A long-standing judge has labelled the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions "incompetent" and "inefficient" and says he has no confidence in its ability to bring serious criminal trials in a timely fashion.
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Acting Justice Robert Shallcross Hulme made the extraordinary comments on Tuesday when vacating the impending trial of alleged Brothers for Life gang leader Mohammed Hamzy for the 2013 daylight killing of fellow gang member Yehya Amoud.
Mr Hamzy, 30, was due to face trial on October 6 on charges of murder, shoot with intent to murder and discharge firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He is the cousin of Bassam Hamzy, who set up the notorious criminal gang from behind bars in Goulburn's Supermax prison.
But the Crown prosecutor failed to disclose "a deal of information which is clearly relevant and which should have been disclosed long ago" until the past two weeks.
"One of those statements was calculated, perhaps inevitably, to embarrass the solicitor for Mr Hamzy who, in consequence, has taken the view that he can no longer appear," Justice Hulme said.
Justice Hulme said he accepts that Mr Hamzy's new solicitors cannot be ready to start a major criminal case in such a short space of time and he laid the blame for the debacle squarely at the feet of the ODPP.
"I have now been, or acted as, a Judge of this Court for over 20 years and I never cease to be surprised at the extent of the incompetence or the inefficiency within the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions," he said.
"It seems to me clear that the arraignment judge in the future can have no confidence whatsoever in any statements by the Crown that a case is ready for trial.
"Such statements might be correct, but if so it will be purely a matter of chance," Justice Hulme said.
Justice Hulme said he had no option but to vacate the hearing until next year, meaning Mr Hamzy will spend more than two years in prison on remand before he goes to trial.
"It is, in my view, a disgrace to the criminal justice system that people are incarcerated for that length of time prior to their trial."
Mr Hamzy was arrested in November 2013 and committed for trial in the local court in March 2015. A trial date was fixed three months later and during various pre-trial mentions the court was informed there were no issues or impediments to it going ahead on October 6.
The case has been put back in the arraignments list next week where a new trial date may be set for February or March next year.
A spokeswoman for the ODPP declined to comment.
