Andrew L. Urban
Everyone knows that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Sall Grover of Giggle fame has great hair. The Tickle person definitely does not. Even a former Family Court judge – a woman – is now challenging the Federal Court for its “extraordinary overreach” to find that the ordinary meaning of “woman” includes a biological male. Continue reading
ADRIAN BERTINO-CLARKE is the founder of FIA Labs and the creator of LIA Apex, a governed legal intelligence workspace being developed with miscarriage-of-justice work in mind. LIA Apex is designed to help lawyers, investigators, innocence advocates, journalists, academics, and review bodies organise complex case records, test prosecution theories, challenge expert evidence, identify unresolved doubt, and preserve reviewable governance logs. It is not an innocence machine or a substitute for lawyers; it is a tool for making legal reasoning more disciplined, transparent, and accountable. Continue reading
In his important book, Road to Damnation, Chris Brook takes the reader on a gripping journey to the darkest reaches of human experience – the drowning of three children – when it intersects with the law. Brook places the case of Robert Farquharson – their father – at the interface between law, science, society and psychology, as we first reported on October 15, 2020. Farquharson was found guilty and is still in prison, serving a 33 year sentence, but efforts to overturn his conviction continue. Continue reading
The wrongful conviction of Kathleen Folbigg, who spent over 20 years in custody, is unarguably one of Australia’s worst, acknowledged, miscarriages of justice. A special edition of Current Issues in Criminal Justice (by Mehera San Roque & Emma Cunliffe, May 4, 2026) brings together several academics to examine the implications of the case for the legal system. The following is an extract from the section titled ‘Implications of the case for criminal legal system reform’. Continue reading
Australia has a troubling history of contested medical and forensic evidence contributing to contested or overturned convictions, writes STEVEN FENNELL in response to our story Can the law handle the scientific truth? No, says Lucy Letby case. Continue reading
A compelling new paper published in the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly uses the Lucy Letby case as a lens to expose something criminal lawyers everywhere should take note, says Jae Gerhard, forensic DNA expert and Principal Forensic Scientist at Independent Forensic Services. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Among all the uproar over the Federal Court’s stunning backhander to women in the Tickle v Giggle case, one question to which I have not found an answer is: why? Why would the Tickle person want to be the sole biological male among biological women in an online space, an app, for women? And why would rejection lead to an ugly legal confrontation? Why was Tickle tickled pink at the court’s decision, without a word of sympathy, empathy or just plain human regard, for the women who were clearly distraught. It’s all one question, though. WHY? Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
It’s all very well to have a war crimes murder trial of Ben Roberts-Smith but given its track record, the legal system is not all that trustworthy to deliver justice. The many moving parts of the system include the investigators (AFP and OSI), the prosecutors, the judge and the jury. And this will be an extraordinarily challenging trial. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Garry Nye attended his own wake; I was invited. My book-length story on his life and troubles was well advanced. It turned out to be my first wrongful conviction report. Not long after, I wrote his obituary for The Australian. He had been determined: “For what they did to me and my family I wanted to get the bastards back.” Just days after he hosted his own wake at a Rooty Hill pub (21/2/2004), Garry Nye passed away (1/3/2004, age 51) and was buried next to his mother’s grave at Rooty Hill on March 6, 2004 – her birthday. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
It was in the main street of Mintabie, 980 kms northwest of Adelaide, the remote opal mining community (now closed). It was 1978 and an Aboriginal man had been found dead, in mysterious circumstances. The Coroner sent a team to investigate. Refusing an offer of a cool room for the procedure, the State’s forensic pathologist set up a make shift morgue in the street and proceeded to perform his gut wrenching task. After Dr Colin Manock had removed the bodily organs from the chest, he used a ladle to scoop up some of the body fluids and quipped, ‘does anybody fancy a slurp?’ Continue reading