Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Frank Vincent, Hybrid Publishers, $29.99.
If you have an interest in our criminal justice system, then this memoir by retired Australian jurist Frank Vincent offers a “rare insight into our court system from a master practitioner”.
He has been a barrister, a judge in the Victorian Court of Appeal and University Chancellor. For more than half a century he was a “champion of the people”.
At the outset, Frank admits to not being quite sure why he wrote this book. Part of the reason lies “in a wish to leave some trace of Dawn and myself as real people who struggled, lived and loved, but in a very different time and place. I offer what I see as an impressionistic tapestry of our lives with many threads lost, a few omitted, and some of the colours faded through time, but one that hopefully conveys an essentially true image”.
He does so with self-effacement, some wittiness and an honest symmetry.
Appointed to the Supreme Court, Vincent heard some of Australia’s biggest crime cases: the Russell Street bombing trial, the murder of two police in Walsh Street, South Yarra and Paul Charles Denyer, the Frankston serial killer.
Retiring from the Bench in 2009, Vincent conducted a number of inquiries, including as senior adviser for Victoria’s parliamentary investigation into sexual and physical abuse of children in non-government care.
He joined the Victorian Bar and soon veered to become a crime specialist. Soon he was taking on murder cases, eventually becoming the ‘go-to guy’ for homicide defences. Throughout his career, which included a lengthy period as Parole Board Chair, he never lost his concern for victims and the marginalised in our society, especially the Indigenous members.
Far from being tedious, Frank regards the work as being “fascinating and important” … with more still to be done.
