An Indigenous man from a remote Cape York community was wrongly convicted of a traffic offence by a magistrate who repeatedly talked over the defence lawyer’s questions and made a series of “inappropriate” and “intemperate” remarks, an appeal has found.
The magistrate, sitting in a circuit court in Aurukun, took about 10 minutes after the hearing to find Rex Austin Ngakyunkwokka guilty of an evasion offence.
