Into the Darklands and Beyond by Latta Nigel

Author:Latta, Nigel [Nigel Latta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730445876
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

OUR YOUNGEST KILLER

THAT WAS THE HEADLINE in the Sunday Star-Times on 25 August 2002, just after BJ and his friends were convicted for the attack which led to the death of Michael Choy. Underneath the headline was a half-page picture of BJ himself, looking typically angelic. He looked like a sweet kid. Except of course that he wasn’t; instead he was our youngest killer.

In fact, only two of the six young people were convicted of murder, the 16-year-old boy who had swung the baseball bat and the 17-year-old girl who had been standing beside BJ. The rest of them, including BJ, were convicted of manslaughter. The 14-year-old client of the lawyer who had originally contacted me was acquitted of all charges relating to the attempted aggravated robbery of the KFC driver.

When Justice Fisher pronounced sentence BJ cried.

I didn’t go back to court to hear the verdict or for the sentencing. By the time the jury retired my job was essentially over and so I set about trying to catch up on all the things I’d put off over the six or so weeks of the trial. Besides, I’d had about as much of that particular tragedy as I could take.

For about a week the fallout from the trial took centre stage on the media merry-go-round. Everyone on the talkback shows wanted to know why this had happened, and what we could do about it. Questions were asked with an earnest tone and there was much beating of the national chest.

And tougher sentencing, yet again everybody wanted tougher sentencing.

Then, as always happens, the world simply moved on. The kids all went off to jail, and disappeared off the national consciousness. BJ’s moment of fame had passed. People stopped asking questions, and things went on pretty much as they always have.

And in the constant state of media-induced Attention Deficit Disorder that the whole world seems to suffer from, we moved our outrage on to the next big issue.

When I did a quick tally of the kids I’ve seen this week alone, I had one kid under the age of 16 who I believe will kill somebody in the next year or so, one more who might in the next five years, three kids that will probably sexually reoffend some time in the next 18 months, and about a half-dozen who, for a variety of reasons, are well down the slippery slope to prison unless some miracle happens.

This is not an atypical week for me.

So we locked up BJ and his mates, but there’s a bunch more of them out there.

And I guarantee you one thing: none of them will be even vaguely influenced by the fact that BJ and his friends went to jail.

‘Do you remember those kids that went to jail for killing Michael Choy?’ I asked one kid. He was up on aggravated robbery charges and didn’t appear to care about anything.

‘Who?’

I sighed. ‘The pizza guy.’

He smiled. ‘Oh yeah, I knew them, bro.’

‘Who did you know?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘What did you think about what they did?’ I asked him.

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