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The much-anticipated trial over the public killing of Rebels bikie Nick Martin has come to an end, just one week after it began in the WA Supreme Court.
David Pye – who was accused of paying a trained sniper to “take out” the 51-year-old in front of his friends and family at Kwinana Motorplex in December 2020 – chose not to give evidence in his defence on Thursday morning as his team opened their case.
A court sketch of David Pye, who is accused of paying a former soldier (inset, bottom) to shoot dead Rebels bikie Nick Martin (inset, top).Credit: WAtoday
Instead, his lawyer David Hallowes, SC, told the court he would be tendering two documents as their only evidence in the trial; the first, an extract from a psychiatric report of the sniper and the second, a bundle of photographs of cash to the sum of $250,000.
Justice Joseph McGrath said he wanted time to consider all the evidence put before him over the course of the trial, which began last Wednesday.
He asked the relevant legal teams to reconvene next Wednesday to deliver their closing submissions, during which he said he would be asking questions about the cases they have put forward.
The trial is being conducted without a jury, so McGrath alone is tasked with deciding Pye’s fate.
Police have renewed their call for the public’s help to find missing Perth mother Michelle Leahy, who was last seen in Nedlands on Thursday last week.
Perth District Superintendent Manus Walsh said police were focusing on a blue bag Leahy was seen carrying in CCTV vision.
“At this point in time, police have committed significant resources into the investigation to try and locate Michelle,” Walsh said.
Michelle Leahy, 50, was last seen leaving Hollywood Private Hospital.Credit: WA Police
“We haven’t found any belongings associated with Michelle, hence the call for public assistance.”
Walsh said the blue bag Leahy was carrying may have been left somewhere and could help the police investigation.
Leahy’s family have put up a $100,000 reward for any information leading them to the 50-year-old.
“We’re really appealing to people’s sense of compassion for this family, as I said, there is three kids that currently don’t know the whereabouts of their mum,” Walsh said.
“If you’ve got the opportunity to check your CCTV footage at home, if you have dash cameras on your car, we ask if you’re around that Nedlands area, if you could please check it around that [3pm-4pm] timeframe, any timeframe around that Thursday to try and locate her we’d really appreciate that effort.”
Walsh said police did not believe there was any evidence of criminality, and were hopeful they could still find her and return her to her family.
Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has ruled out abandoning the Coalition and insists he has given his leader Sussan Ley “clear air” since resigning from the frontbench.
The West Australian MP has been mostly silent after walking away from his position as opposition home affairs spokesman because of a dispute over immigration and climate policy.
West Australian MP Andrew Hastie.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
The former SAS soldier said he had made a deliberate decision not to make any media appearances since walking away from the shadow ministry.
“I haven’t done any interviews, I haven’t done any press, and I’ve given Sussan [Ley] clear air,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Thursday.
Asked if he was considering following former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, and walking away from the Coalition, Hastie was firm.
“I’m not switching,” he said. “I wouldn’t be elected if it wasn’t for the Liberal Party.”
Hastie urged Joyce to remain with the opposition and said speculation about his colleague’s move to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was “unhelpful to our cause right now”.
Following the prime minister’s White House visit earlier in the week, Hastie also backed Australia’s US ambassador Kevin Rudd, despite some Coalition members calling for him to be sacked.
“Kevin Rudd copped it on the chin for the country,” he said.
AAP
The much-anticipated trial over the public killing of Rebels bikie Nick Martin has come to an end, just one week after it began in the WA Supreme Court.
David Pye – who was accused of paying a trained sniper to “take out” the 51-year-old in front of his friends and family at Kwinana Motorplex in December 2020 – chose not to give evidence in his defence on Thursday morning as his team opened their case.
A court sketch of David Pye, who is accused of paying a former soldier (inset, bottom) to shoot dead Rebels bikie Nick Martin (inset, top).Credit: WAtoday
Instead, his lawyer David Hallowes, SC, told the court he would be tendering two documents as their only evidence in the trial; the first, an extract from a psychiatric report of the sniper and the second, a bundle of photographs of cash to the sum of $250,000.
Justice Joseph McGrath said he wanted time to consider all the evidence put before him over the course of the trial, which began last Wednesday.
He asked the relevant legal teams to reconvene next Wednesday to deliver their closing submissions, during which he said he would be asking questions about the cases they have put forward.
The trial is being conducted without a jury, so McGrath alone is tasked with deciding Pye’s fate.
The WA government has enlisted the help of sports stars to drive its family and domestic violence messages home during the 16 Days in WA campaign.
Athletes from netball, rugby, basketball, athletics, hockey, tennis, volleyball, cricket and gymnastics will sign up to the 16 Days in WA pledge to help end family and domestic violence in the state by calling out violence on or off the field.
Family and Domestic Violence Minister Jessica Stojkovski.Credit: Hamish Hastie
Family and Domestic Violence Minister Jessica Stojkovski said harnessing sports stars’ influence would help carry the message through the broader community.
“We also know that sporting teams, they work on culture, they work on teamwork, and we want to harness this to work on culture and teamwork in our community, to talk about stopping family and domestic violence and to talk about respect in our community,” she said.
West Coast Fever captain Jess Anstiss.Credit: Getty Images
West Coast Fever captain Jess Anstiss is one of the first starts to sign up to the pledge.
“I am determined to see an end to family and domestic violence. I’m committed to playing my part in this movement,” she said.
According to WA Police statistics, FDV rates reached their highest in a decade in 2024-25, with 42,000 offences recorded.
“I will never shy away from reporting of family and domestic violence numbers going up because I firmly believe that the more we talk about it, the more we talk about it in our communities, in our families, on our sporting fields or on our courts, the more people become comfortable to actually seek the help that they need or to make those reports,” Stojkovski said.
Fortescue has produced its highest-ever first quarter of iron ore shipments after delivering 49.7 million tonnes for the first three months of the new financial year, according to the company’s latest quarterly production report.
The latest figures represent an increase of 4 per cent from the previous period last year and include 2.1 million tonnes from its Iron Bridge project in WA’s Pilbara region.
Hematite shipments contributed 47.6 million tonnes of the total.
Fortescue shipped 49.7 million tonnes of iron ore in the first three months of the new financial year.Credit: Bloomberg
According to the company’s latest figures, total ore mined was 60.1 million tonnes and a total of 20.8 million tonnes of ore processed, respectively 5 per cent and 6 per cent higher than the first quarter of the previous year.
Fortescue Metals chief executive Dino Otranto said the company had delivered a strong start to the new financial year.
“We reached important milestones this quarter, including the successful syndication of a Renminbi-denominated term loan and the establishment of new global partnerships that will help drive our profitable decarbonisation,” he said.
“We’re continuing to see delivery of this on the ground, with 10 electric excavators in operation and construction of our 190MW solar farm at Cloudbreak now more than one-third complete.
“We’ve also started to implement our revised Hematite life of mine plan, underpinned by the inclusion of the recently acquired Blacksmith Project.
“The plan optimises material movement and orebody use, ensuring Fortescue remains positioned as a low-cost, capital-efficient operator, maximising value across our operations.”
Dramatic vision has emerged of a police car being chased by an allegedly stolen four-wheel-drive in Kununurra following a crime spree in the early hours of Wednesday.
Police in the northern Kimberley town had responded to several reports of anti-social behaviour in the area, including alleged burglaries and the theft of two Toyota Landcruisers and a Toyota Prado.
About 2am on Wednesday, officers came to an intersection following reports of two cars driving “recklessly and dangerously”, a WA Police spokesman said.
“Police attended the area, and activated their emergency lights and sirens, however it will be alleged, the drivers failed to stop,” he said.
“Between 2am and 5am, numerous attempts were made to intercept all three vehicles throughout the area.
“These attempts were terminated due to public safety concerns and the alleged erratic manner of driving, including following police vehicles.”
WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch told Radio 6PR the chase was part of a police strategy to draw the alleged offenders away from populated areas.
“So when you see footage of a car behind a police car, often people go, ‘Is that the police running away?’” he said.
“We do have a strategy in those circumstances, we call that situation an ‘aggravated vehicle aggression’ … but the idea is to get people away from populous areas and then use police capability and tactics to disable the vehicle.
“And we’ve put a lot of effort into this since about 2022 to make sure we do it as safe as possible in what is a very high-risk environment.”
Blanch said police got “extremely frustrated” when they arrested the same young people “over and over again”.
“But that is our job, we will always be out there keeping our community safe and arresting people when they commit crimes,” he said.
“But I think as a community we should all be concerned when 10-year-olds are in stolen cars, late at night, driving around towns, and may have been arrested for the 30th or 40th time.
“I think that speaks to a much broader problem, particularly around homes, parenting and those types of issues, and substance abuse particularly, and domestic violence in homes and why your kid’s out at night.
“But my assurance as the police commissioner is; my police officers have a plan, we’ve arrested these offenders, and we’ve done it as safe as possible, and people are not injured as a result of the way we’ve gone and done our plan.”
The cars were later abandoned and eight juveniles fled on foot but were “quickly located and apprehended by police”, the WA Police spokesman said.
Four of the children were referred to the juvenile justice team, while another four have been charged with several offences and will appear before the courts at a later date.
There’s been a stand-off between elderly climate protesters and parliament security this morning with police issuing several move-on notices to the group for standing too close to the south entrance of the building.
Vic Earle, 80, travelled to Parliament House from Mandurah and was asked to move on by police.
He said the action was “anti-democratic.”
Vic Earle was one of several climate protesters handed move-on notices outside Parliament House.Credit: Hamish Hastie
“We’re supposed to be a democracy, and to me, it’s just not working. We’ve been asked to move on and if I don’t, this 80-year-old, harmless, silly old bugger will get arrested just for holding a placard complaining about our democracy, or increasingly, lack of it,” he said.
Greens MLC Sophie McNeill offered words of encouragement to the group and defended her support when asked whether it was appropriate to be coaching the protesters.
“They’re my friends, basically, I’m not coaching them. The poor thing’s just got a move-on. He’s come all the way from Mandurah,” she said.
“He’s a hero. I think these climate protesters are heroes.”
The protest group was told by parliament staff they could protest a few metres away from the building entrance or head to the front of the building.
Earle said the “message wouldn’t be as strong” where they were told they could protest.
Oscar Allen says the departure of key people at West Coast who “always had my back” played a major role in his exit from the Eagles.
A lifelong Eagles supporter who co-captained the club this year, Allen switched to back-to-back reigning premiers Brisbane during the recent trade period.
Former West Coast skipper Oscar Allen is off to Brisbane.Credit: AFL Photos
After a career-best season in 2023 when he kicked 53 goals in a struggling team, the key forward has since been plagued by injury issues.
West Coast declined to match the Lions’ offer for Allen, with the club accepting pick two in this year’s draft as compensation for losing the 26-year-old.
Allen described his last year with the Eagles as “eye-opening”.
“I’ve been really fortunate that early days of my career, West Coast looked after me incredibly well,” he told Mix94.5 on Wednesday.
“Clearly there’s been a lot of change at the footy club, so people that potentially always had my back in the past probably aren’t there in those roles anymore, so that was a big change for me.
“It clearly got to the stage where what (the offer) was to stay here was significantly different to leave.
“When everything came out publicly with me this year, the level of support I received from different people was probably different than what I expected it to be.”
Allen was forced to front a press conference with West Coast football boss John Worsfold when it became public he had met with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell.
The Lions had already met with Allen before Hawthorn and were well advanced in their attempts to convince him to switch clubs.
But a captain meeting with a rival coach during the season did not go down well with the club and Eagles supporters.
A fit-again Allen will go from the wooden spooners to the competition juggernauts, becoming the Lions’ spearhead to replace Joe Daniher, who retired after the 2024 grand final.
“I get to go to a situation where I know that I’m really wanted, they’ve put all these things in front of me and been really clear that they wanted me,” Allen said.
AAP
Police are calling for witnesses to a major three-car crash that saw five people, including two young children, taken to hospital on Wednesday.
A Kia Carnival van, Mazda 6 hatchback, and a Nissan Navara ute were all involved in the crash on Nicholson Road in Oakford just before midday.
The crash closed the road for about four hours as emergency services worked to help those injured.
The scene of the Oakford crash.Credit: 9 News Perth
The 58-year-old man driving the Nissan Navara was airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital with life-threatening injuries before being transferred to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital where he remains in a critical but stable condition.
The 32-year-old woman driving the Kia Carnival, a four-year-old girl and an infant who were also in the car, were taken to Royal Perth Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital, while the 36-year-old man driving the Mazda 6 and his passenger, a 30-year-old man, were taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital.
A WA Police spokesman said their injures were not life-threatening.
Police have urged anyone who might have witnessed the crash, or who had dashcam vision, to contact Crime Stoppers as road policing group officers continue to investigate the incident.
This year has been a horrific one on Perth roads.
According to the Road Safety Commission, there have been 159 crash deaths, the highest in more than a decade, with the previous peak of 154 deaths in 2016.
Here’s what is making headlines elsewhere this morning.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has declared she is not going anywhere and rubbished suggestions Barnaby Joyce is about to take over from her as the boss of the conservative minor party. “My attitude is if someone can do a better job than I can, fair enough, but don’t write me off at the moment,” she told Sky News last night.
Two men have tragically died after being swept from Frankston Pier as extreme winds reaching 130 km/h wreaked havoc across Victoria yesterday evening, bringing down trees and cutting power to thousands of homes. Emergency services were called to Frankston Beach shortly before 4.45pm following reports two men were in trouble in the water. Both men were found unresponsive in the water just after 5pm. The pair were winched to shore, but they could not be revived.
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