{"id":495811,"date":"2026-02-22T01:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T01:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495811\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T01:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T01:45:07","slug":"cape-york-mans-conviction-overturned-after-court-finds-magistrate-made-inappropriate-remarks-australia-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495811\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape York man\u2019s conviction overturned after court finds magistrate made \u2018inappropriate\u2019 remarks | Australia news"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Indigenous man from a remote Cape York community was wrongly convicted of a traffic offence by a magistrate who repeatedly talked over the defence lawyer\u2019s questions and made a series of \u201cinappropriate\u201d and \u201cintemperate\u201d remarks, an appeal has found.<\/p>\n

The magistrate, sitting in a circuit court in Aurukun, took about 10 minutes after the hearing to find Rex Austin Ngakyunkwokka guilty of an evasion offence.<\/p>\n

But a district court judge overturned the conviction last week, finding Ngakyunkwokka not guilty<\/a> and ruling there were significant errors and other issues with the initial trial.<\/p>\n

They include that the verdict was not supported by the evidence; the magistrate made multiple errors of law; the magistrate failed to give adequate reasons for his decision; and that the magistrate \u201cimpermissibly\u201d sought to bolster his reasons for conviction by referring to the applicant\u2019s criminal history.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

The appeal decision, handed down by district court justice Tracy Fantin, found the magistrate \u201cmisstated [Ngakyunkwokka\u2019s] evidence\u201d and had unfairly drawn an adverse inference against him.<\/p>\n

Fantin ruled that the \u201cconduct of the trial was such that a fair-minded and reasonably informed observer might consider that the magistrate was not approaching his task with a sufficient level of impartiality\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transcript of hearing discloses the magistrate repeatedly interrupting appellant\u2019s solicitor\u2019s questioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe prevented the appellant\u2019s solicitor asking permissible questions. He repeatedly interrupted the appellant\u2019s solicitor while she was making submissions. He told the prosecutor to object to her questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made inappropriate and intemperate remarks to the appellant\u2019s solicitor, describing the defence as \u2018something from Bart Simpson\u2019, \u2018very wrong\u2019 and \u2018fanciful\u2019, saying \u2018Jesus Christ\u2019 and \u2018my God\u2019, telling the appellant\u2019s solicitor she was running cases (plural) in a \u2018very, very odd\u2019 way, and that the magistrate was \u2018not the only one to say that\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cA consequence of this conduct was that the appellant\u2019s solicitor was not able to properly advance her submissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantin described the prosecution case as \u201cnot strong\u201d and found there were no grounds to convict Ngakyunkwokka, who was the owner of a car that was the subject of a stop by police outside Aurukun at about 8.30pm on 6 November 2024.<\/p>\n

Two police officers were patrolling the main road into Aurukun when the vehicle drove past. They could not see the make, model or registration number.<\/p>\n

The police attempted to stop the vehicle by activating their lights and sirens. The vehicle did not stop.<\/p>\n

The officers contacted other police officers in Aurukun, who set up a tyre deflation device about 5km from the community. A vehicle drove across the tyre deflation device and continued for about 2km, where it was abandoned. There was no sign of the driver.<\/p>\n

Ngakyunkwokka told the trial that he owned the vehicle but was not the driver. He said he usually left the keys on the wall of his home and that the car was accessible to more than 20 extended family members.<\/p>\n

Under Queensland<\/a> law, if the driver of a vehicle is accused of evading police, they are required to provide a statutory declaration naming the person they believe was driving, or alternatively giving as much information as possible about the location of the vehicle and who had access.<\/p>\n

Police told Ngakyunkwokka: \u201cIf you don\u2019t do the stat dec [statutory declaration] and name a person, you can be charged\u201d. He was not told that he had to complete the statement even if he could not nominate the driver.<\/p>\n

The trial magistrate convicted Ngakyunkwokka on the basis he did not provide a statutory declaration.<\/p>\n

The appeals court found the evidence supported a conclusion he \u201cdid not comprehend or appreciate\u201d the requirement to do so.<\/p>\n

In finding Ngakyunkwokka guilty, the initial magistrate said he was satisfied the vehicle police tried to intercept \u201cwas the same vehicle stopped by the tyre deflation device\u201d, and that the police vehicle\u2019s lights and sirens would have been seen by a reasonable person.<\/p>\n

The appeals court said the evidence did not support either conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecution case was not strong,\u201d the appeal judgment said.<\/p>\n

The appeals court found that the first element the prosecution required to prove the offence was that police had been exercising a power under the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act. But Fantin found police gave no evidence of the reason for seeking to stop the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no evidence that the vehicle was speeding or otherwise driving in a manner that attracted police attention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would not have been difficult to adduce such evidence. But it was not adduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeals court also found the magistrate made an error of law by finding the offence occurred \u201cat night\u201d, which is considered an aggravating factor in the offence. The offence occurred at 8.35pm. Under the statutory definition used in such cases, \u201cnight\u201d begins at 9pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Indigenous man from a remote Cape York community was wrongly convicted of a traffic offence by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-495811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}