Court in the Act The West Australian

On August 2, the Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins defamation trial will begin in WA’s Supreme Court.
Senator Reynolds is suing Higgins over a series of social media posts she claims were part of a deliberate attempt to ruin her career and reputation.
Higgins argues the posts were justified, given how Senator Reynolds treated the junior staffer. 
Both women have something to prove and everything to lose.
Reynolds has remortgaged her home to cover the enormous legal costs, and Higgins has been forced to sell her home in France to fund her defence. 
With careers, reputations and houses on the line, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Joining Tim on Court In The Act is former Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Martin.
Together they walk through the events leading up to the trial and reflect on why the majority of defamation cases never make it this far. 
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How’s about this for a guest list? 
The Chief Justice of Western Australia. The Attorney General of Western Australia. The former DPP of Western Australia, turned Supreme Court judge. 
Two of the richest people in Australia. The former chairman of the West Coast Eagles. More lawyers. More judges. Former judges.  
You would think that only the most pressing and potentially career defining legal issue would command such an audience – after business hours no less. 
But last week, this gathering of Perth’s lawful Illuminati did not take place in a court, or in an office, but in a theatre. 
The Heath Ledger Theatre – to witness the premier of the Black Swan State Theatre Company’s production of Prima Facie.  
A legal drama, created by playwright Suzie Miller, which has not only taken the theatre world by storm for years. 
But has also actually helped shift legal thinking and teaching, on the everlong debate surrounding sexual assault, consent – and how those issues are dealt with within the courtroom. 
Joining Tim on Court in the Act this week to discuss the production, the reaction – and the legacy – is Kate Champion, the director of Perth’s production of Prima Facie. 
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A decade since Amy Wensley’s suspicious death, her family are no closer to answers. 
The mother of two little girls was found in her bedroom with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Despite first responders’ suspicions, within one-hour detectives deemed Amy’s death a suicide.
What Police did - or didn’t do - in those crucial first hours have been the subject of intense scrutiny.
Joining Tim on Court in the Act is Anna Davey, Amy’s Aunt. 
Together they step through the tragic days and hours leading up to Amy’s death and the real reason they can’t accept the Police case.
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Thirty years ago this coming weekend, The Sunday Times fully exposed paedophile priest Reverend Michael Roderick Painter for the first time. 
Painter had been an Anglican priest in Perth and beyond since the early 60s.  
He was revered for his charisma and charm, his pastoral skill, his common touch, and was adored by his parishioners and fellow clergy alike. 
So much so that when it emerged that he had been accused of – and then admitted – sexually abusing a 16 year-old boy, his church elders could seemingly not do enough to support him. 
Until he ended his own life on the same day as his name appeared on the front page, in June 1994. 
Despite being a self-confessed paedophile, Archbishop Peter Carnley led a public outcry against the newspaper, for their “exaggerated distortions” in reporting the court outcome. 
He clearly claimed the reporting had contributed to Painter’s suicide.  
Three decades on from that report, another article will appear in The Sunday Times this weekend about Reverend Michael Painter. 
It will reveal that finally, the Anglican Church has now finally admitted that Painter was not just a “fleeting” offender – he was the most prolific paedophile priest WA’s Anglican church has ever had. 
But it will also show that despite their own admissions, the church is still fighting his victims every step of the way. 
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Who, how and why. 
Put brutally, those are the three questions a coroner has to answer when investigating a death.  
Seemingly simple questions. But sometimes so hard to answer. Sometimes impossible. 
In the coming weeks and months in Western Australia, headlines will be writ large about inquests set to be held. 
Cleveland Dodd – the young man who died by his own hand in the custody of WA’s Department of Justice. 
JC – the young indigenous mother shot by a police officer in Geraldton. 
And Lisa Govan – the young woman last seen outside a Kalgoorlie bikie den in 1999. And then never seen again. 
All inquiries which all the families involved hope will provide some answers, some truth out of death. 
Joining Tim on Court in the Act is Noor Blumer – director of Blumer’s lawyers whose practitioners are well practised in representing those hoping for answers out of an inquest. 
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On a quiet and idyllic street in the leafy suburb of Floreat, in Western Australia, the actions of a man intent on revenge, sent shockwaves throughout the small community and beyond.
Mark Bombara had been searching for his estranged wife, instead he found her best friend Jennifer Petelczyc, 59 and daughter Gretl, 18, fatally shooting them both, before turning the gun on himself.
A senseless, brutal and cowardly act, which Bombara’s daughter Ariel, says was entirely preventable. 
Days after the horrifying triple murder-suicide, Ariel gave a television interview claiming they’d feared for their lives, not only warning police about his behaviour but also about Bombara’s cache of guns.
Arial Bombara also described the harrowing events that culminated in yet another act of domestic violence.
In this episode Tim is joined by Family law advocate Nicola Jansen from O’Sullivan Davies Lawyers to discuss why men’s violence towards women keeps happening, why laws are failing to protect them and how the process of obtaining Violence Restraining Orders could be changed.
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