Latest / The Slippery Slope / Gold Coast Councillor charged with Murder yet keeps his job.
Transcript
- 0:13Hi Jay Fallon, slippery slope. How you going?
- 0:17Sorry for the Husky voice. I did a bit of fishing on the
- 0:21weekend, went out the boat and in a very sick.
- 0:25I haven't gotten seasick for a long time.
- 0:28Spent the whole time, the whole time like four or five hours
- 0:34vomiting ruined my voice completely.
- 0:37But anyway it was me we we still got managed to when I say we not
- 0:43me, I said I was way too sick. But the other boy still got some
- 0:46fish so still got to eat some Spanish mackerel.
- 0:49Yesterday it was very very nice. Anyway, not here at all about
- 0:54fishing, even though it is good in the week.
- 0:57Sunday is to go fishing this story.
- 0:59Look, it's not really the one I want to talk about.
- 1:01It's not really a. It's not really a slippery slope
- 1:04story this. Maybe I should start a new
- 1:09section just call it what the flip.
- 1:11What the flip stories Let's go through this.
- 1:15I read a little bit about this the other day and I just
- 1:17thought, this is crazy. And I was talking to it with
- 1:20talking about it with a mate of mine I used to work with in the
- 1:27you know, Q, PS:. In in in surveillance.
- 1:30We were discussing it. Just neither, you know going
- 1:32through what is going on. And I read it and I thought, you
- 1:37know what? If I ever get charged with
- 1:39something, this is the lawyer. This is the lawyer that I want
- 1:44this guy here. So this headline here, if you
- 1:48can, if you can see this, should be able to see this.
- 1:50So Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate will meet councillor charged
- 1:54with murder to discuss political future.
- 1:59Like I said, this isn't really a slippery slope thing.
- 2:02This is more of a what the flip is going on here.
- 2:05So Tom Tate was elected as Gold Coast City Council mayor in
- 2:092012. He did not anticipate dealing
- 2:11with a counselor being charged with murder during his tenure in
- 2:15public office. But in the coming days he will
- 2:17meet Division Seven councillor Ryan Bolden Lumsden for the
- 2:23first time since the 30 year old was charged last week over the
- 2:27death of his stepfather, police found the body of Robert
- 2:30Lumsden, who's 58, who was 58, inside an Arundel home on August
- 2:36the 23rd. So the Councillor Baldon Lumsden
- 2:40was granted conditional bail in the Supreme Court on Thursday
- 2:43after spending 8 days behind bars.
- 2:47Justin Justice Lincoln Crowley ordered a $250,000 surety,
- 2:52saying he was satisfied the counselor's continued detention
- 2:55in jail was not justified. So in other words, he's fairly
- 3:01positive he's not going to kill anyone else.
- 3:02He's got it out of his system. Following the bail decision,
- 3:06Counselor Tate said that Counselor Bolton Lumsden would
- 3:09remain in his position and continue to be paid as a
- 3:12counselor. Look innocent until proven
- 3:17guilty, I suppose, but you know, to be able to keep your
- 3:21position, getting paid in the public purse while being under
- 3:27the cloud of being charged with murder, that's pretty next
- 3:31level. So he wrote.
- 3:32He said he wrote to local government minister and acting
- 3:34Premier Steve Miles last week asking for advice.
- 3:39Goes on say. My view has always been that
- 3:41he's innocent until proven guilty.
- 3:44So right now, as a counselor, and he'll do his best to operate
- 3:47as a counselor. Under Section 122 of Local
- 3:50Government Act, the minister has the power to suspend, dismiss a
- 3:54counselor in the interest of public safety and those sorts of
- 3:58things, or he does nothing. Spokesman for Miles said legal
- 4:02advice is being sought on the situation.
- 4:05Counselor Tate said he would attempt to meet the counselor in
- 4:10the upcoming days to discuss his future.
- 4:13I'm going to give him room for a couple of days.
- 4:16Very understanding. Boss here gonna give him some
- 4:19room for a couple of days, you know.
- 4:20Got that little charge of murder hanging over his head.
- 4:23Then I'll reach out for a bit of coffee, coffee with him to see
- 4:25what he wants to do. Wow, how's this?
- 4:30But he will be allowed to see his mother and sister socially
- 4:33as long as they do not discuss the the Do not discuss the
- 4:38deceased or the alleged murder. Sometimes you you do wonder how
- 4:45how out of touch are judges, magistrates and that kind of
- 4:50thing where they think that Oh yeah, well we'll let you go.
- 4:54But hey, the other two people who you know have a big part to
- 4:58play in this one, maybe not physically they've had a part
- 5:01but you know it it affected their life very much.
- 5:05So don't discuss, don't discuss the elephant in the room.
- 5:09The fact that you murdered husband and and stepfather don't
- 5:14discuss that discuss everything else.
- 5:16So of course you know that's absolutely going to happen just
- 5:21they seem so naive. Look what makes this more
- 5:25interesting is what details this article goes into this headline
- 5:30here from the ABC News. This council obviously he's
- 5:33charged with murdering stepfather released on Bala
- 5:36after urgent hearing. So here is his loyal he's his
- 5:40legal representative, So Gold Coast counselor accused of
- 5:44murdering his stepfathers to be released immediately.
- 5:48Justice Crowley ordered 250,000 surety, saying he's satisfied.
- 5:53Obviously the 30 year old continued detention was not
- 5:57justified. Arguing why the 30 year old
- 6:00should be released on bail pending any committal hearing,
- 6:04barrister Craig Everhart Casey told the court the accused lived
- 6:09at home in what was a dysfunctional, toxic
- 6:13relationship characterized as malignant, narcissistic abuse.
- 6:18Isn't it funny? I bet you none of this, You
- 6:21know, when he was going up for the election, none of this would
- 6:23have come. What he would have been putting
- 6:25forward this perfect family situation in all their
- 6:28advertising and all their promotional, promotional
- 6:32activity that was going out there, it would have been, hey,
- 6:34look at us. I come from a a great family
- 6:36supportive, family supportive mother, supportive stepfather.
- 6:40But when he's charged with murder, I know it was
- 6:42dysfunctional, toxic relationship, malignant,
- 6:45narcissistic. It gets even better.
- 6:48But so, Eberhardt said, his client intends to plead not
- 6:53guilty. OK, he said that in the
- 6:57councillors police interview, which ran for nearly three
- 7:00hours. He sobbed as he spoke of how his
- 7:04stepfather, 58 year old Robert Lumsden, controlled,
- 7:07manipulated, dominated, humiliated, abused and
- 7:11threatened him for years. Mind you, this 30 year old man
- 7:15still lives at home, still lives with his Anyway, he told police
- 7:20he recently sought advice from a domestic violence hotline
- 7:24because of his stepfather's increasingly erratic and
- 7:27threatening behavior. That's because you're 30 and
- 7:30you're still living with him. You should have moved out, you
- 7:33clown, he told police. This is the councillor, This is
- 7:37Ryan. He told police that his
- 7:39stepfather had repeatedly threatened to kill him if he did
- 7:42not do what he was told, that he controlled his finances and
- 7:45relationships. It's a sad sign of our society
- 7:49where you have a 30 year old, it still feels like he's under the
- 7:52thumb of his stepfather, Mr. Bolden Lumsden also told police
- 7:59on the day of the argument. He had been.
- 8:01He had been belittled for two hours and feared for his life.
- 8:06He told police. Police.
- 8:07He was concerned his stepfather had access to a kitchen knife,
- 8:11which is, I mean, who would have thought that you're living in a
- 8:14house which has a kitchen. So.
- 8:17Oh, he was concerned he had access to a kitchen knife anyway
- 8:21during the altercation and that he wanted to restrain him.
- 8:25He said he wanted him to pass out so he could get away from
- 8:29him. So instead of just, you know,
- 8:31moving out the door, walking out the door.
- 8:34No, no, I'm just going to restrain him first and hope that
- 8:36he passes out first because, you know, I'm 28 years younger than
- 8:40him. But what else can I do?
- 8:42The court heard that two days before.
- 8:44This is where it gets interesting.
- 8:45This is why I'm saying this is more of a what the flip story.
- 8:48The court heard that two days before the fatal argument, the
- 8:52counselor, as in Ryan, googled previous cases where people
- 8:57accused of murder put forward arguments of self-defense and
- 9:02received a reduced sentence. So two days before he decided to
- 9:07defend himself from his stepfather, he googled what
- 9:11happens to people that kill people and and put forward an
- 9:16argument of self-defense. So already you're sitting there
- 9:20going, well might be a little bit of premeditation going on
- 9:23here, but the lawyer now this is if you ever get into serious
- 9:27trouble, I think you need to look up this lawyer because he's
- 9:29already onto it. So Mr. Eberhart said that they
- 9:33included questions like if you kill someone in self-defense
- 9:37will you go to jail? This is 2 days before he killed
- 9:40him. Two days before he he asked, he
- 9:44went through Google and said if you kill someone in self-defense
- 9:46will you get out of jail. And and yet this fall was trying
- 9:49to say hey, no it's not premeditated, he told the court.
- 9:55He told the court all the searches were done within a 5
- 9:58minute period and argued the searches were consistent with
- 10:02his inquiries, inquiries to a domestic violence service
- 10:07because he feared for his safety.
- 10:11The lawyer goes on to say this is a quite police often put more
- 10:15weight on these things than they deserve.
- 10:20Those silly police, they often look into these.
- 10:23You know how silly of police to look at, Look at someone, look
- 10:28at someone's search history and going, oh, a couple of days
- 10:31before they killed the person they were looking up whether
- 10:34they could get away with killing that person if they said, hey,
- 10:38it was all self-defense. He goes on to say these searches
- 10:43cannot prove any intention at all.
- 10:46Well like I said, this is it's not really a slippery slope
- 10:52thing. This is just a it's for my own
- 10:55inquisitive mind being, you know ex police and all that.
- 11:01What the flip story is going on. I mean what the heck.
- 11:04You've got this counselor accused of murder.
- 11:07He's 30 years old. He still lives with his family.
- 11:10He's obviously mum and stepfather.
- 11:12Stepfather is supposedly very abusive.
- 11:15Apparently allegedly a very abusive 30 years old.
- 11:20He's got he works as a counselor earning.
- 11:24I'll look up how much he actually earned.
- 11:26So here we go. A a regular counselor will
- 11:30receive $141,000 and 70, oh sorry, 141,791 dollars. 141
- 11:39grand. That's.
- 11:42Yeah, it's not a bad pay. 30 years old, living with his
- 11:48mother and stepfather and sister, maybe mother and
- 11:51stepfather still living at home. He's on a wage of 140 / 100
- 11:56grand. He's still living at home.
- 11:59He's looking up self-defense. He's looking up basically can I
- 12:05get away with murdering people if I claim self-defense?
- 12:11Like I said, it's not really a slippy slope story.
- 12:13It's just a what the flip is going on in this world.
- 12:18It piques my interest. Anyway, it'll be interesting to
- 12:20see what goes on here. Let me know what you reckon I
- 12:25in. Do you really think?
- 12:26Have a look at the story. Do you really think this is a
- 12:28defense? You can look up someone two days
- 12:31earlier. You can look up a story on
- 12:34whether you can get away with murdering someone if you claim
- 12:37self-defense and then the lawyer comes out and says hey, please
- 12:41often put more weight on these things than they deserve.
- 12:44I tell you what, if I ever get into serious trouble, this is
- 12:47the lawyer who I want on my side anyway.
- 12:52Let me know what you reckon. It's just my opinion.
- 12:55Thanks for listening to this little pretty.