Rare common law charge called into question
LAWYERS for the Porsche driver who filmed a dying policewoman on the Eastern Freeway have questioned whether one of the offences he is charged with even exists in Australia as plea negotiations hit a stalemate.
Richard Pusey, 42, is facing 15 charges after four Victoria Police officers were killed when hit by a truck after they had intercepted him for allegedly speeding on April 22.
The mortgage broker is not charged over their deaths. But he is facing a rare common law offence of committing an act outraging public decency after he allegedly filmed the horrific crash scene and the officers’ dead bodies. His legal team wants the charge withdrawn.
Facing Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link from prison on Thursday, Pusey sat quietly as his barrister Dermot Dann, QC, argued work to resolve the case had failed because the prosecution would charge.
Mr Dann said they had not been able to find a similar case involving the common law offence “in hundreds of years of legal history in this country”.
“Our position in respect to that charge is it can’t be made out legally; it can’t be made out factually,” Mr Dann said.
He said the court would need to determine if the charge ever existed or still exists.
Charge sheets reveal the ofnot strike out that fence in question relates to Pusey allegedly committing “an act of an obscene or disgusting nature outraging public decency” for his filming.
The offence has mostly been used in Britain and requires the prosecution to prove the act was done in a place open to the public, or in a public view, and could have been seen by two or more people.
Magistrate Donna Bakos ordered the parties to return before her later in the month.