@ Soft+gentle who said...
yet no police involvement. can we call them criminal charges if no governmental authority has laid the charges.
There are 2 issues here that strongly suggest you are not at all familiar with this case.
1) Where do you get the information that there has been no police involvement? Are you assuming there has been no police involvement?
In fact the police are involved. The police showed up at the Kingdom Hall of the Traralgon Congregation as part of their investigation. The elders quickly escorted them into one of the back rooms of the KH to speak with them.
The last court appearance was in Dec, 2011, more than 2 months before the next court date of Feb 21, 2012. Why such a long delay between court appearances? Because the police needed more time to continue their investigation. We don't yet know what the investigation will reveal, but we hope to know more later this month.
2) Yes, these are criminal charges. To repeat my earlier explanation, in Australia criminal charges can be brought by a private citizen, which Unthank has done. He has made more than accusations; he has brought criminal charges, 35 of them.
At some point the judge (magistrate?) will decide whether there is sufficient evidence for the Department of Public Prosecutions to take over the case. Hopefully at the next court date that decision will be made. The DPP is a government agency. All 35 charges may be left in place, they may be all dropped, or some may stick and some dropped.
As to whether or not they are criminal charges, you can check this for yourself. Follow these steps.
1) Go to http://www.magistratescourtvic.ozehosting.com.au/cgi-bin/searchlist.pl
2) Fill in the search criteria.
- Check Criminal lists (not Civil lists)
- Narrow the search results down by filling in one of the boxes. For example put Unthank in the Informant/Respondent box, Or select the appropriate court, Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court.
- Select the date of 21/02/2012.
- Click Submit Query.
My search looked like this,
And the search results, circled in red. Notice the defendants are the 5 Watchtower entities charged, and this is a Criminal list.
Please try this for yourself. Notice it is the Magistrate's Court of Victoria calling these cases Criminal, not Steven Unthank.
I have no idea where you are getting information to the contrary. Please post it if you can.
