CCPR/C/112/D/1968/2010
The facts as submitted by the authors
2.1
Mr. Blessington’s parents separated when he was six and divorced some years later.
After the separation he resided with his mother and younger sister. The children were often
left unattended whilst the mother worked. Subsequent psychological and psychiatric reports
indicate that he had great difficulty coping with the splitting up of his family and that his
behavioural difficulties appear to have commenced around that event, including running
away, schooling difficulties, general misbehaviour and lying. Those reports also indicate
that, as a child, Mr. Blessington succumbed to several bouts of pneumonia and that he was
physically assaulted by his mother’s new partner. At around 13 years of age he was living
with his father in a variety of caravan parks, youth refuges and facilities for the homeless.
During the time spent in caravan parks he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by two male
persons, one of whom was a friend of his father. Despite reporting these assaults to both his
father and medical professionals, no action was taken.
2.2
Between 1978 and 1988, Mr. Blessington attended at least 13 different schools. In
1987, while at Raymond Terrace High School, he was assessed by a clinical psychologist
and a psychiatrist and both recommended further assessment and monitoring. It was also
around the age of 13 that his substance abuse began and he developed a nervous twitch as a
result of petrol sniffing. He has numerous scars on his arms from intentionally burning
himself with cigarettes. Psychiatric evidence tendered at trial in connection with the facts
described below indicated that he had a severe conduct disorder and “an abnormality of
mind from an inherent cause”, which was present at the time of the offence and fitted the
criteria for a defence of diminished responsibility. The psychiatrist considered that
condition as transient and expected it to be resolved in time.
2.3
Mr. Elliott’s upbringing was marked by persistent exposure to domestic violence at
the hands of his father, who took overly forceful disciplinary measures against him, such as
striking him with a cricket bat and choking him, as recorded in psychological reports. A
medical report issued by the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Camperdown on 19
March 1985 indicated that he presented “multiple bruises, consistent with direct blows
received by punching and marks to the neck consistent with attempted strangulation. This
degree of injury is non-accidental and is entirely consistent with a violent assault.” As he
entered high school a pattern of severe behavioural problems began. As of 1985, he spent a
great amount of time in custody, in different juvenile detention facilities and institutions,
due to multiple convictions for a variety of offences, including breaking and entering with
intent, theft of a motor vehicle, receiving stolen property and malicious damage. During
that year, at the age of 13, he was sexually abused by a 40-year-old man known to to be a
paedophile by the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services. Some
two weeks later, Mr. Elliott absconded from Reiby Detention Centre, where he was held at
the time, and set fire to the perpetrator’s home, an offence for which he received a 15month committal. In late 1985, his solicitor attempted to sexually assault him and was
subsequently charged in relation to the assault of other young boys. Mr. Elliott also alleges
that he was sexually assaulted again in 1987 by a man who was later charged for it, but the
charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence. A later psychological report noted
that he presented diagnostically as a “conduct disordered youth”. In July 1988, he left home
and started to live on the streets in Sydney. That is where he met Mr. Blessington in 1988.
2.4
On 6 September 1988, the authors, at the time aged 14 and 15 respectively, assaulted
W.P. with a makeshift hammer, a crime for which they were sentenced in 1990. That was
the first crime of violence either of them had committed. On 8 September 1988, the authors
and three other street children abducted Ms. J.B. at knifepoint from the car park of a train
station. They absconded with her in her own motor vehicle and took her to a location near
Minchinbury, where she was raped. Ms. J.B. was then bound and carried to a nearby lake,
where she was drowned. Her body was left in the lake and the group departed in her motor
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