There is a Melbourne, Australia judge who gets my vote for understanding law, discounting crocodile tears and administering appropriate justice. Clearly, Justice Bernard Bongiorno could teach a few Canadian justices a thing or two about how to carry out their sworn duty.
According to news reports out of Melbourne, 37-year-old Vancouverite Dorothy Skura was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for arranging to have her husband, Gerry, killed by an Australian hitman. The "cold-hearted bitch" [her description of herself] wanted her husband's money, his pension and she wanted to return to Canada.
Gerry Skura, an executive with the Winnipeg-based grain company James Richardson International, had been transferred to Melbourne to conduct company business in July 2001. While 'down under' Mr. and Mrs. Skura lived in Brighton, an upscale suburb of Melbourne with Mrs. Skura's 12-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
From information made available to the court, Dorothy Skura was "driven to loneliness after leaving her family and friends in Vancouver, and by alcohol and gambling problems." She managed to rack up $60,000 in gambling debt.
[I've been to Melbourne more than once and while it isn't Vancouver, it didn't strike me as an unpleasant place. The people are rather cordial and despite their odd way of expressing themselves in Australian English gave me no reason to drink, gamble or pine away for Canada. My apologies to my Australian friends who still think I have an accent.]
Dorothy Skura then went out and looked for someone to kill her husband. She paid a man she had known for only a short time $10,000 to do the job. The man took her money and was not heard from again. She set out again to find someone to kill her husband; she settled on an undercover policeman whom she thought was a hitman. A deal was struck for a contract price of $25,000 down from $50,000. She gave her contact a $2,000 down payment. Mrs. Skura favoured a car accident to kill her husband but said she would settle on any method.
During Dorothy Skura's court appearance, husband Gerry appealed for mercy stating that he "no longer feared for his life and never believed that his wife would go through with the plot." After she was sentenced, Mrs. Skura, weeping, turned to her husband and daughter and mouthed "I'm so, so sorry."
Oh, really? Was she sorry that her attempt to have her husband killed failed or was she truly sorry for her action? We shall never know but somehow I doubt that her 'so, so sorry' was based on love; at least not the kind I know and enjoy.
Justice Bongiorno didn't buy the excuses and tears and discounted Mr. Skura's plea for mercy; he saw through the smokescreen and zeroed in on the crime. Mrs. Skura had arranged to have her husband killed so that she could collect on his insurance, "valued at more than $250,000." Justice Bongiorno told Dorothy Skura, "You have pleaded guilty to a crime which has as its object the killing of another human being for a motive which, in your case, included the basest of all -greed." He added, "You wanted to rid yourself of your husband and Australia and contemporaneously acquire substantial assets as a consequence of doing so."
Perhaps it's the water they drink in Melbourne, Australia or perhaps it's that they are far removed from screwy Canada but for some reason crimes - at least this crime - are accepted as such and judges view these crimes seriously and meet out justice accordingly. None of the wimpy, "the government made me do it" nonsense or looking for a reason, however vacuous, from the accused's childhood to feebly explain away the why of the crime. No, sir, down under they hang them high and dry for all to see. In Melbourne, justice is more than a quaint thought; there it has strength and meaning. Bravo to that!
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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