Latest / The Front / A dad molested his daughter. Now he’s in a women’s prison

Transcript

A dad molested his daughter. Now he’s in a women’s prison · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September thirty, twenty twenty five. Australia's transition to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: renewables will cost more than one point three trillion dollars.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: That's according to conservationists who say the rollout plan of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: more than one thousand wind and solar projects is a mess.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: They're pushing for management of the plan to be overhauled.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Indigenous artists whose work is being stolen by copyright frauds
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and ai will be protected by new laws being drafted
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: by the federal government to protect intellectual property. The Department,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: helmed by a Minister for the Art's Tony Burke, will
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: spend almost fifteen million dollars to develop new laws in
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: consultation with First Nations people. It comes after The Australian
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: revealed potentially thousands of stolen Indigenous art works are being
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: sold on Timu for as little as five dollars. Those
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: stories alive right now at the Australian dot Com dot you.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: A father who was convicted of sexually abusing his own
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: five year old daughter was given a minimum prison term
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of just two and a half years because a judge
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: found he was in the process of transitioning to a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: woman and that reduced his moral culpability. Now the offenders
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: serving the sentence in a women's prison today, why Victorian
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Premier Jacinta Allen is facing demands from women's groups to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: change the law. Stephen Rice is The Australian's new South
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Wales editor and he's reporting today on the case of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: someone who's been given the pseudonym by the court's Hilary Maloney.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: RISSI what has Hillary Maloney been found to have done
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: by the courts in Victoria.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Well, this is a really horrific case. This man who
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is known now in courts as Hilary Maloney, he was
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a father who sexually abused his own five year old
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: daughter under really awful circumstances. I mean, the details of
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: this case we can't print because you know, what happened
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to this little girl is just too horrific. But this
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: father was convicted of these crimes and is now being
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: held in a female prison in Victoria. That's caused an
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: immense amount of outrage and the Premier to center Allen
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is so far refusing to discuss this case. And now
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: There's another issue which is being raised, and that's the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: leniency of the sentence, only two and a half years
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: minimum for this crime. And part of the reason for
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that was that the judge took into account the difficulties
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: that he had had in transitioning to be a woman.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It is shocking offending. Rise Let's rewind to how this
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: person was arrested. You're reporting today that Hillary Maloney was
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: arrested after agreeing to become the in quote slave of
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: an American pedophile and molest his daughter on camera. So
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: presumably that was an aggravating part of the offending.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: You would have thought that would have been an aggravating
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: part of the offending and would have heightened the sentence.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: In fact, it appears to have lessened the sentence. The
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: judge presiding over this case, Judge Parapinaggio Titus, seems to
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: have taken the view that because this man was manipulated
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: into becoming a slave to his American master, that somehow
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: this negated some of his responsibility towards his own child.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It seems unbelievable, but the judge said that the issues
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: that this man faced in his transition to being a
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: woman reduced his moral culpability.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: What do you know about what stage Hillary Maloney was
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: at at the time of the actual offending Rice, He
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: had Hillary Maloney transitioned.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: By that stage, Maloney was in the process of transitioning,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and it appears had been taking some kind of hormone therapy,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: hadn't had any gender affirming surgery, but had been taking hormones,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: but had not yet apparently fully transitioned to become a woman,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and got into this situation with this American pedophile agreeing
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: to become his slave, and the judge has treated him
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: during that period as having been a vulnerable woman.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So there's two issues here, aren't there, RICEI. One is
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the issue of potentially getting a lighter sentence or asking
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: for a lighter sentence on the basis of this difficulty
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: with transitioning. And then there's the question of incarceration. There
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: would be an accusation, I think from women's rights activists
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: that male offenders would claim to be transitioning because they
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: think they might get an easier time in a women's prison.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what's being alleged, not only that they would
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: get an easier time in prison, but the mere pleading
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: of it. Of the fact that there is a transition involved,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: will lessen the sentence in the first place, and then
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: get the offender, get the biological male offender into a
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: women's prison, where yes, undoubtedly, for much of the time,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: whatever kind of prison you go into, you as a
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: child sex offender, you'll be segregated. But I don't think
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: there's any question that you'll have an easier time in
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: a women's prison. And some of the women's activists make
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the point that for these kind of offenders, being a
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: woman's prison has an extra advantage in that the jailers
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: are really required to treat them as women and treat
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: them perhaps in a different way than they might treat
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: male prisoners. So there's essentially a double advantage for these
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: people in getting into a women's prison.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: This is reminiscent of one of the really totemic cases
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: for the women's rights movement, and that's the case of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Isla Bryson, a Scottish rapist who was convicted when using
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the name Adam Graham. This is what the judge had
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to say in the last few minutes.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: It is necessary to punish you and to seek to
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: deter you and others from behaving in this way, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: in particular to protect the public from you. It is
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: plain that you present a particularly significant risk to any
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: women with whom you form a relationship.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: After being convicted of raping two women, Adam Graham came
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: out as transgender and said that he now wanted to
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: be known as Aila. Bryson was remanded to a women's prison,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and then, following a huge controversy which involve people like JK. Rowling,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: was transferred to a men's prison. This is kind of
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the worst case scenario come to life, isn't it ricey
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: For people who want to be inclusive, who accept that
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: people can potentially have complex feelings about their gender. For
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a male rapist to wind up in a women's prison,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it's the nightmare come true.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you're quite right right about Bryson. And there
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was a tremendous backlash in Scotland over that the prison
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: service eventually had to back down, and now trans people
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: in Scotland at least initially are imprisoned according to their
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: sex at birth. And the other worrying thing, perhaps for
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Jacinta Allen in Victoria, is that in that Scottish case
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: of Isla Bryson, that pretty much led to the undoing
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: of Nicola Sturgeon, the first Minister of Scotland, who was
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: right to the end, was denying that there was any
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: kind of risk involved in placing Bryson in a woman's prison,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: and eventually that led to her downfall.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: I should have been much more straightforward. I wasn't, but
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: that's because of the debate. We'd lost all sense of
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: rationality in this debate. I'm partly responsible for that. Anything
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: I see about Aila Bryson in the water world will
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: immediately be taken and transfer to every parson. And if
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: I sometimes still seem as if I'm struggling with how
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: to define a lebrace, and it's not out of any
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: concern for ale Brason, it's out of concern for how
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: that then affects the weed of trans community and that
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: is difficult.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really energize the women's movement in Scotland, and in
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: fact it was a Scottish women's group who took the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: government to the High Court testing the definition of sex
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: woman and man in the Equality Act. The British High
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Court then found that in fact, woman was a term
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: only to be used for people born with the biological
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: sex of a woman. And that's reshaped the whole landscape
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in Britain, hasn't it.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It's reshaped the landscape in Scotland and in many other
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: parts of the world. Australia has become a real outlier
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: on some of these issues, which I think common sense
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: is really starting to take over in many the western
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: countries and some of the more ridiculous, far reaching kind
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: of things that the transactivist movement had managed to score
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: are really now being wound back quite heavily.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going through the courts in Australia too. That's
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: a federal court case brought by a woman called Sal Grover,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: who is challenging legislation that the gillad government introduced in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. That was an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which banned discrimination against anyone on the basis of gender identity.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I think back then it was kind of a well
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: meaning attempt to ensure that trans people were included ricey,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: but it's ended up having the consequence that people like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Sal Grover who try to create women only spaces can
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: be found to be in breach of the law because
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: they're discriminating against people who are transgender. Sal Grover's had
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: something to say about this case in Victoria. What's her view?
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, look, Grover is very very upset about what's happening
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: in this case and sees the link very much to
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: her own case. And as you've said, Grover was caught
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: up in this legal case where really all she was
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: trying to do was create an online space for women only,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and has found herself being called through the courts simply
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: for wanting a space where women can feel safe, and
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: is now facing the absurd situation where the sex discrimination commissioner,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: who you would have thought would have been completely on
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: her side, a sex discrimination commission whose position was created
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: in the first place to protect women, has now come
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: down completely on the side of this transgender person a
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Roxanne Tickle, suggesting that a trans woman must have a
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: right to go into a woman only space. And even
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: more ridiculous, the sex discrimination commissioner is fighting the right
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of lesbians to have their own spaces on the basis
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that transgender women, in other words, biological men must be
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: allowed into lesbian spaces. The whole thing has become completely absurd.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Coming up. Trans people are vulnerable, so are kids, so
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: are women. In the criminal justice system, how do we
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: balance up everyone's rights. One of the features of this debate,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Rice is that there are activists on both sides, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: on both sides there are genuine people who are just
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: going through their own personal struggles. There are trans people
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: who just want to be accepted, and they are transactivists
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: who are extremely vocal in using every loophole there can.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: There are biological women who just want to do their
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: own thing, and then there are very focused women's rights
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: activists who all amp up the situation at every opportunity.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: In this situation in Victoria, Hillary Maloney, what's your sense
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: here of where that line falls. Is this about someone
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: just going through a very personal struggle, or is this
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: about activism.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I don't get the impression that this sex offender is
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: any kind of activist. What I get the impression is
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that it's a situation where a judge has just bent
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: over backwards, just tried too hard to accommodate a sex
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: offender who really should be held responsible for their own actions,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: completely regardless of whether they identify as a man or
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: a woman. This person, Maloney was a father at the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: time that he committed this offense against his own five
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: year old daughter, and I think that's what we've got
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: to remember.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels to me, Rice, And I'm going to
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: sound like a second wave feminist here, probably because I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: am one. That it's always women and girls whose rights
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: end up being eroded in the attempt to perhaps do
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the right thing. Maybe this judge was well intentioned, but
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: it's ended up being this little girl and the very
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: vulnerable women in Victoria's prisons, who no doubt are themselves
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the victims as well as perhaps being perpetrators of crimes,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: are probably the victims of domestic violence and drug abuse
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and sexism and discrimination. They're the ones who end up suffering.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there may have been the best intentions
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of the world, but who could ever have imagined that
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: it would come to this?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Right? See the premiere of Victoria is Labour's justinto Alan.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: She seems to be embattled on one topic or another
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: every second week. What's she saying about this?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Allen is buck passing this to her Corrections and Justice Minister.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: As you say, she's got a lot to deal with,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: but on this one, I think she really needs to
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: step up. This one isn't going.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: To go away.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Stephen. Rice is the Australian's new South Wales editor. You
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: can check out his reporting, plus our ongoing coverage of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: this huge and complex issue right now at the Australian
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au