Petroulias, again

Former tax man involved in private rulings' scam wants his trial jury investigated ... Strange blog postings allegedly give glimpse of distracted, snoozing jurors at "work" ... Secrets of the Stubby Holder ... When is there finality?

Petroulias: wants investigation into jurors who read New IdeaNick Petroulias, a former assistant tax commissioner, who did two years porridge after he was convicted in December 2007 of bribery and corruption, is back in court.

He wants the NSW Supremes to order an inquiry by the sheriff (s.73A of the Jury Act) into the conduct of the jury at his third trial as a result of comments, supposedly made a a juror or jurors, posted on a blog site called The Stubby Holder.

I wish you'd have a look at these postings and tell me what you think. The comments date from just after the jury verdict to the present time.

There is a remarkable consistency in the style of the various postings, and amazing coincidences - e.g. one of the bloggers who had been chatting with an (apparent) juror, just happened to know another juror on the panel.

Small world, indeed.

It could strike the average sceptic as decidedly peculiar.

The postings are uniformly pro-Petroulias. The system failed him ... the Commissioner of Taxation should be found guilty of defrauding the Commonwealth by wasting taxpayers money in pursuing the Petroulias ... only "qualified" people should judge the case, such as the High Court.

Here are a few of the posted comments:

"I thought to myself (altho she smiled and joked it off), if i am in the position of petroulias, how would i feel having my fate decided by someone like that? Here she is [female juror] sleeping whilst a man is facing years in jail."

[snip]

"What a joke! When you take into account the majority that were doodling, drawing, snoozing and reading New Idea magazines buried deep within their evidence folders - now thats a joke!"

[snip]

"And if nothing else, the fact that at least half the jury in Petroulias' trial were either doodling, drawing, reading, snoozing or doing crosswords most days - beggars belief!"

"The half which are just morons or bogans - or both if you like, - should be ashamed of themselves. Those idiots believe that they gave him a fair trial!"

[snip]

"I hope Petroulias uses this [the jury that was discharged after some members were discovered playing Sudoko] as a precedent at his appeal. Shame! shame! shame!"

[snip]

"What bugs me is if there is any truth to the assertion that Petroulias suffers from a mild form of Asperger's syndrome... This type of condition induces a sense of being overly trusting of people that you do not know well who appear friendly and of a good nature. You also may possess an innocent and well intentioned set of personal objectives, in this case Petroulias may have thought that shutting down abusive tax schemes was an admirable goal, whatever the means."

Anita Johnson for the Attorney General submitted earlier this week there was "enough in the blog entries to give some credit to the proposition" that they were written by jurors.

It must be assumed that any juror would deny revealing the secrets of the jury room. Surely IT technology gurus will be called upon to determine from where the postings came. 

It's back before Justice Michael Adams in June.

Peter McClelland CJ at CL has already knocked back an earlier request for an investigation.

Here's Petroulias' summons seeking an order quashing McClellan's decision and for the sheriff to press on with a probe.