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Today's news: bowser bonk

February 9th 2010 07:13
The trial continues of an Australian man who was having sexual intercourse with a woman in a vehicle at a petrol station and who refused to stop having sexual intercourse despite police arriving and requesting him to do so.

The court was told that police indicated from outside the locked vehicle that they wanted the couple to cease having sex. Exactly how the police indicated their requirements was not made clear in media reports of the court case.

The police arrived at the petrol station, the court in Darwin was told today, because the petrol station attendant could see the pair "kissing passionately", and because he could hear loud moaning, and because the woman was "moving in ways that gave the impression the pair was having sexual intercourse''.


It is known that the accused, named as Lionel Mark William Spratt, was asleep for at least some of these events. Spratt's Legal Aid lawyer, Matthew Hubber, told the court that the vehicle, owned by Spratt, was being driven by the woman because Spratt had "been on drugs all day at Litchfield National Park" and was asleep. When the woman had pulled into the petrol station, the lawyer said, she had exited the driver's side, climbed into the passenger's side, and climbed onto the lap of Spratt.

The act of sex had then commenced.

The prosecutor in the case, Scott Tierney, told the court that the police, when they arrived, asked the couple to stop having sex. The couple, however, had not complied, and police had been unable to arrest Spratt, due to the vehicle being locked, until the sex had ended, 27 minutes later.

The case has been adjourned until tomorrow when the Chief Magistrate, Jenny Blokland, will pass sentence.

Northern Territory News


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Pay up doc, we didn't want twins

July 24th 2008 07:18
An Australian couple will have to pay the costs of raising both their twin daughters after a court today ruled against their claim that their obstetrician should pay the costs of raising one of them.

The lesbian couple, whose names have been suppressed, sued Canberra obstetrician Sydney Robert Armellin for almost $400,000 for implanting two embryos instead of the requested one. The ACT Supreme Court today ruled in favour of Dr Armellin, and ordered the couple pay his legal costs, even after the doctor admitted from the outset that a mistake had been made.

The in-vitro fertilisation procedure, using sperm from a Danish donor, resulted in the birth of twin girls, now aged four. The couple, whose combined income is more than $100,000, sought $398,000 from Dr Armellin to cover the costs of raising one of the girls, including fees for private schooling.

In support of the claim, the court was told the twins' birth mother had lost her capacity to love and the couple's relationship had suffered as they became mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children. The birth mother claimed that certain aspects of pregnancy, such as buying a stroller, had been extremely stressful to her due to the fact that she was carrying twins. The mother's partner claimed in court that the couple became so overwhelmed with everyday childcare issues that they lost their ability to function as a couple.

The case sparked considerable comment, little of it sympathetic to the claimants. One public comment on a ninemsn.com forum said, "What mother would sue a doctor for giving birth to two babies instead of one? How many people would give anything to be able to have children and she's sitting there 'loveless' and using her children to get money."

The couple's solicitor, Thena Kyprianou, said her clients, who live in Melbourne, were shocked by the decision.

Sources: Australian Associated Press, lifesitenews.com, ninemsn.com
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Bumble's guide to US law

July 19th 2008 08:15
Mr Bumble
Dickens' Mr Bumble, the first to claim that the law can be an ass

Is it naïve to suggest that America is the land where litigation is the domain of the inventive? If you dream it, they will sue it.

As if the woman who sued McDonald's, and won, because her coffee was hot wasn't strange enough, we have had the story this week of a man suing his church because he fell and hit his head while worshipping. So consumed by the spirit of God was Matt Lincoln of Tennessee that he fell over, and he now wants his church to pay $2.5 million for medical bills and lost income.

Mr Lincoln said he was asking God to have "a real experience" while praying. Uh huh.

Is it innocent to suggest that the US keeps seeing these whacky insurance claims because the American legal system indulges them? The McDonald's coffee case is real - Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages after spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee into her lap in 1992. The amount was later reduced to $480,000, and then, after further legal wrestling, the case was settled secretly despite it being a public case and despite it receiving wide media coverage at the time.

These things are rarely simple and never one-sided. Details of this case, with a seemingly objective overview, can be found here. But the question remains why the US legal system, which gave the world ambulance chasing, grants so much scope to clumsy coffee drinkers and doddery church goers.

A legal system should protect the public from unscrupulous or unfair corporate practices, and it should equally protect companies from frivolous or spurious claims by the public. The McDonald's coffee case looks very much like it came down to a covert settlement negotiated by the two parties because the legal system failed to do it for them.

It's tempting to throw the book at the Amercian system. Specifically, a copy of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, within the pages of which Mr Bumble uttered, "The law is a ass - a idiot."
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