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

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20 February Yahoo7 News “Judge slams rehabilitation 'failure'”

A judge has attacked the Victorian government over law changes which allows intellectually disabled or mentally ill offenders to be released back into the community without rehabilitation. Judge Elizabeth Gaynor launched the tirade during a hearing in the County Court in Melbourne on Wednesday for an intellectually disabled man, John Kilmartin, who pleaded guilty to one count of attempted child stealing.

Jane Dennis, from Forensic Services Victoria, told the court that under the new Disability Act, which came into force in July 2007, Kilmartin was no longer automatically eligible for a supervised rehabilitation program.

Ms Dennis said Kilmartin would have to be found guilty of a more serious offence, such as kidnapping, to qualify for such a program. Before the law changes, offenders like Kilmartin would have been placed on a Community Based Order (CBO) and automatically given treatment and monitoring, the court was told. Judge Gaynor said the community was being put at risk because people who needed rehabilitation were not getting it.
"If you are intellectually disabled and a criminal offender there is literally nowhere for you to go," she told the court.
"It is just appalling. The situation is dire.
"I am continually appalled at the hurdles put in the way of courts such as this.
"(It is) a short sighted change in the legislation."

Judge Gaynor said even if she sentenced Kilmartin the services available in jail for a person with an intellectual disability would be "hopelessly inadequate".
"Since I have returned in 2008 (from annual leave) I have dealt with at least one person a week who is suffering mental illness or an intellectual disability," Judge Gaynor said.
"Anything I do today is inadequate because this court is restricted. "How are courts able to undertake the important task of protecting the community?
"He (Kilmartin) has been sitting on remand for 19 months.
"That is 19 months wasted."

Judge Gaynor made headlines in May last year when she said a bid to keep intellectually disabled arsonist and thief John Maltman behind bars because there were no other options was "barbaric". The court was told that Kilmartin, 41, whose address has been withheld, admitted to following an eight-year-old boy he had befriended in a city music store and later trying to lure him from a tram. The boy had been dropped off at the store by his mother before the incident in Melbourne on June 23, 2006. The court was told the boy, now 10, was not hurt in the incident.

Judge Gaynor sentenced Kilmartin to 22 months in prison, but said he would be eligible for parole immediately having already served 121 days in custody. She said she would write to the Parole Board and ask that Kilmartin be placed in a rehabilitation program when released.

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