Sydney shooting a matter of life, death and money

By GREG ANSLEY

It has been a wild ride for Karen Brown, the Sydney security guard who shot dead a fleeing robber. Last week, bloodied and shaken, Brown was to most Australians the victim; this week she has been charged with murder and is at the centre of a furious debate over chequebook journalism.

Last week she was paid more than A$100,000 ($109,300) to speak exclusively to a Sunday newspaper and a television current affairs programme. This week the windfall has evaporated and Channel Seven may face legal retaliation by police furious at being fobbed off while Brown told her story.

Brown herself has been shaken to the core. "He is so young," she said of William Aquilina, the 25-year-old petty criminal she killed in the car park of a southwestern Sydney suburb. "I feel so sorry for him. I'm so sorry it happened."

It was a tragedy that should never have happened. Aquilina had a few minor convictions, but had not previously been regarded as a violent man. Yet on Monday last week he drove to the Moorebank Hotel, near Liverpool, and lay in wait.

His target was Brown, 42, a guard with a private security company called Elite Guard Force operated by her partner of seven years, George Muratore. Like most security guards handling large amounts of money, Brown carried a pistol.

About 10.30am Brown emerged from the hotel with A$55,000 ($60,100) in cash. Aquilina pounced, smashing Brown's head with a knuckleduster and pounding her to the ground before wrestling the bag from her hands and racing to the car.

Brown staggered toward the Ford, pulled out her gun and fired one shot through the window, hitting Aquilina in the head. He died soon after in Liverpool Hospital.

Brown remained at the scene as the police sealed it off. News photographs showed a traumatised woman pacing nervously, her head swathed in bandages, blood staining her waist-length blond hair. Medical examinations later showed that her skull and an eye socket had been fractured in the assault, at one stage raising fears she could lose an eye.

Sympathy for Brown was immediate, and broad. Although laws forbid the use of firearms by security guards except in self-defence, and outlaw the shooting of fleeing criminals, most Australians saw Brown's injuries, put themselves in her place, and considered the shooting justified. One poll showed 81 per cent of respondents believed no charge should be laid against her.

Although not universal, the weight of responses on talkback radio was in her favour. Sydney talkback king Alan Jones was unequivocal. "We do feel sorry for [Aquilina's] family. But I feel sorry for the woman who has been bashed up by a bloke with a knuckleduster, who thinks he can rob, steal a car and get away with it all."

But as the week wore on doubts emerged. The shooting renewed rumblings over controls on the security industry's firearms and the training of the guards who carry them.

Almost 500 security companies in New South Wales hold 3000 handguns, which concerns the Government, not least because of thefts from their armouries. But the main worry, said Dr Tim Prenzler, of Griffith University's school of justice administration, was that training for guards was minimal.

But Prenzler, who co-authored a paper on the regulation of private security for the Australian Institute of Criminology, said there had been few incidents involving shootouts between criminals and guards.

Guns appeared on security guards' hips as armed hold-ups soared during the 1970s and private security rocketed as police were stretched to their limits. The number of armed hold-ups of guards carrying cash fell, but Prenzler said raiders moved instead to softer targets, such as petrol stations.

In NSW, security guards must pass a firearms safety course to carry a gun, and must complete annual refresher courses. Most are allowed to wear only a pistol in a covered holster, although some are licensed to carry shotguns in armoured cars. They may not be used except in self-defence.

This week, police decided Brown had breached this caveat. On Monday Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said she had been charged with murder and served notice to appear in court on September 13, with no conditions of bail - a rare concession granted because of the emotive furore surrounding the case.

Prenzler was shocked by the murder charge. "I thought maybe manslaughter ... She's essentially a victim of crime and was severely bashed. I can't imagine a jury of ordinary people convicting her of murder in those circumstances."

Brown could probably mount a defence of self-defence according to her perceptions of danger, he said, supported by provocation and the head injuries she suffered. Alternative action, such as a coronial inquiry, could have been a better option for the police.

But the initial sympathy for Brown has been tempered by her decision to make large amounts of money from the tragedy.

Sydney's Sunday Telegraph paid her A$7000 for an exclusive print interview, in which she gave a graphic and moving account of the attack and its aftermath.

At the same time her story was the subject of furious bidding by television channels Nine and Seven. Seven won, with a reported fee of A$100,000 for an appearance on Today Tonight, the network's evening current affairs programme.

Paying for exclusive stories is nothing new in the Australian media, especially not for television. Huge sums have been paid for exclusive interviews with people as diverse as Tony Bullimore, the solo yachtsman who foundered in the Southern Ocean, the parents of dead INXS singer Michael Hutchence, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, and Natasha Ryan, the teenage runaway who remained in hiding while a convicted killer was charged with her murder.

But Brown's contract went beyond even these norms. While her lawyers held off police demands for an interview with claims of severe illness and shock, Brown last Sunday gave a lengthy interview to Today Tonight's host, Naomi Robson.

Faced with threats of legal action, she finally spoke to police on Monday, before her television appearance that night.

The irate NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery, QC, immediately launched a volley against chequebook journalism and froze Brown's interview fees in a trust account under the Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime Act. If Brown is acquitted of murder, she will get it back.

Brown later issued a statement through her lawyers waiving the Channel Seven and Sunday Telegraph fees.

Her television appearance has other serious legal and ethical implications, including the possibility of contempt of court.

An undesirable trend in journalism

Professor Michael Bromley, head of journalism at Queensland University of Technology, does not have a problem with the ethics of subjects selling stories when they do not profit from crime, but sees real issues with the Brown case.

"I think the problem is interfering in the course of justice ... I would have thought perverting the course of justice was a possible charge the DPP could be looking at."

Derek Wilding, Sydney director of the Communications Law Centre, believes Brown has highlighted real concerns.

"That kind of reporting verges towards a magazine tabloid format, where sums of money are paid for photographs of people's weddings and so on. "Potentially one of the problems is that it blurs those categories - it's a form of entertainment, but at the same time it's presenting itself as current affairs."

Wilding also said the case showed how close Today Tonight had sailed to contempt of court.

"Regardless of whether Today Tonight crossed that line - and it probably didn't - the very fact that the issue came up, I think, demonstrates that this kind of enterprise is different to other kinds of transactions in other enterprises.

"Ethical rules apply that might not apply in other industries."