Foreword

When I used to tell people my job mostly entailed reporting on murder and manslaughter trials, sometimes I would get a quizzical look followed by ‘Don’t you find that a bit depressing/gruesome?’ or ‘Do you have nightmares?’

Certainly, sometimes covering what happens inside courts can be hard—particularly watching youngsters start on a life of crime or sitting next to the grieving parents of a murder victim as they stoically listen to horrendous details of their loved one’s last moments—but mostly it’s intriguing.

A trial, particularly a murder or manslaughter trial, is a good place to study character because people under stress and in unfamiliar surroundings tend to drop their masks. The reason for the trial—someone’s death—is stressful enough, but the pressure-cooker atmosphere created by a high-stakes adversarial contest often heats up emotions to boiling point.

Except where another source is acknowledged, the stories in this book are based on notes I took as a reporter—for the Herald Sun or Australian Associated Press—and court transcripts.

Writing this book has given me the chance to tell these stories free of the time and space restrictions unavoidably a part of newspaper and news agency reporting. I hope they show that, as well as being an essential part of a civilised society, the justice system can offer insights into human nature.

 

Wayne Howell