INDULGENT TREATMENT IN AUSTRALIA FOR MIDDLE-EASTERN COP-KILLERS

The consequences for those who killed Constable David Carty in a fit of insane, unprovoked violence in a Fairfield car park in 1997 have been so trivial as to make a joke of every police officer's job. The latest in a series of taxpayer-funded legal manoeuvres comes from Edward Esho, 30, convicted in 2000 of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on Carty. Last month he managed to get the Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the State Parole Authority to refuse him early release, on technical grounds. Last week the Parole Authority ordered he be released by this Thursday.

On April 18, 1997, Carty, 25, was having a drink with colleagues at the Cambridge Tavern in Fairfield after finishing his shift at midnight. He was the last police officer to leave, having seen a female colleague to her car, when he was surrounded and attacked by a group of men he had earlier reprimanded for using obscene language. Constable Carty was stabbed in the heart and kicked and stomped on as he lay dying on the ground.

A post-mortem found he sustained injuries including "an incised wound at the front of the head . . . bruising to the top of the head consistent with having been caused by kicking; an incised wound above the eyebrow caused by a sharp object such as a knife; curved abrasion on the left side of the head; bruising and an abrasion above the left ear, described by the doctor as a combination of various forms of blunt trauma consistent with having been caused by a circular object such as a beer bottle, applied with significant force; further abrasions in the same area, caused by blunt trauma, consistent with kicking or possibly punching; an incised wound to the left of the face, caused by a sharp edged probably straight object that had the effect of cutting off part of the earlobe; two further incised wounds to the left ear . . . bruising and abrasion on the left cheek; a fairly deep incised wound to the left side of the nose, causing the nose to be cut through, . . . a 'scalping' wound to the back of the head, removing the surface of the skin and a tear, possibly caused by a sharp machete; and a shallow wound at the top of the back, possibly caused by a knife or broken glass, or sharp edged machete."

Esho was one of those animals who attacked Carty and in 2000 he was sentenced to six years and eight months in jail for his role. Dawood Odishou, also known as Gilbert Adam, 33, was jailed for 21 to 28 years for murdering Carty. His brother Richard Adam, 31, was initially found guilty of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm but the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the verdict. Both brothers were members of an ethnic Assyrian gang and Iraqi army deserters who came to Australia as refugees in 1992, where they remained unemployed, eventually bringing 11 family members to join them in Fairfield. Three other men were acquitted of any charges. Thamier Sako was jailed for five years.

The court heard that a few hours before he was murdered, at about 8pm, Constable Carty and a colleague were on foot patrol in Fairfield when Esho yelled across the street: "F---ing pig". Carty, a well-brought-up country boy, reprimanded him: "It's a public street and there's ladies here. Do you usually speak like that in front of women?" Carty's reprimand that night was regarded as an affront by Esho who, according to testimony by a witness in court, confronted the officer later in the car park of the Cambridge Tavern and said: "Why you tell me to shut up?"

Esho was refused parole by the state Parole Authority last year but NSW Supreme Court Justice Stephen Rothman quashed that decision last month. "There is no basis upon which the Parole Authority could possibly have found [Esho] was not 'able to adapt to normal lawful community life'," he said in the judgement. The Parole Authority had erred by not having an interpreter present when it considered Esho's case, despite his request for one. Last week the Parole Authority had to meet again, and this time ordered Esho be released from jail by Thursday when he may be eligible to apply for compensation.

At the parole hearing last September, Constable Carty's mother, Lorraine, fought tears as she read a victim-impact statement. "Were you proud?" she said to Esho. "The first time we entered the court . . . we were faced with Dave's killers sitting only metres away. These pathetic excuses for human beings . . . sitting there in their suits, clean shaven, as though they were respectable people. "They were the ones who had taken my son's life . . . thinking they are going to be OK, smiling, gloating." You might ask what is the point of having a parole authority if its decision can be second-guessed by criminals with enough legal clout. As Lorraine Carty said: "How do we appeal our sentence of grief?"

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