R v Chandler (No. 1)

JOHNSON J: This morning, Christopher Chandler has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter on 8 January 2015 at Constitution Hill in the State of New South Wales of Tateolena Tauifaga. The Court convicted Mr Chandler of that offence.

The Court has received, as part of the sentencing hearing, a Statement of Agreed Facts and a folder of Crown material on sentence.

An application has been made by Mr Chandler for a non-publication order pursuant to the Court Suppression and Non-publication Orders Act 2010 in the following circumstances. Mr Chandler is to stand trial on a number of counts of armed robbery in the District Court commencing on 29 January 2018. The Court has been informed that the trial of Mr Chandler on those counts proceeded earlier this year to a certain point, but it was necessary for the jury to be discharged and the trial aborted because there was publicity concerning what is a parallel prosecution of Mr Chandler for what is now the manslaughter matter.

The proceedings are interrelated, in that it is the Crown case that at the time of the tragic events on 8 January 2015 in which this little girl died, Mr Chandler was being pursued by police for the armed robbery charges. There is, in that sense, an inextricable link between the two sets of proceedings.

The application that is made is for a non-publication order with respect to the fact that Mr Chandler has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in this case. It is necessary for the Court to have regard to the open justice principle, insofar as it applies to publication of the present sentencing proceedings. However, there is a significant necessity as well for the Court to have regard to the proper interests of the administration of justice with respect to Mr Chandler's trial on the armed robbery matters. That trial is to be a trial by jury.

The present proceedings have given rise to publicity in the past and there would be the likelihood of publicity of what has happened today in Court, unless the Court makes some order. Publicity of that type would, in my view, inevitably give rise to a problem with Mr Chandler's trial proceeding in the New Year. It would prejudice his fair trial and compromise the proper administration of justice generally. It is in the public interest that the trial of Mr Chandler on the armed robbery matters proceed on the next occasion without any further impediment.

In those circumstances, I am satisfied that the order which is sought should be made. It will of course be a temporary order because it will operate only until verdicts are returned in Mr Chandler's trial on the armed robbery matters.

In the meantime, it is in the interests of justice and the interests of the family of the little girl who died, that the sentencing proceedings progress in this Court. I will adjourn the sentencing hearing in due course to 23 November 2017, and will seek to sentence the Offender before the end of term this year.

The practical position, however, is that there can be no publication of what has happened with respect to Mr Chandler concerning this charge, or what has happened in Court today, pending further order of the Court. To identify the subject matter of the charge, even without mentioning the name of Mr Chandler, would inevitably give rise to problems, because of the substantial publicity already given to this tragic case.

I have considered the provisions in ss.7 and 8 of the Court Suppression and Non-publication Orders Act 2010. I am conscious that an order should only be made if it is necessary to do so. For the reasons which I have expressed, I am satisfied that such an order is necessary to prevent prejudice to the proper administration of justice, in that publication to prospective jurors of Mr Chandler's plea of guilty in this matter will be likely to cause prejudice to him at this trial.

The application is that the order to be made should operate in the State of New South Wales. However, if the view was adopted that there could be publication of what has happened today in interstate media, there is a real potential that that publication could be detected in the State of New South Wales, because reporting in interstate electronic media may be retrievable in this State. For more abundant caution, I think the better course is to direct that the non-publication order to be made will operate throughout the Commonwealth of Australia.

I make an order under the Court Suppression and Non-publication Orders Act 2010 prohibiting publication of the fact that Mr Chandler has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Tateolena Tauifaga. The effect of that order is there should be no publication of what has happened in Court today. This order will operate until further order of the Court, with the expectation that the present order will be lifted when the jury returns verdicts at Mr Chandler's armed robbery trial to proceed in early 2018.

The non-publication order made by the Court is to operate throughout the Commonwealth of Australia.