Schapelle Corby's Defence Witness Jailed
May 26th 2006 09:38
On May 27 2005, Schapelle Corby, a beauty student from Queensland was sentenced to a 20 year jail term in Bali for the importation of 4.1kg of Cannibas into the country. Now, one year later, the story continues as a defence witness is sentenced to eight years in jail.
That witness is John Ford. Remember him? He was a prisoner at Port Phillip Prison and out of the blue it seemed, he was flown over to Indonesia in order to give evidence in Corby’s trial. The 42 year old male testified that while he was in prison, he overheard two men planning to place the marijuana in Corby’s luggage. According to Ford, Corby was an innocent traveller who had no idea the drugs were in her boogie board bag. He named Ron Vigenser, a fellow inmate, as the owner of the drugs. But the prosecutors in Corby’s case said that this evidence was inadmissible because it was all hearsay. The judge agreed.
When Ford was returned to his Australian prison cell, he was attacked, beaten and stabbed. Probably because he dobbed in Vigenser, though no one really spoke of it. Officials moved him to solitary confinement as a form of protection.
Today, he found himself in a county court where a jury found him guilty of a number of rape and stalking charges. On one occasion Ford broke into his victim’s house and left a blood soaked teddy bear on his victim’s bed. It makes you wonder if eight years in prison is really enough...
from www.morguefile.com
That witness is John Ford. Remember him? He was a prisoner at Port Phillip Prison and out of the blue it seemed, he was flown over to Indonesia in order to give evidence in Corby’s trial. The 42 year old male testified that while he was in prison, he overheard two men planning to place the marijuana in Corby’s luggage. According to Ford, Corby was an innocent traveller who had no idea the drugs were in her boogie board bag. He named Ron Vigenser, a fellow inmate, as the owner of the drugs. But the prosecutors in Corby’s case said that this evidence was inadmissible because it was all hearsay. The judge agreed.
When Ford was returned to his Australian prison cell, he was attacked, beaten and stabbed. Probably because he dobbed in Vigenser, though no one really spoke of it. Officials moved him to solitary confinement as a form of protection.
Today, he found himself in a county court where a jury found him guilty of a number of rape and stalking charges. On one occasion Ford broke into his victim’s house and left a blood soaked teddy bear on his victim’s bed. It makes you wonder if eight years in prison is really enough...
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Comment by Stanley
Call me an idealist but the basis of incarceration is the goal to rehabilitate prisoners but that seems to be something that no nation is doing and as a consequence is a detriment to societies once they are released.
I guess in questions of law and order there can be no objective view and grey areas.
Comment by Legally Brunette
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Comment by The BFG
Is it possible to get a few follow up articles to the recent one on property law? It's a topic I'd love to know more about.
Also, I have to disagree with Stanley and say that the basis of incarceration is not the rehabilitation but the punishment of prisoners.Is it the best course of action if the ultimate goal is rehab? What are our other options?
Comment by Legally Brunette
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In regards to your comment about punishing criminals and Stanley's comment about rehabilitating them, I think I will have to take the middle ground on this point and say that maybe it is in the best interests of society if we do both. I agree to some extent that the basis of incarceration is to teach the offender a lesson by taking away that person's freedom for a specified period of time, but it should also be about assisting such criminals to rediscover a positive path once they are released back into society. Otherwise the prison term is, at the end of the day, pointless, no?
Ps, The BFG is my favourite book in the whole world!
Comment by Stanley
BFG – like Ms. Legally Brunette I do have to admit that incarceration does include the punishment aspect of it. I never said otherwise. I just wanted to focus on the part that was most lacking in jailing offenders and that is the rehabilitation facet. As my learned friend has pointed out if we don’t rehab prisoners a big percentage of those prisoners will eventually get released back into the public and we need them to be productive members of society once again.
You can just say that I am constantly frustrated by the populist rhetoric that prisoners that are in jail deserve to rot till all eternity. Call me naïve but I honestly believe that the majority of us can be rehabilitated, and on the flipside we are all capable of committing heinous/criminal acts when the right buttons and moment is presented before us. There is a fine line that we all tread with sanity/insanity. Just think back to all those times you were in your car and had suffered road rage and the animalistic stirrings within yourself.
Comment by Legally Brunette
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Having said that, I do like to think that most people can be rehabilitated if given the chance. Otherwise, we all really are screwed, aren't we?
Comment by The BFG
Anyway, rehab is a must unless you like to believe we all deserve only one chance......otherwise to quote Ms. Legally herself "we all really are screwed".
On the idea that criminals are somehow basically different to the rest of society.....well, you can never know for sure how you'll act until you've been placed in the same situation. All of us do stupid things that we think are out of character.
Keep up the good work, Legally Brunette