ban.

If Carlton accepts the decision — or are unsuccessful in overturning it — Cripps will miss the club’s challenging last two regular season games against Melbourne and Collingwood.

The Blues (12-8) are currently seventh, but two losses in the final two rounds could dump them out of the finals.

After Sunday’s 33-point loss to Brisbane, Carlton coach Michael Voss mounted a spirited defense of Cripps.

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“I thought it was a good answer,” Voss said.

“The umpire probably told the story, didn’t he? He didn’t pay a free kick, did he?

“From what I’ve seen, the arms were outstretched and it was a pretty even contest.

“If we are asking players to make micro-second decisions, I don’t know whether the game enables that. I really don’t.”

Voss said Ah Chee failing to play out the game should not be a factor in any potential sanctioning of Cripps.

Callum Ah Chee is attended by a medic while lying on the ground. Behind him, two Lions players wrestle Patrick Cripps
Callum Ah Chee was forced out of Sunday’s game with concussion.(Getty Images: Bradley Kanaris)

“I don’t think he is there to cradle the person to the ground, is he?” Voss said.

“It was unfortunate. We hope he is OK. Clearly, we have empathy, in terms of that side of things, but we’ve also got to respect that the game is going to be evenly contested, and that it looked like an even contest take.”

Star West Coast midfielder Tim Kelly was offered a one-match ban for his dangerous tackle on Adelaide’s Sam Berry.

Sydney’s Callum Mills and North Melbourne’s Curtis Taylor can each accept $1,000 fines if they plead guilty to wrestling charges.

AAP

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Australia

Perth man denied bail over alleged Broome jogger rape as police say he shaved beard to alter appearance

A masked police officer with his arms folded, police tape across a footpath

A Perth man has been denied bail after it was revealed he allegedly shaved his beard to avoid identification over a sexual assault on a jogger in Broome last week.

Dean Osborne, 52, appeared in the Broome Magistrate’s Court on Monday, charged with three counts of aggravated sexual penetration without consent, over the incident in Broome’s north on Friday morning.

Police allege Mr Osborne, an electrician on a contract working in the tourist town, was walking in the opposite direction to a woman who was out on a run around 5am.

The court heard as he passed her, he allegedly pushed her into bushes and sexually assaulted her.

Two officers speak to residents outside a house in Broome
Several residents nearby heard the woman screaming.(ABC Kimberley: Jessica Hayes)

Several members of the public heard the screams as well as neighbors in surrounding houses, but despite attempts to stop the accused he left the scene on foot.

In determining bail, Magistrate Andrew Maughan asked the prosecution to determine the strength of the police case against Osborne.

Police said they had found DNA on the victim in “multiple locations”, including Mr Osborne’s possessions at the scene.

They said his legs and arms appeared to be covered in scratches from the alleged victim, and he was caught on CCTV going from the scene back to his accommodation.

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