Brian Bourke interview 10 October 2005

Oh well, I remember Justice Hudson in the Supreme Court. Once, he and I had quite an exchange. I was appearing for a fellow on his second bigamy charge which was pretty unique. I mean why anyone commits bigamy I don't know, but why you'd commit it a second time, and I put all the stuff I could, we'd got evidence even from the women involved that they weren't terribly upset about it.

They weren't?

No, they weren't concerned about the fact.

They had to share him and they weren't worried?

Poor silly bloke. Well, I supposed they shared him one after the other, I don't know what they did together. If you could have seen the bloke, I don't know how anyone shared him with anyone but in all events, he got 9 months the first time and the total sentencing remarks of the judge were "Well you got 9 months the first time; that didn't do you any good, so now you've got 18". And I just thought it was outrageous and I sort of indicated my displeasure and I was pretty quickly told to shut up and go about my business. I had no respect for that bloke from then on, I didn't appear before him all that many times although I did a couple of murders before him, but I didn't warm to him at all. Some judges are just not warm sort of people to appear before, but you have the greatest of respect for them. Mr Justice Little who was a member of the Supreme Court bench - I would have thought that people thought he was a pretty tough, stern little bloke. Dougy Little, as he was known, but I did 3 or 4 murders before him and after one of them, (I) got the most wonderful letter from him. We'd gone down for murder I might say, but it was at least somewhat consoling to get that note from him and I've still got that note. Today there are a lot of judges, I don't know how many are going to read this but there are some judges, particularly County Court judges, who lack the experience necessary to really deal with issues and lack the knowledge of life that's necessary to really understand people.

Are you saying they've been promoted too soon?

Yeah well, some of them I think should never have been promoted at all. At all events, they are not able to make decisions. Things go too slowly and that's one of the real problems of the law today in comparison when I came to the Bar. I supposed we're left with that.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers East and filmed by Stewart Carter (People Pictures)