Crime scenes

DPP locks his door ... Attorney General talks religion and the law ... New branding for barrister's top notch marmalade ... Revolving door for old newspaper lawyer ... The Bureau de Shoot ... Just how squeaky clean is News Ltd? ... Tony Meagher not strong on Basten JA's favourite subject 

Babb: hygiene conscious There was a lovely welcome drinks soirée on Friday (July 29) for NSW's new DPP, Lloyd Babb. 

The speechifiers included AG Greg Smif, senior prosecutor Margaret Cunneen and former DPP Nicolas Cowdery. 

Naturally, the ABC drama series Crownies was at the front and centre of the remarks. 

The opening episode of the TV show featured a scene where late one night a junior prosecutor had sexual relations with a judge's associate on the DPP's desk. 

Smif said he was at the office of DPP for 19 years and had never heard of such a thing happening in real life and, just to clear-up any lingering doubts, he certainly would not have done anything like that himself. 

Cowdery also was unaware of such things and, anyway, would have been the last person to find out. 

Lloyd Babb took the podium and said how delighted he was to be the state's DPP and that the ABC TV series had influenced his thinking about how he should go about his new job. 

Initially he was prepared to implement an "open door" policy, but now that idea is out the window, so to speak. 

From now on he will be keeping his door firmly shut, and when he leaves the office each night, it will be locked ... for reasons of hygiene.  

*   *   *

Lloyd Babb inherits an under-staffed and under-resourced outfit. 

Six years ago there were 96 crown prosecutors in NSW. 

Now there are 82 - and the number of court days per year for the ODPP has not decreased in that period, in fact it has slightly increased. 

That's 15 percent of crownies missing overboard since 2005. 

An attempt to plug the gap has been made by putting private barristers on retainer. There are four of them in Sydney and another four working the traps in Sydney's wild west. 

However, there are certain restrictions on what members of the private bar can do - for instance, they can't find bills of indictment. 

Two crown prosecutors are currently on sick leave, two in the regions are on part-time duties, another two are on maternity leave and three are on long-service leave. 

And the government refuses to appoint more prosecutors. 

*   *   *

I'm looking forward to AG Greg Smif's talk at the University of Sydney law school in a few weeks on the topic of religious vilification, anti-discrimination law and religious freedom.  

He's to offer his views on ... 

"the appropriate balance to be found between religious freedom and laws that prohibit discrimination and vilification." 

Certainly Smif is making sure there is no discrimination against former students of St Ignatius College, Riverview.

The AG is doing his level best to turn the Supreme Court into an Iggies' old boys' club. 

Few people know better than the attorney general of NSW where the lies the delicate balance between Catholicism and the dark abyss of everything else. 

You can earn one MCLE point if you turn up. 

*   *   *

Wendler's show quality orange preserveMarmalade bottling is among the diversified talents of Sydney criminal barrister and Justinian wine correspondent, Gabriel Wendler, 

Last year's batch of Seville marmalade created in Wendler's famous industrial-scale kitchen was a massive hit with aficionados. 

Former chief justice Sir Anthony Mason is the patron of the Wendler Marmalade Appreciation Society. 

A new team of graphic artists has been hired to sharpen the image of the brand, so that it appeals to a more sophisticated demographic. 

I'm sure you'll agree they've done a splendid job.  

*   *   * 

What did you make of Julia Gillard schmoozing with the local branch of Murdoch's Tonton Macoute?  

There was the chief enforcer, Harto, leading the reception committee, with his gleaming teeth - looking like an over-tanned blue pointer. 

Next to him his public affairs man, beefcake Greg Baxter, who seems to have scrubbed from his skin any remnants of the James Hardie affair, where he also presided as corporate affairs spinner at the time the misleading asbestos compensation statement was concocted for the ASX. 

Hartigan: trust me, I'm a journalistThen there were the serried ranks of excruciating, editorial goons. 

You'd have to feel sorry for the poor PM having to endure such a night - ostensibly so she could explain her "agenda".  

Why do it? So toxic is the Murdoch brand in Britain that no right-minded politician  would go within a bull's roar of a Murdoch editor or executive. 

Yet here, we're told, it's as clean as a whistle. 

However, if you ever have been a litigant against News Ltd and its publications you mightn't be so sure about that. 

As the trial date looms you might find private investigators stealing your mail or breaking into your home and filching your computers (containing all your correspondence with your lawyers) or arranging various tricks in an attempt to compromise you. 

Certainly, we've found instances of this mysteriously happening to plaintiffs in News Ltd cases. 

Probably, just a coincidence. 

Just to make sure, Harto says News Ltd is to go back as far as three years in an internal process to check whether there have been any improper third party payments. 

Oversighting this audit will be two former Victorian judges, Frank Vincent and Bernie Teague. 

Teague is an interesting choice, having been the principal legal adviser to Herald & Weekly Times Ltd for 20 years, prior to his appointment as a Supremo. 

HWT and its publications were Bernie's family. 

The year he became a judge HWT became a subsidiary of News Ltd. 

Of course, Bernie is an honourable man, but a hell of a fuss was made in England when it was revealed that Lord Justice Leveson, the hacking inquiry judge, had drinkies at the home of Elizabeth Murdoch. 

Not a murmur here that Teague is an "independent assessor" of an audit that will include companies with which he was intimately associated for two decades. 

It's interesting to see what Frank Rich said in New York Magazine about the "particularly laughable" management and standards committee created to conduct an internal investigation into News Corp in the US. 

"Its scope is limited to News Corp behavior in England. Its chairman, Tony Grabiner, a London commercial lawyer, reports to Joel Klein, who in turn reports to Viet Dinh, a former Bush administration lawyer who, in what one hopes is an unintended sick joke, is best known for embracing government phone hacking in his role as principal author of the Patriot Act. Both Klein and Dinh are on the News Corp board. Klein's News Corp. compensation this year is expected to be in the neighborhood of $4.5 million." 

*   *   *

I saw in the law lists the other day some delinquent solicitor being dispatched to the NSW Bureau de Spank. 

The three person panel was chaired by former judge Patten and included lay member, Hon J. Tingle - pride of the Shooters Party. 

Is there no length to which Premier O'Barrell will not go to win the Shooters' support in the upper house? 

If you ever end up in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal you might hear the distinctive cocking sound as Hon J. Tingle applies the Shooters Party's version of justice according to law. 

*   *   *

Thank GOD attorney general Smif has recognised one of the glaring shortcomings of the NSW Supremes - not enough Riverview old boys.

He's done something about it by appointing Tony Meagher, only the ninth representative from the Jesuit college who will be currently serving time at the Queens Square Lubyanka. 

In no particular order they are: Johnson, Garling, Hoeben, Bathurst, Whealy, Slattery, Pembroke and Price. 

Palmer has just retired, so Meagher keeps the school's representation on nine. In other words, 18 percent of the current Supreme Court comes from St Ignatius College. 

The new Meagher is distantly related to the old Meagher (RIP), is a good pal of the Shuffling Assassin (CJ) and has been a governor of one of the AG's favourite institutions, Notre Dame University. 

His younger brother Michael, a journalist, was tragically killed in a skiing accident last year, on August 8. 

Tony Meagher will be sworn in two days after the first anniversary of his brother's death. 

Importantly, he is a graduate of the University of NSW, where fellow appeal judge John Basten failed him in the famously tricky subject, Law, Lawyers & Society.