Town & Country kicking more goals

Staff Reports

editor@thedailyjournal.ink

Readers would have understood last week that "we are bringing change to the newspaper landscape on the Southern Downs", as wrote Olav Muurlink, Consulting Editor of The Small Newspaper Company.

He explained that our $2 papers will be in print, for the final time, tomorrow, June 16, and from next Thursday, June 22, The Town & Country Journal "will become our flagship, not just bigger but also better".

"We will be retaining one aspect that we think we do better than most media around here, and that is, draw on people who know the district," Olav, who founded the Free Times for the Southern Downs, wrote.

"As the founding director of the Small Newspaper Company, and on behalf of the founding editor Elizabeth Voneiff, I’d like to wish Gordon and the team congratulations on the work they have done, and continue to do, to keep newspapers alive in country Queensland.

"We need all the support we can get, because as I have said more than once, a newspaper, whether you love it or hate it, is like a plough, aerating the soil, helping keep the region healthy with health debate and literally spreading the news."

Continue to email us on editor@thedailyjournal.ink for the meantime and we will keep your views and concerns in the public domain.

Kim Hanson-Ross kimberley.hansonross@icloud.com

A21-year-old man was sentenced to 18 months parole for spying on his female flatmate via surveillance cameras for over 20 months, on Thursday June 8.

The offender installed the cameras to monitor the victim while she slept, showered, and went to the toilet, between January 2021 and September 2022.

The victim discovered her flatmate was monitoring her, when she found a black box camera while cleaning her bedroom, angled towards her bed.

She plugged the SD card from the camera into her laptop and found 15 recordings and images of herself stored on the device, including videos of her getting changed.

The defendant would reportedly enter and leave the room on a consistent basis to check up on and re-adjust the camera angles of the surveillance devices.

He would also reportedly copy and save the files onto his laptop.

When the victim discovered the cameras, the offender sent her a message via Snapchat asking if she had found them, and claimed his brother had plugged the device in to charge in her room by accident.

He had been reportedly watching her at the time she found the camera.

The defendant continued to offend for another 10 months, until the victim reported his offending after noticing an iPhone recording footage of her walking in a towel, behind a gap in the blinds.

The defendant was arrested by police shortly after.

The defence lawyer for the offender, told the court that the 21-year-old was the sole income earner for his family, and that he was struggling with mental health issues.

Magistrate Andrew Cridland, told the defendant that his monitoring of the woman, and the nature of the offence, was “not appropriate.”

“You weren’t just placing the cameras, you were actively monitoring her,” Magistrate Cridland said.

“Your young age is a benefit of which I must consider. Had you been of a much older age, this would have been a matter where imprisonment of some form would have been considered," he added.

No convictions were recorded.

Before the judge could finalise the case, the police prosecutor requested that the judge make a final decision on the footage the victim saved onto his computer. The judge ordered that the computer containing the offending footage be "disposed of or destroyed."

The family of the victim who attended the hearing on the day, had been waiting for the man to be charged for months, but were outraged by the final verdict, saying that it was a “slap on the wrist” compared to the stress it had put their young family member through.

"They waited until (Magistrate Victoria Sturgess) was gone because they knew this new judge would be soft." One of the family members told The Town and Country Journal, "When (Magistrate Sturgess) was in with him last, she ripped into him." The victim was said to have lived in constant fear in her own home throughout the ordeal.

EVERYONE’S ENTITLED with Andrew Gale

Iwas out driving the highway the other day when I came across a familiar site. A person or persons towing a caravan. A bloody big one though. With a big behemoth of a 4WD towing it. They were on their way north, who knows from where or how far they were going. Lucky buggers, I thought, probably grey nomads on the great “adventure before dementia” that I’ve seen stickered up along many a vehicle windscreen or the back of a van, or maybe a family taking a “gap year” with kids in tow.

I don’t have a problem with caravans, or cyclists or anyone else on the road as a class of users but I know plenty of people do. I did “Road Rules Talkback” on ABC Radio for a while and there was never a week where someone didn’t ring up with their opinion, about them. Sometimes I’d be able to talk in a soothing way like “yeah they might slow us up but we have to share” and so on, whilst other times the real (professional) presenter I was working with would hit the button to cut them off.

Regardless, suffice to say I don’t have any issues understanding why people don’t like being delayed on the roads.

Anyway, back to the other day……. The reason I mentioned this particular van was because I was travelling in the same direction that it was, North, along with a fair chunk of the travelling public too. Its speed was varying between 60 and 70 km/hr on the highway and because it was only a regular highway (one lane in each direction) we found ourselves in a large train behind it at that kind of speed.

Now there’s nothing unusual about that at all. Very common. But so long as we are patient and careful, a problem generally solved by some overtaking. What I soon noticed however, is that despite having plenty of opportunities, no one in front of me was taking the ample opportunities to do just that.

So fine, I thought, maybe they’re just not in a rush either. Maybe the caravan was mother duck and the six or eight cars between my vehicle and it were the baby ducklings? I don’t know.

Something else was odd, however. All of these cars were sitting bumper to bumper, giving me the distinct impression that they weren’t at all happy being “stuck” behind the caravan. Including a couple of cars that joined the daisy chain behind me during all this time. But why not overtake? There were certainly lots of opportunities to do so safely.

Eventually after a couple of other prime safe chances went by, I took the initiative and flicking my lights (as is permitted) indicated and gently moved out and overtook everyone in one big swoop. All easily and safely achieved without exceeding the 100km/hr speed limit. Its amazing how efficiently that happens when they are doing 60 and there’s a two or three kilometre straight stretch.

All the while whilst this was happening I looked in my mirror and everyone stayed where they were. Jammed in, bumper to bumper but no one taking the opportunity to round anyone up.

Let me tell you. The whole thing was weird. And it made me feel strange. Naughty even. Despite the fact I had done nothing wrong. I could feel they eyes of all of those drivers boring into my back. I could hear them cursing me as a maniac and a hooligan.

Anyway, I was in a driving school car with all my signwriting and phone numbers on it and none of them bothered to ring me up and give me a serve.

Mind you, I have had a couple of people ring lately and ask me to teach them how to overtake.