- Published:
- Tuesday 11 June 2024 at 1:07 pm
Earlier this year we launched an expanded summary crime funding guideline.
The changes ensure more people have support to plead not guilty when there is not enough evidence to prove the charges against them.
The groups who can be represented to contest charges have been expanded to provide more assistance to:
- First Nations people
- women and people who identify as LGBTIQ+ or gender diverse and are misidentified as the predominant aggressor in family violence
- people who have been charged following an unjustified, disproportionate or unreasonable use of power by a person in a special position of authority, like a police officer.
To support the guideline expansion, Dr Tamar Hopkins will be delivering training workshops.
Tamar is a Melbourne-based legal expert in police accountability. The workshops will bring together Tamar's research and experience.
The workshops will help defence lawyers identify and respond to racial profiling and/or other forms of police misconduct in their criminal casework.
This training will deepen participants understanding of stop, question, search and arrest law in Victoria, as well as introduce the concept of racial profiling.
In the second half of the workshop, participants will engage in a mock trial. This will involve a defence application for evidence to be excluded on the grounds that it was obtained because of racial profiling.
The full day training will take place at locations across the state. It may meet the CPD needs of lawyers in the fields of substantive law and professional skills.
Our Summary Crime team are currently taking training expressions of interest from:
- practitioners from community legal centres
- practitioners on our summary crime panel
- Victoria Legal Aid in-house staff.
Places are limited and we may not be able to offer a place to all people interested in attending.
More information
Email PoliceAccountabilityTraining@vla.vic.gov.au for more information and to express your interest in the training.
Read our expanded summary crime funding guideline.
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