SEK Hulme interview 17 November 2006

You alluded a little while ago to (Justice) John Starke.

Yeah.

Who, of course, is one of the most singular figures probably ever produced at the Victorian Bar. Do you have some anecdotes about Justice Starke?

Yes, certainly. He really was a one-off, Starke. He was perpetually kind of rude. He was a very kindly person, but perpetually rude, a very loyal man and no solicitor ever heard Starke criticise his junior. No matter what mistake the junior had made, as far as Starke was concerned it was his mistake, a very loyal man. One incident which was typical of him took place in the Viscount inquiry, the Viscount that went into Botany Bay. Now that was being heard by Sir John Spicer, who did a lot of the air inquiries and shipping inquiries. He did both air inquiries and normally did Courts of Marine Inquiry, a very nice man, Spicer, and very conscious of the fact that he hadn’t served in the armed services during the war, being medically unfit. He was enormously respectful to those who had. Once that produced great injustice when the aircraft carrier, Melbourne, ran down the destroyer, Voyager. I think clearly, as far as sailors are concerned, the fault was that of Captain Duncan, the captain of the destroyer, whose job was running the little ship. It’s his job to keep out of the way of the big ship. You can manoeuvre a destroyer easily enough. You can’t manoeuvre aircraft carriers so quickly. But Duncan had been killed in the accident and Spicer was not going to criticise a dead naval officer. That worked very unfairly to the man who was in charge of the Melbourne, who basically lost his job and his career, quite unfairly. Spicer didn’t mean that. It flowed from his unwillingness to criticise a dead officer.

The air inquiry concerned a plane, which on a stormy night, after taking off from Sydney Airport, had got into trouble and plunged down into Botany Bay. A witness was called, Captain Harry Locke, who had taken off another TAA Viscount about 20 minutes earlier from the same airport. Locke had an Air Force Cross and a Distinguished Flying Cross from the war, a pugnacious little bugger, and he stood there in the box, gave his qualifications. He’d had 5000 hours with the air force. He’d had 50,000 with TAA. You get many more hours with civil airlines than you do with air forces, 50,000 or something. He was used to flying at night. He was used to flying in storms. Having given that kind of evidence to qualify himself as an expert, able to talk about weather conditions that night. Locke stood there and waited for the first question. Spicer said, “You haven’t told us everything, have you, Captain?” He immediately took umbrage. He said, “I think I’ve said everything relevant, your Honour.” “You haven’t told the court that you were twice decorated by His Majesty, the King, for conspicuous gallantry, have you, Captain?” Two voices came out. One was Harry Locke saying, “Didn’t think that had anything to do with it, sir”. The other was John Starke, whose voice rumbled down the bar table, saying, “Cross-examine him if you fucking well dare.” Spicer heard that too. No one did cross-examine Harry Locke. That was typical Starke.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers West and filmed by Rocco Fasano