Crime reporter Gary Hughes brings up the important issue 'Alcohol and drugs driving teen killings'
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/garyhughes/index.php/theaustralian/comments/alcohol_and_drugs_driving_teen_killings/
There has been a statistical spike in teens killing others .. approximately double in a year. An aggravating factor that corresponds is drug use. What price a permissive society?
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Sex DVD teenagers plead guilty
By Katie Bice
SEVEN youths have pleaded guilty to their roles in the infamous Werribee DVD recording of a sex assault on a teenage girl – but it seems they will not face jail time.
Prosecutors told a Children's Court they had made “significant concessions” and would not ask for detention orders to be made against those to pleaded guilty.
The charges include one representative count of assault covering all the sex acts, two counts of procuring an act of sexual penetration by intimidation and one of making child pornography.
Those who pleaded guilty include three 17 year olds, two 18 year olds and two 16 year olds. None of them can be identified.
The court heard each defendant would be assessed for a supervision order, with an expert looking into their schools and home life to determine what level of counselling and support they require.
The prosecutor said the sexual offenders program would include education “in how not to treat women”.
The judge said while the charges were serious, a guilty plea was a “powerful factor” indicating the remorse shown by the young men, none of whom have prior convictions.
He said his primary sentencing consideration would be their rehabilitation.
Defence lawyers for some of the teenagers argued they would need more time to look over the case and talk with prosecutors about the level of involvement their clients were said to have had in the assault.
They also called for prosecutors to indicate whether they would ask for convictions against the eleven.
Those four remaining defendants each face 38 charges including assault, sex penetration by intimidation and making child pornography.
The homemade DVD entitled, "C--- the Movie", came to light in June last year when it was distributed and sold to students at Werribee schools.
It was recorded by the teens in a park and shows the girl, who has a mild learning impairment, performing a sex act, being urinated on and having her hair set alight.
Mother accused of microwaving daughter was 'drunk'
from news.com.au staff writers
A WOMAN accused of killing her newborn daughter by putting her in a microwave told police she was drunk and could not remember what happened, a testimony has been told.
China Arnold, 26, from Dayton Ohio, has pleaded not guilty to the charge of aggravated murder following the death of her month-old daughter Paris Tilley on August 30, 2005. She faces the death penalty if found guilty.
At a pretrial hearing, detective Michael Galbraith testified that Ms Arnold told him during questioning: "If I hadn't gotten so drunk, I guess my baby wouldn't have died," Associated Press reported.
Mr Galbraith said that Ms Arnold also told him she did not know how the baby suffered the burns, and that she had nothing to do with it that she could recall.
Mr Galbraith said Ms Arnold told him she arrived home in the early morning hours after drinking, fell asleep and was awakened at 2.30am by the baby's crying.
She said she warmed a bottle in the microwave oven on the counter, tried to give it to the baby, changed the child's nappy and then fell asleep on the couch with the baby on her chest, Mr Galbraith said.
Ms Arnold said she and her three children - aged seven, six and three - were the only people in the apartment until her boyfriend arrived several hours later and noticed something was wrong with the baby, Associated Press reported.
The coroner concluded that the injuries to Ms Arnold's baby could have been caused only by the child being cooked in a microwave oven.
Mr Galbraith said DNA matching the baby was found in the microwave, but he acknowledged that the DNA evidence did not establish who killed the child.
"That microwave was the murder weapon," he said. "The burns themselves were horrendous."
The trial continues.
Raid nets $800,000 worth of marijuana
from news.com.au
A POLICE raid has netted $800,000 worth of cannabis at a house in Sydney's west set up to cultivate hundreds of the illegal plants.
Police executed a search warrant about 7am (AEST) yesterday at a house in Prairiewood, where 347 plants and hydroponic equipment were seized.
The cannabis had an estimated street value of $800,000, police said.
No one was arrested during the search but police are continuing with their investigations.
Teen lovers jailed for murder plot
By Christine Flatley
A TEENAGE schoolgirl and her boyfriend have both been jailed for plotting to kill the girl's parents so they could continue seeing each other.
Joshua Andrew Hockey, 18, of Brisbane and the 16-year-old girl, who cannot be identified, had only been in a relationship for a month after meeting on the internet, before they hatched and tried to execute the plan in February last year.
They both pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court last week to one count each of attempted murder and conspiring to murder, however, Justice John Byrne adjourned sentencing until he could further consider the evidence.
During the hearing the court was told of a "chilling and unusual" plan that involved Hockey attacking the girl's father with a knife.
On the morning of February 18 he hid in a bathroom at the girl's family home and waited for one of her parents.
When the girl's father entered the bathroom Hockey attacked him with a knife and tried to slit his throat before the father overpowered him.
Before a packed courtroom, Justice Byrne today sentenced Hockey to nine years' jail for attempted murder and five years for conspiracy to murder.
Both sentences are to be served concurrently. He was also sentenced to one year for an unrelated armed robbery.
The teenage girl broke down when Justice Byrne sentenced her to four years' detention for attempted murder and two years for conspiracy to murder.
He ordered that she be released after serving two years.
Justice Byrne today described the motives behind the attempted murder as "pathetically weak".
The pair had hatched the plan so the girl could escape her "controlling" parents and the teen lovers could continue their relationship
"It was sheer good fortune that the attempts were not fatal," Justice Byrne said.
Justice Byrne acknowledged the girl was "highly vulnerable" when she met Hockey, as she had been raped some years prior by another person she met on the internet.
"(Her) impaired mental state adversely affects her ... decision making," he said.
However, Justice Byrne said he also took into account that the pair had been carefully calculating in their construction of the murder plot.
"The killings were not some spur of the moment decision... the crimes were grave," he said.
"She believed this was the only way she could continue her relationship with her co-accused."
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