PHOENIX RISING
24.06.2005
Di Fingleton, whose conviction was quashed by the High Court yesterday, is ready to start a new life, writes Tony Koch
HER world had collapsed. At 56, she was in prison, a middle-class pinnacle of her profession, an upholder of the law among law-breakers. She had lost her $200,000 a year job and was unable to practise as a solicitor. Opposition politicians and media were describing her as ``disgraced''. She'd suffered the humiliation of being strip-searched.
Yet the greatest proof that Di Fingleton's spirit was far from broken came when she was informed she would have to work in the prison for the princely sum of $19.90 a week, but male prisoners were paid more. She complained. She thought it was outrageous. Unfair, lacking any semblance of equality or fairness. Sexist. Disgraceful.
Her friends and family resignedly say a leopard doesn't change its spots and Fingleton -- leftie Di, feminist Di -- would never, regardless of how threadbare her own circumstances, countenance others being treated unfairly.
A leopard indeed, but one that the system and the boys' club in Queensland did everything possible to turn into a submissive pussycat because she was a woman in a man's world, and that was unacceptable.
As she strolls barefoot along the sandy shores of Bribie Island, north of Brisbane, with her yapping jack russell terrier Tess excitedly running at seagulls she will never catch, this remarkable woman talks with great passion about the legal profession she headed as Queensland's chief magistrate, the reformist administrative decisions she made that got her into trouble, the ensuing court cases and appeals, and of finally being driven in a prison van to suburban Wacol with a six-month jail sentence hanging over her head.
Her next-door cellmate in the protected prisoner section was Valmae Beck, one of Queensland's most notorious criminals, who was convicted along with a male accomplice, Barrie Watts, of the brutal sex-murder of a 12-year-old girl at Noosa 13 years ago.
Fingleton begins speaking of personal experiences, of embarrassment and shame, of depression, but suddenly she's off on a tangent about the lack of any real effort by the state to rehabilitate prisoners; or the waste of humanity kept behind the razor wire of our prisons where nobody really cares because these are just society's flotsam and jetsam, lumped together under the convenient label of ``convicted criminals''.
For Fingleton, the lowest ebb was celebrating her fifth wedding anniversary with her husband, John. ``We were sitting in the visitors' area of the women's prison with a packet of chips and a can of soft drink each, that was it,'' she says.
To beat the boredom, and to soothe her soul, Fingleton used the six months she spent in prison to write a warts-and-all book about her life, which doesn't spare her beloved Labor Party, the judiciary, lawyers or the prison system.
Sydney-based New Holland Publishers plans to release the book in a few months under the title Nothing To Do With Justice. In it Fingleton speaks frankly about her violent, alcoholic father, the mother she loved deeply, her four brothers, her Catholic upbringing, her work for then Opposition leader Bill Hayden and her turbulent years as magistrate.
She spells out in minute detail the vehement opposition she encountered when she established Queensland's first ``Murri court'' to deal exclusively with an Aboriginal clientele because she was concerned about the large number of indigenous people being prosecuted.
She sets out how her decision in August 2002 to apologise to indigenous people on behalf of the magistracy brought her into conflict with several magistrates and Queensland's Chief Justice Paul de Jersey. ``I had decided to establish the special court to deal with guilty pleas for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,'' she says. ``I hoped that, through this special court, the cultural and family background of individual defendants could be taken into account by the presiding magistrate, with the assistance of a local elder sitting by him or her. I consider this one of the great costs I paid in this entire debacle: interrupting what I was trying to do with the Murri community. I think it was as much about what they [other magistrates] perceived to be my bad practices as chief magistrate as the Murri stuff.
``That's where the rot started. I would probably still be there if the reconciliation ceremony hadn't happened. They freaked out over that. One magistrate whom I had protected over the issue of a barrister cross-examining a child for four to five hours in a committal hearing where the magistrate hadn't stopped him, I spoke to him at the reconciliation ceremony and he said he couldn't sleep at night, he was so annoyed at me.''
She tells of the degrading way prison officers treat inmates. ``Only one officer ever called us by our first names on that [morning] headcount. I put this whole approach, this harshness first thing in the morning, down to the system needing to let us know we were subservient as soon as possible into the day.
``One rule that really ticked off the prisoners was that, while coloured pencils were able to be purchased and some of the boxes contained 20 or more pencils, only 12 were allowed to be kept.
``I was told the reason for the 12-pencil rule was that jealousy and bad feelings would arise if one prisoner had a better set of pencils than another.''
It was while in prison that an officer sowed the seed of a sectarian vendetta: that she was the Catholic victim of a plot inspired by several magistrates who allegedly were members of the Masonic Lodge.
``A male officer came up to me in prison,'' she says. ``He said I should imagine a scenario: a female chief magistrate is appointed first to deputy and then chief magistrate; a woman. Not through the ranks and a magistrate for only five years and she is suspected of being close to the Government; a Labor government appointment.
``He said imagine some magistrates are Masons. They go to their lodge and complain about this person who has jumped over a few people. He said Masons are bound when asked for something by another Mason to give it. He told me I would never get justice. I asked him to give me names and he said no.''
Fingleton was given advice on how to conduct herself in prison, to ensure she wasn't assaulted or jeopardised her release entitlements.
Her friend Debbie Kilroy, head of the prisoner aid group Sisters Inside, advised her never to say she was depressed because the result was to be put in a cell with a light so the prisoner was never in darkness and was under surveillance at all times. ``You would be depressed in the morning because you had the light on all night. But really the other prisoners were OK with me. My worst experience was a verbal fight I had with a young girl.
``I was in a protection unit [that] also housed women who killed children. Prisons are such hopeless places. I found that some young whipper-snapper -- another woman -- repeated something I said and caused trouble, and we had to have mediation.
``The officer doing the mediation said if this cannot be sorted, one or both of us would have to go to isolation, so I immediately put my hand out and said: `I unreservedly take back everything I said.'''
Some experiences provide her with humour. It was during the court hearings that she learned that she was not the only member of her family to become a jailbird. ``An old former wharfie came up to us during the trial and told us that my father did some time. We knew nothing about it,'' Fingleton says. ``He said he came to support me and told us that he worked with Dad, who was an accomplished pickpocket.
``Of all the children who followed in Dad's footsteps, I don't think he would ever have thought it would be his daughter who went to jail. The wharfie told us that a copper in Fortitude Valley hated Dad's guts and put a gun to his head. Apparently there was a game of two-up at the Wickham hotel and he wanted to play.
``Then our father fired a shot in the air. Dad pledged there and then he would never drink again, but he did not stop. He was a tough man.''
For the last four months of her prison term, Fingleton worked for the Abused Children's Trust in Brisbane. After her discharge she accepted a contract to lecture at Griffith University, tutoring in torts and evidence. ``I got an excellent reception from the students and staff. I have developed into a good public speaker,'' she says. ``Nothing fazes me, I've been to jail.
``In prison the term least used was aspiration. Prisoners need to know it is all right to want a car, education, a house; it is OK to aspire.''
In the wake of yesterday's High Court decision quashing the conviction, Fingleton is waiting to see whether the Queensland Government will move to right the wrongs, to pay just compensation and restore her to her former job, or whether it is indeed ``Nothing to do with justice''.
HOW AN EMAIL SUNK A CHIEF MAGISTRATE
1984: Di Fingleton is sworn in as a solicitor.
1995: Offered a position as a magistrate.
1999: Appointed chief stipendiary magistrate.
2002: Fingleton holds reconciliation ceremony and apologises to indigenous Australians. She establishes first Murri Court.
2003: Charged with interfering with a witness over an email sent to Magistrate Basil Gribbin.
2003: Hung jury on first trial, guilty on second trial; sentenced to one year in prison.
2003: Court of Appeal upholds verdict, reduces sentence to six months' jail, six months suspended. Fingleton resigns as CSM when appeal fails.
2004: Appeal to High Court upon release from jail.
2005: Appeal upheld, conviction quashed.
This and the other example I refer to above, manifest to me a clear lack of confidence by you in me as Chief Magistrate. In the circumstances, I ask you to show cause, within seven days, as to why you should remain in the position.
In the circumstances, it is not appropriate that you attend the Co-ordinating Magistrates meeting this Thursday and Friday at Central Courts.
An extract from the email sent by Queensland chief magistrate Di Fingleton to Basil Gribbin, a senior Queensland magistrate, on September 18, 2002.
The Crown alleged it was sent as a retaliatory threat or a payback to Gribbin.
