When I quickly read parts of this story on the Web this morning, I had vague thoughts that the teacher's claim that he was engaging in sex with a boy as part of islander "men's business" sounded very, very unlikely; but then again Torres Strait is close to New Guinea where there is that tribe that has (or used to have?) male initiation rites of a kind that this teacher presumably claims to be emulating.
You see, I kind of assumed that the teacher in question must have been a Torres Strait Islander himself; or at least have some islander blood in him.
But I just saw the news print version of The Australian, and the accused has his photo plastered all over the page. He looks completely white!
Furthermore, I see that the child concerned came from the Island of Saibai, about 4 kilometres from PNG. The famous semen initiation tribe of New Guinea is the Sambian, who come from the Eastern Highlands.
The prosecution has already said it has elders from Saibai who will confirm there is no such ritual on that island.
Apparently, the teacher claims to have had a part aboriginal father. The prosecutor told the court (see the Australian's story above):
.... he was not raised in a traditional manner and that he should receive a custodial sentence to send a clear message to the community.I would have thought the point is that, even if the boy was from a tribe that still had this initiation, there is surely no conceivable way that the judge should be able find that this could be used in mitigation by an essentially white teacher from Sydney who has had absolutely no tribal background .
"It is stated in the defence material that he was born in Sydney where he was educated to grade 12. He then went on to receive a scholarship and teach in Wollongong and undertake postgraduate studies," she said.
"He has gone on to have an illustrious and distinguished career. He is an educated man, using what he claims to be part of Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait Islander culture, that is, men's business, to explain away his offending behaviour. I have been instructed that this is not part of the culture."
But, now that I think of it, it may not be a waste of time to allow this guy months to try to find an anthropologist to give evidence supporting his claims. Because if he comes up completely empty handed, the judge can presumably take a very dim view of his using this excuse with the boy at the time of the offences.
Yet if does find an anthropologist to support him (sounds very unlikely), the judge should say exactly what I suggested above.
If she doesn't, the public outcry will surely be enormous.
It seems to me that there should be no "up side" to this for Mr Last, except for the fact that he is buying time before heading off to jail.
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