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A judge has recused himself from a case after he questioned whether missing person defense lawyers of Middle Eastern heritage had traveled to ‘Bankstown or Beirut’ during a sentencing hearing of a woman of Lebanese descent.
District Judge Garry Neilson has recused himself from sentencing drug dealer Gladiss Mahfouz, who lives in the western Sydney suburb of Bankstown known for its Lebanese community, admitting his sarcastic inquiry could be seen as ‘problematic’.
On December 14 last year, Judge Neilson asked after Mahfouz’s lawyer Mustafa Agar, who had gone to check whether her lawyer Ertunc Ozen SC had completed a teleconference call to another court which stopped the Mahfouz case.
Judge Garry Neilson has recused himself from sentencing after making a comment that defense lawyers say could be interpreted as showing racial bias against the guilty party.
Clearly frustrated by a lengthy delay, Judge Neilson asked Crown prosecutor Sarah Gul: ‘Madam Crown, do you know where Mr Agar has gone? Is it Bankstown or Beirut?’
Subsequently, Mr. Ozen and Mr. Agar, neither of whom has family from Lebanon, issued a notice that the judge should recuse himself from the trial over the comment.
Sir. Ozen argued that while the remark did not show that Judge Neilson was biased against people of Lebanese origin, it could be perceived that way by a “fair-minded” member of the public.
“The comments could be seen as indicating that Judge Neilson could ‘think less of or give less weight to the submissions of a person of this particular ethnic background,'” Mr Ozen said, according to a report in Daily Telegraph.
“Furthermore, in the current climate and growing negative stereotypes surrounding Lebanese and Arab people, such comments from the bench were not only unfortunate but would have carried a particularly poignant sting,”
‘They would have the effect of undermining (Mahfouz’s) belief that submissions made on her behalf would be given the same due consideration as submissions made on her behalf by people of other ethnic backgrounds.’
Mrs Gul supported the proposal.
Mahfouz, who has been found guilty of supplying cocaine, faces another judge on April 5.
The dismissal is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Judge Neilson.
Judge Nielson asked if lawyer Mustafa Agar (pictured) had gone to Bankstown or Beirut in search of lawyer Ertunc Ozen SC
In 2014, he was referred to the Judicial Commission over his suitability to try further criminal proceedings after saying that society may not see incest with pedophilia as ‘unnatural’ or ‘taboo’ because it had accepted the practice as homosexuality.
The comments were made as he presided over a case involving a woman who had allegedly been sexually abused by her older brother when she was 10 and 18 years old.
Judge Neilson said the abuse she suffered as an adult did not need to be considered against the abuse she suffered as a child because by then she had been “sexually aroused”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
In 2017, Judge Neilson was reprimanded by the Court of Appeal for reading one out 17-hour sentence over four days a in a negligence case in May 2016.
Judge Neilson eventually awarded a man almost $340,000 in damages after he was thrown from a horse along a road near Wagga Wagga in south-west NSW when a car drove past.
Barrister Ertunc Ozen SC argued the judge’s remark could lead a ‘fair-minded’ person to see racial bias