BADNESS FRONTS OVER STICK FLICKS
AN infamous crook has argued it would be “double jeopardy” if he were penalised for hiding a computer stick containing “lesbian wrestling” videos in his cell at Lara’s Barwon Prison.
Christopher Dean Binse — a notorious armed robber nicknamed ‘Badness’ — sacked his Legal Aid lawyer at the start of his hearing in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
Representing himself, he then admitted hiding a USB stick in his cell in the newly built maximum-security Olearia Unit.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable David Vanderpol said prison officers found the storage device taped to the underside of a toilet brush in Binse’s single-person cell.
Binse admitted the device contained pornography but said its primary purpose was to store legal material he was working on, including an application to the Attorney-General for a “petition of mercy”.
He said he stored some documents on the USB because he didn’t trust Corrections Victoria, and didn’t want to store the papers on the prison computers.
In a quirk of happenstance, the small storage device was found in a raid of his cell on May 23 this year, exactly six years after he was taken into custody.
On that same date in 2012 police used tear gas to arrest Binse following a 44hour siege at East Keilor and an earlier $235,000 armed robbery of Armaguard officers at Laverton.
Exactly two years later, on May 23, 2014, the career criminal was sentenced to an 18-year stint in jail for those crimes.
He said the discovery of the memory sticks with “erotic content” on them had added further restrictions to the “harsh conditions” and “isolation” he was enduring at Barwon Prison.
“Yes, there was some adult entertainment. I think about three five-minute trailers,” he told court.
He later said the videos contained “lesbian wrestling”, but magistrate John Lesser said: “To be honest, I don’t care what was on it.”
He told Binse the memory stick found in his cell was contraband, and he was charged for having it, not what it contained.
But the defendant said prison staff had already penalised him for that.
“I feel this case is a classic case of double jeopardy applying to me because I’ve been dealt with initially over this matter,” he said.
Binse said before the raid on his cell he was allowed two private visitors a month, but now he was only entitled to one, and his allocation of phone calls had also been reduced. He said his access to computers had also been restricted, along with his ability to purchase items .
The defendant wanted to draw the magistrate’s attention to a previous case where one of his fellow prisoners had received a minimal penalty for being caught with a USB stick, but was unable to cite the case.
“You might’ve been better to ask your lawyer about that before you sacked him,” Mr Lesser quipped.
The magistrate ordered the memory stick be destroyed once Binse had been allowed to extract any “legitimate legal material” from it.
He told Binse the crime of possessing an unauthorised memory stick in prison could potentially add 12 months to his sentence, and noted prison papers showed he had been caught with a similar device previously without prosecution.
This prompted Binse to threaten an appeal.
“Why don’t you wait to see what I’m going to do before you lodge your appeal papers,” Mr Lesser responded before adding 14 days to the man’s prison term.