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[This edited version of the report has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles]

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On 11 July 2007 Robert Taylor of the West Australian reported “DPP rejects critics and points to gains”  

Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock has hit back at critics who claim his office is the worst public prosecutor in Australia and weighed down by career public servants. But Mr Cock, who returned to Perth yesterday from a conference of public prosecutors in Canada, acknowledged his office was emerging from a period when inadequate resourcing forced it to send more cases to court for judgment than he would have liked. “There have been a number of cases which we abandoned late in the day,” he said. “That’s been more a function of inadequate resources to enable a proper evaluation at an earlier opportunity.” Mr Cock had recently been able to hire senior lawyers and could now put more effort into assessing cases before they went to trial.
 “A year or so ago I was 25 lawyers short, a year and a half ago I was 40 lawyers short and now I’m about eight or nine short so we’re improving our capacity every week or so,” he said.

On Monday, lawyer-turned Labor MP John Quigley said WA’s DPP office had a reputation with Australia’s legal fraternity as being the worst in the country and high-profile lawyer Malcolm McCusker questioned why Mr Cock proceeded with the case against the three men accused of killing Phillip Walsham. The Court of Appeal overturned their murder convictions on Friday.
Mr Cock said he was surprised to hear the comments and was not alone in his assessment of the Walsham case.

“From my assessment of my colleagues, some are in much worse shape than we are and I’d be surprised if there are many criminal lawyers who would say anything different,” Mr Cock said. He said few of his lawyers did their articles at the DPP straight out of law school and then settled down to the life of a career public servant as Mr Quigley alleged. “There are very few who have been here since the inception of the office,” he said. “There’s been a massive turnover in recent years and I’ve replaced them with experienced criminal lawyers who have done a lot of defence work.” Mr Cock said the Walsham case was always finely balanced as demonstrated by the fact a judge and jury initially convicted the men.

“The matter came to my office following a coronial inquest with a recommendation from the Coroner,” he said. “I considered it for four or five months and asked the police to do some more work on an aspect that troubled me. After that I was satisfied it was appropriate to let the matter go to trial. “It went before Justice Murray firstly and his honour discharged one of the defendants but the others were sent to the jury.

“Then, at the retrial, Justice Heenan presented a case to the jury too, so I suspect I’m as fallible as the Coroner and two other judges and I regret that but it’s a fine balance.”  

Source: 11th July 2007 Robert Taylor State Political Editor West Australian “DPP rejects critics and points to gains”

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