St Georges Road mansion in Toorak destroyed by blaze
A home under renovation on St Georges Road in Toorak has collapsed after a fiercely burning blaze.
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ABC News
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Multiple 'imitation' firearms found in George Town home by Tasmania police
A 40-year-old George Town man has been charged with multiple offences after illegal firearms, including a replica gun collection, were found during a property search in Tasmania's north. Police said they attended a George Town home on Wednesday while investigating an earlier driving offence in the area. They said officers observed "items of interest" through the window of the property, and "subsequently executed a search warrant", which resulted in 16 firearms being located. One single-barrel shotgun was found along with 15 "imitation" guns. The replicas included flintlock pistols, assault rifles, semiautomatic sniper rifles and a submachine gun. Police said the full list of items seized were: According to the Tasmania Police website, an imitation firearm is defined as an article of any material or colour that is a copy or reproduction of a firearm, or has the appearance of, and could reasonably be mistaken for, a firearm. A gun licence is required to possess an imitation firearm (other than a toy), and it must be in the appropriate category for the style of firearm. Tasmania Police said the George Town man was arrested and was subsequently charged with multiple offences, including possess a firearm to which a firearms licence may not be issued, and drug and driving-related offences. He will appear in court at a later date.
News.com.au
42 minutes ago
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Major blow for amateur boxer Adam Abdallah who broke soccer ref's jaw
An amateur boxer who was jailed for breaking a soccer referee's jaw and leaving him with four missing teeth in a wild brawl has failed in his push for a lighter sentence. Adam Abdallah, 26, attacked soccer referee Khodr Yaghi following a match at Padstow Oval in southwestern Sydney in April 2023. Mr Yaghi was left with a broken jaw and four missing teeth after Abdallah landed multiple blows to his face and kicked him in the head during the attack. Video of the attack was widely shared on social media in the aftermath. The amateur boxer initially pleaded not guilty to reckless grievous bodily harm and was granted bail in May 2023 after an extended version of the viral video appeared to show he'd been attacked first. He later changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to two years and three months behind bars in February with a non-parole period of one year and two months. He will be eligible for parole in March 2026. Abdallah applied to appeal his sentence, with his defence lawyer Thomas Woods telling the Court of Criminal Appeal in May that his client was seeking an intensive corrections order that would allow him to serve time in the community as opposed to in jail. The Grounds of Appeal argued the sentencing judge had erred by finding Mr Yaghi's 'provocative conduct' didn't significantly mitigate Abdallah's conduct, and also by failing to address a submission to reduce the penalty following his guilty plea.
News.com.au
2 hours ago
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Ben Roberts-Smith battles for last chance to overturn defamation loss in Australia's highest court
Ben Roberts-Smith has turned to Australia's highest court in a last-ditch effort to sue Nine Newspapers over war crime allegations. Roberts-Smith claims the Federal Court bolstered its murder conclusions on the assumption that because he didn't challenge evidence, he accepted it as fact. Roberts-Smith filed an application for special leave with the High Court of Australia on Wednesday, just a month after he failed to overturn his loss to Nine Newspapers over war crimes allegations made in a series of stories. Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko in June 2023 dismissed Roberts-Smith's multimillion-dollar lawsuit against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Canberra Times in a landmark judgment. Justice Besanko found that Roberts-Smith was involved in the murder of four unarmed men during his deployment in Afghanistan. The findings were made on the balance of probabilities, which is less than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. His appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court was dismissed by Justices Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett in May The court found that while Justice Besanko made two errors in his judgment, they were described as 'immaterial'. Roberts-Smith's latest bid to overturn his defamation loss hinges on two grounds, including claims the Federal Court made an error by assuming he accepted facts because he didn't contest evidence. 'The Full Court erred by treating the appellant as affirmatively accepting facts that were not recontested, and using that assumed acceptance to bolster its murder conclusions, thus misconceiving the effect of unchallenged findings on appeal,' the special leave application stated. The other ground argued the Federal Court preferred 'delayed, contradictory and memory-impaired' eyewitness accounts over Australian Defence Force (ADF) operational records. This was in relation to Roberts-Smith's involvement in the murder of two prisoners at a compound called Whiskey 108 in 2009, the murder of a handcuffed shepherd Ali Jan at Darwan in 2012, and Roberts-Smith directing members of the Afghan partner forces to shoot a man following the discovery of a cache of weapons during an operation at Chinartu. The application argues the findings of war crimes couldn't be reached to the requisite standard under the Evidence Act as they relied on 'inconsistent and memory-impaired recollections' from more than a decade after the events and despite 'exculpatory' ADF operational records. ADF records document 'lawful engagements and no executions' and would-be engagements 'consistent with the laws of armed conflict', Roberts-Smith claims. Further, the application claims the records were discounted on 'speculative or flawed grounds', including by treating them as 'no more than repetitions of the applicant's account' or rejecting them on 'asserted inconsistencies that arose only at trial and were not evident at the time of reporting' in the cases of Darwan and Chinartu. Finally, it argued that the findings were reached without the 'criminal-trial safeguards of a jury, prosecutorial disclosure and proof beyond reasonable doubt', and the Evidence Act had been misapplied in regard to the satisfaction of 'facts tantamount to criminal guilt'. Roberts-Smith continues to deny the allegations, last month releasing a statement that said: 'Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, and I believe one day soon the truth will prevail.'
