Jamelle Wells - The Outback Court Reporter (29th February, 2024)

Court reporter Jemele Wells has written a new book called The Outback Court Reporter, where she shares some of the most interesting cases she has witnessed throughout her 20-year career. She will be doing a book launch and meet and greet at Wesley Hall this afternoon. Wells stumbled into court reporting by accident but quickly fell in love with the job due to its challenges and the variety it offers. She also discusses the differences she has observed between regional and metropolitan courts, highlighting the disadvantages faced by regional magistrates in terms of workload and limited resources. Wells shares some intriguing stories from her book, including cases of theft and shoplifting in small towns. The book provides a comprehensive look at the court system in the Central West region. After spending almost 20 years in courtrooms reporting for the ABC on some of the country's highest profile cases, Jemele Wells is revealing some of the biggest stories she's witnessed out here in the Central West as well as right across the country in her new book The Outback Court Reporter. She'll be at Wesley Hall this afternoon at 5.30 for a book launch as well as a meet and greet and she's also managed to hop on the show for a quick chat. Good morning Jemele. Good morning Keegan. I want to just take it back to sort of the very start of your journalism career. What inspired you to originally go into the court and criminal side of journalism? Oh Keegan, it was just an accident. Oh right, okay. So it's not a very intriguing story to tell. I was a newsreader and a reporter in the ABC newsroom in Sydney and at the time I was covering an ICAC inquiry into Wollongong Council and one of the court reporters in the newsroom transferred into state so there was suddenly a job available and my boss at the time said oh would you like to have a go at it and I said yes and then was terrified because I hadn't really done a lot of court reporting. I hadn't studied law, I'm not a lawyer and I agreed to it and then I thought oh no what have I done? But I learnt on the job and came to love it very, very quickly partly because it's very hard, it's a challenge every day, there's always something new to learn, you're under a lot of pressure when reporting on courts and there's huge variety to it. There's no two days ever the same in a courtroom and I love the drama of courtrooms Keegan. Of course. It's a human interest story to tell and you see the very best and the very worst of people at very vulnerable times of their lives in a courtroom so I still love it and I still love the variety of the job. I mean out of all the people I've spoken to, I've never had someone when I've asked about the start of their life career say it was an accident so that's a first. What's one of the major differences you've seen between the courts of say regional Australia compared to the metropolitan areas? Well I've spent most of my career in Sydney as you know but I went on a judicial road trip a couple of years ago around the country because I had a suspicion that Australia is very much a country of justice by postcode and that suspicion was confirmed in most of the states I went to and by that I mean that although we have the same justice system in Australia with variations you know state by state but basically the same principle in our justice system. In regional courts, there's a lot of disadvantage in terms of magistrates having a really high workload, working on their own, being under a lot of pressure and having limited resources to use in their job. For example, they have limited resources when it comes to giving people bail, they have limited resources when it comes to putting people like drug offenders for example on diversionary programs and rehabilitation programs. In Sydney for example, if someone is charged with a drug offense, the magistrate might say, well I'm putting you on a 12-month good behavior bond and as part of that I'm ordering you to go and do this rehab program. The magistrates in the bush would like to be able to do that and some of them can but in some remote towns such as for example Moree and Walgut, it's a long way for people to travel to do rehab so that comes into effect when a judge hands down a sentence. And the same with driving offenses, driving offenses are a very big deal in regional courts because as you and I know, in some remote towns if you don't have a license, you might not have a job because there is no public transport. The magistrates get before them a lot of repeat offenders, people driving without licenses for example and it's very hard because they need their car to get to work, to take family members to the hospital which might be in the nearest town. And so the magistrates would like to put a lot of them on driving programs but it's sometimes hard for people to access those programs. We're speaking to Jamelle Wells who's been an ABC court reporter for the past 20 years. She's released a book previously called The Court Reporter and now she's releasing a new one called The Outback Court Reporter where she does a sort of judicial tour of the Central West court systems and there's just some fascinating stories in it. Wait there a sec, we're going to take a break, I want to come back and ask you about some of the most interesting, I think is the word used, stories or cases you've seen around the area. We'll quick break, back in a sec. You're on Zoot's Breakfast. It's Zoot FM, your home of Davos, best music from the 80s to now right across your summer. You're with Keegan and we're talking to Jamelle Wells, a court reporter with the ABC for the past 20 years. She's released books such as The Court Reporter and now she's got a new one coming out, The Outback Court Reporter which is like a judicial tour around the Central West court systems and I mean you mentioned Moree and Wargett previously but what Central West areas will you be covering within the pages? Well I went to Lake Cogelligo Court, I spend a lot of time in Cobar Local Court because that's my home town and it only sits once a month but for the two days I wandered in there, it was fascinating in good and bad ways. There were some very, very serious cases of driving offences and very frivolous cases. There was one case for example that took up almost two days of court time in Cobar and that was a case of a box of Chupa Chup lollipops that went missing from a local supermarket and a former staff member got charged with one count of theft. Now Keegan, he said that he threw the lollipops away because they'd been damaged by milk and the prosecution case was that however that he was seen on CCTV footage wheeling them outside on a trolley and that's the last they were ever seen but there was some hilarious evidence presented in the court. The prosecutor at one stage quizzed one witness about whether or not he'd seen Barista Brothers chocolate flavoured milk cartons spontaneously exploding and then in summing up the man's case, the local solicitor who was a well-known local fellow who represented this young man said, your honour I put it to you that cases of Barista Brothers chocolate flavoured milk were pushed and shoved and thrown around and that's why they could have been damaged and the milk may have spilled. So it was very, very serious to the people involved in that there were a lot of witnesses from the local supermarket and the supermarket is an important part of Cobar life as many of the supermarkets in small towns because they sell not only food but also clothing and garden products and they are great employers in the town and they represent a lot of local or they support I should say a lot of local sporting groups and cultural groups but this took up two days of court time and at the end, the magistrate, Clare Girotto just put her head in her hands and looked at the court and said, those are two days of our lives we will never reclaim. So you'll obviously be covering both the light and shade of the court system in the book? Yes and the same thing with Dubbo Court, I sat for a day in Dubbo local court and there were a lot of very funny instances of people who shoplifted and shoplifted very, very strange items like Buzz Lightyear toys and packets of cat food and one fellow had taken a pair of socks from a local shop and ran off down the street and one of the court officers had actually been out getting a sandwich at the time so it helped apprehend him. And I'll end with my favourite of all time for you, it was a man who stole a cat flap from a Bunnings store, it was worth $150 and he took it back to the cashier and showed his driver's license and wanted a refund because he said it wasn't suitable. Oh yes, wanting a refund on something you've stolen, brilliant, what a great idea. I just can't wait to read the book Jemele, I really appreciate you coming on to have a chat this morning. It's been great talking to you, thanks for the opportunity. Cheers. That was Jemele Wells, she's been an ABC court reporter for the last 20 years, she's released a book previously called The Court Reporter and she's now releasing a new one, The Outback Court Reporter, where she does a judicial tour of the central west court system and we've just heard some of the stories and the cases that she's seen. But you can head down to the Wesley Hall this afternoon at 5.30 for the book launch and meet and greet, you can say hi, you can ask her about a couple of other stories and cases that she's seen, oh otherwise you can probably catch them all and more in the book. You're on Zoo's Brekkie.