DPP relents on author’s Everett biography
WA Newspapers 13 October 2009
The Director of Public Prosecutions will release the money paid to an author who wrote a book about criminal David Everett and pay the costs of the author’s 10-month legal fight.
In a case which was watched closely by Australian authors and journalists, then-DPP Robert Cock froze the bank accounts of Kingsley Flett’s company Flett Media last year over a publisher’s advance the company received for a biography Flett co-wrote with Everett.
It is understood the DPP argued the money was “crime-derived” and should be seized under WA’s criminal property confiscation laws.
But Flett said yesterday the DPP had agreed to release the bank accounts and pay his legal costs.
“Twelve months ago it seems like they made a really stupid decision and two weeks ago they made a really smart decision,” he said.
“I’m actually still a bit angry.” Mr Cock had first frozen Everett’s assets with the aim of using WA’s criminal property confiscation laws to take any money Everett had made from the book, Shadow Warrior.
But that action was dropped when Everett showed the DPP he had not received any of the advance nor made any money from book sales. Mr Cock then moved against Flett. Everett was jailed over a spree of robberies and kidnappings in the 1990s.
Flett’s lawyer Colin Chenu said it was still unclear whether the DPP wanted Flett’s money because it wrongly believed some would go to Everett or whether it claimed Flett was illegally profiting from Everett’s crimes by writing the book.
A DPP spokeswoman said the case had not yet been resolved and it was inappropriate to comment further.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
"Double Standards?" you decide
BANK FREEZE HYPOCRITICAL: BANDIT
MICHAEL HOPKIN
David Everett, the former SAS soldier turned violent criminal who has become one of the first targets of tough new rules to prevent criminals profiting from their crimes, has accused authorities of unfairly singling him out for special treatment.
WA Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock last month won the right to freeze Mr Everett’s bank accounts and confiscate his property to stop him benefiting from his new memoir, Shadow Warrior.
But Mr Everett claimed yesterday he made no money from the book, and that he had not been served with the correct papers to contest the ruling.
He now faces losing his property outright if he does not meet a 28-day deadline to appeal, the papers for which have not yet been delivered from the WA DPP to his Canberra home. The first he knew of the action was when he was refused money at a bank on Wednesday last week, leaving him unable to buy medication for a recent foot operation, he told The West Australian.
He is now relying on military pension payments.
Mr Everett spent a decade in jail after leaving the SAS and embarking on a spree of robberies and kidnappings in the 1990s.
He said he did not receive royalties from Penguin for Shadow Warrior, and that he donated all money from publicity appearances to charities to aid military veterans and the Karen people of Burma.
“They have frozen my life, not seized book profits — there aren’t any to seize,” he said. “A simple call to the publishers would have cleared it all
up. I have no contract with them, I haven’t signed anything.”
Mr Everett also asked why other former WA criminals — such as convicted fraudsters Alan Bond and George Brownrigg, both of whom have published memoirs — have not received the same treatment. “These blokes haven’t been touched. If you’ve got a law in place everybody should be subject to it,” he said. “It appears to be a selective process of hanging me out for special treatment.”
“I have no difficulty with the principle that people should not profit from their crimes.”
But he said authorities should “do a bit of simple investigation before they just freeze the income of a pensioner”.
Mr Cock refused to comment on other potential cases, but said a police investigation was under way to determine how much money Mr Everett had made from the book.
The procedure was to freeze assets if the Supreme Court believed there was reasonable suspicion a former criminal was profiting from past crimes. If Mr Everett was not making royalties from the book, those details would be established in due course, Mr Cock said.
MICHAEL HOPKIN
David Everett, the former SAS soldier turned violent criminal who has become one of the first targets of tough new rules to prevent criminals profiting from their crimes, has accused authorities of unfairly singling him out for special treatment.
WA Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock last month won the right to freeze Mr Everett’s bank accounts and confiscate his property to stop him benefiting from his new memoir, Shadow Warrior.
But Mr Everett claimed yesterday he made no money from the book, and that he had not been served with the correct papers to contest the ruling.
He now faces losing his property outright if he does not meet a 28-day deadline to appeal, the papers for which have not yet been delivered from the WA DPP to his Canberra home. The first he knew of the action was when he was refused money at a bank on Wednesday last week, leaving him unable to buy medication for a recent foot operation, he told The West Australian.
He is now relying on military pension payments.
Mr Everett spent a decade in jail after leaving the SAS and embarking on a spree of robberies and kidnappings in the 1990s.
He said he did not receive royalties from Penguin for Shadow Warrior, and that he donated all money from publicity appearances to charities to aid military veterans and the Karen people of Burma.
“They have frozen my life, not seized book profits — there aren’t any to seize,” he said. “A simple call to the publishers would have cleared it all
up. I have no contract with them, I haven’t signed anything.”
Mr Everett also asked why other former WA criminals — such as convicted fraudsters Alan Bond and George Brownrigg, both of whom have published memoirs — have not received the same treatment. “These blokes haven’t been touched. If you’ve got a law in place everybody should be subject to it,” he said. “It appears to be a selective process of hanging me out for special treatment.”
“I have no difficulty with the principle that people should not profit from their crimes.”
But he said authorities should “do a bit of simple investigation before they just freeze the income of a pensioner”.
Mr Cock refused to comment on other potential cases, but said a police investigation was under way to determine how much money Mr Everett had made from the book.
The procedure was to freeze assets if the Supreme Court believed there was reasonable suspicion a former criminal was profiting from past crimes. If Mr Everett was not making royalties from the book, those details would be established in due course, Mr Cock said.
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