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A rapist who won a retrial because he wasn’t given the chance to tell a jury about his “good character” has been sentenced to nine years’ jail in a case that survivor campaigners say highlights the urgent need for fast-tracked law reform.
Gregory Browne, 72, should have spent the past 18 months in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a series of appalling and violent attacks on his partner over seven years.
Instead, he was free on bail after an appeal court found there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice when Browne’s barrister missed the opportunity to tell the jury of his positive good character and lack of previous convictions.
The County Court was told Browne was “demeaning, violent, controlling and cruel” towards his partner, whose recorded evidence was presented to the jury because she died before the October 2023 trial.
The repeated rapes and bashings included Browne attempting to sexually assault the victim with a walking stick and attacking her just weeks after she had an operation to remove half a lung.
In April 2011, the woman stood up to Browne’s brutality.
“She yelled, ‘Get off me. You’re not raping me any more. You’re a rapist’,” the court heard. “You can only enjoy sex when you use force. I’m not being raped by you any more.”
The jury found him guilty of six charges, including rape and assault; by September 2024, he was back on the streets when the Supreme Court of Appeal found Browne had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, after his barrister failed to submit evidence of his client’s good character.
At a retrial late last year, the 72-year-old was again found guilty of all charges and last month Judge Jeanette Morrish sentenced him to nine years and seven months with a non-parole term of six years and four months.
Two lawyers familiar with the proceedings said evidence of good character, like in Browne’s case, had no relevance to the trial and had the potential to further traumatise victims in cases where they were still alive.
The case has also incensed victims-of-crime campaigners, who have urged the Allan government to expedite its plan to remove the use of “good character” references as a mitigating factor in the sentencing of rapists and other violent offenders.
Victoria remains one of the last states to allow the contentious practice, after it was recently abolished in Queensland and NSW, while a ban in Tasmania has been in effect since 2016.
Harrison James, a survivor of child sexual abuse and co-founder of the campaign, Your Reference Ain’t Relevant, said Browne’s case encapsulated the reason he had spent years advocating for change. “It’s soul-crushing,” he said.
James, whose advocacy led to NSW banning character references, said the move was about ensuring the legal process focused on the violence and the harm caused to victims, not the damage the offending caused to an offender’s reputation once they had been found guilty.
“It’s not about being punitive. It’s about being accurate and making sure our legal system reflects the reality of the harm, not the version of it that is softened by reputation,” he said.
“I would hope that the Victorian government looks at enacting this reform as soon as possible because while these changes are being discussed, people are still going through the system as it currently exists.
“Every day we don’t enact this reform means more days that victim-survivors have to sit there in court and hear these awful references.”
Legalise Cannabis MP Rachel Payne, who is an advocate of the ban in Victoria, said there was a need to provide some assurance in court that a perpetrator was rehabilitating, but there should be a separation between talking about an offender’s improvements and justifying their behaviour.
“To what benefit is, you know, having someone say: ‘Oh yeah, I thought it was a good bloke’?” Payne said. “If someone is doing something wrong, and they’re found guilty, they should be punished based on that. It’s the ideal of what the justice system should do, and not in any way be flouted based on someone’s opinion of their character.”
The state’s former Victims of Crime Commissioner Fiona McCormack also said the use of “good character” evidence in Victoria’s justice system continued to exacerbate harm for victims.
“So many times I have spoken to victims who say they have been further traumatised when hearing about the so-called ‘good character’ of the person found guilty of grievously harming them.
“It can feel like a profound betrayal by the courts because to the victims, it’s experienced as a minimisation of the trauma they have gone through,” McCormack said.
Character references have repeatedly come into question in other cases.
County Court Judge Gerard Mullaly last month admonished a defence barrister for attempting to use a letter from the Queensland government as a character reference for a former police officer who pleaded guilty to four counts of misconduct in public office.
Andrew Adams had exploited his former position as a police officer to prey on vulnerable victims for sex.
“[Does the] Queensland government know that a letter provided by a chief procuring officer is being utilised by Mr Adams, in his plea in Victoria for misconduct in public office with attributes of sexual intent?” Mullaly asked on March 24. “The answer I think is no,” Adams’ lawyer replied.
In 2023, the use of character references was also drawn into question during the case of former head of the Collingwood cheer squad, Jeffrey “Joffa” Corfe, after he pleaded guilty to the historical sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy, but avoided a custodial sentence.
It was later discovered that the references were outdated, and their authors were unaware they were being used in the case.
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