The cruel twist of fate that let an accused killer walk free

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Daniel Billings was charged with stalking, rape and animal cruelty. Police said he’d threatened his former partner. There was no magistrate, so a registrar gave him bail.

Daniel Billings was in custody charged with four counts of stalking, three of rape, and one of aggravated cruelty towards an animal. He wanted bail. But magistrates don’t work on Saturdays in Dubbo, so it was left to a court officer to decide whether it was safe to release him.

“If they’d have kept him in jail as the police wanted,” said Tony Ticehurst, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”Minns government has admitted the status quo is not working Stephen Lawrence, a barrister and upper house Labor MP from Dubbo, declined to comment on the Billings case but questioned whether serious bail decisions should be made by registrars, who are given training in hearing bail applications but do not need a law degree.

Phil Donato, the MP for Orange and a former police prosecutor, also said he did not think registrars should be deciding bail, and suggested country areas could use an audiovisual link to magistrate-run weekend bail courts, such as those in the city do.

 

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