Des Sturgess QC: Queensland’s Conscience

Des Sturgess was the leading criminal barrister of his time, a fearless advocate for the poor and rich, the hoi polloi and the plutocrat, the politician and the police, the indigenous and the industrialist. As a member of a divided profession, which made national representation difficult, he was a colossus in Queensland but still an eminent figure across the country. In short, he had no peer.

For three decades, he defended whoever came to him, sometimes for no fee but every time with the determination and dedication that he felt his profession demanded of him. The police were not his foe, despite the countless cops he cross-examined with forensic brilliance. In fact, he was retained by the Queensland Police Union to represent those few who were charged. Sturgess’s foe was the “verbal”—a systemic state police practice of falsifying a confession to obtain a conviction. His mission to address this injustice was eventually achieved with the introduction of tape-recorded…