Sydney judge who compared incest with homosexuality barred from criminal trials

Sydney judge who compared incest with homosexuality barred from criminal trials

A SYDNEY judge, who compared incest and paedophile to homosexuality, has been prevented from undertaking any criminal trials until his comments have been investigated.

District Court judge Garry Neilson was reported by Fairfax Media as saying that in the same manner as homosexuality was once seen as taboo, but is now accepted, so “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now ‘available’”.

He went onto say: “If this was the ‘50s and you had a jury of 12 men there, which is what you’d invariably have, they would say it’s unnatural for a man to be interested in another man or a man being interested in a boy. Those things have gone.”

NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard said he was deeply concerned and “the community would be rightly appalled” by the comments attributed to Neilson.

“Incest is completely reprehensible, unacceptable, disgusting and criminal,” Hazzard said.

The NSW Government will refer Neilson to the Judicial Commission of NSW in order to ensure community support and “confidence in the judiciary,” he added.

“I will also be writing to The Chief Judge of the District Court to request that His Honour remove Judge Neilson from undertaking any criminal trials whatsoever until the Judicial Commission has dealt with the necessary processes it must undertake.”

Fairfax Media are also reporting that Neilson has been referred by a “senior federal official” to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse and he could become the first judicial officer sacked by Parliament.

The judge’s remarks arose in the case of a 58-year-old man who was charged with repeatedly raping his sister in the early 1980s when she was 18 and he was in his mid-20s.

The man pleaded not guilty to committing sexual intercourse without consent.

Talking to the Star Observer, NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby policy and project officer Jed Horner said: “The comments attributed to the judge are completely unacceptable.”

“Not only do they make a highly offensive comparison between being gay and sexual offences, but they are an affront to members of the community which have experienced sexual abuse in their lives,” he said.

 

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4 responses to “Sydney judge who compared incest with homosexuality barred from criminal trials”

  1. In NSW, the judiciary is a good example of justice in a complete joke and chaotic disarray and justice is never served to people of NSW that is full of corrupted money and politically derived agendas and horse trading- is a cruel blow to families in this state as well!

    There is no such thing as justice within NSW!

    Time to reform and overhaul the justice system in NSW for both juveniles and adults!!!!!

  2. This guy is totally nuts and his comments come from parroting many (anything but) christian based hate groups in the USA

    they are always blaming everything from natural disasters to crime as due to their “hated gays”

    eg when NZ allowed gays to have civil unions a few years ago, these type of extremist later blamed CUs for the earthquake in NZ

    I guess God was listening – last year Parliament voted 77 to 44 to allow gay people to marry in NZ

  3. Tristam,

    You are right; the whole thing is a beat up but it is more of a beat up than even you realise. He didn’t think it is not rape if it is not ejaculation: he has prepared to consider that a rape was less serious if there was no ejaculation because the risk of pregnancy and infection was less. Routinely rapes are considered to be more serious where the rapist does not use a condom or does not ask if the woman is using contraception so this was really just the converse of that albeit scientifically inaccurate. Incidentally, yes I know the thing about rapists using condoms or asking if a woman is pregnant is weird but nobody seems to complain about reasons for punish some rapists more seriously even though that must mean punishing other rapists less seriously.

    The judge seems to me to be being punished because what he says sounds like the “gays marry, next there will be pedophilia and then there will bestiality” sort of argument, but it is far from clear that was his point. And despite Hetty bloody Bravehearts, who is just as self-appointed as Harold Scruby of the Pedestrian Council, the judge said nothing about pedophilia becoming acceptable – he was talking about incest.

  4. The judge didn’t compare homosexuality to incest – he simply suggested that societal attitudes to taboo change, citing homosexuality as a recent example. There is debate to be hate about this, but this utterly contrived offence makes us look as puritanical and sensitive as the moral-police we so often come up against.

    While we all quiver with outrage at this perceived slight against the community, the real horror of his attitudes to rape is going largely unchecked. Why isn’t the headline “judge doesn’t believe it’s rape if there’s no ejaculation”? Why have we chosen the one reasonable thing he said (that there is no coherent moral case against consensual, non-reproductive incestuous relationships), and made it all about us?

    Again – this man should be stood down. But nothing he said was homophobic in the slightest.