Judge Paul Conlon, 66, has been praised for his no-nonsense approach to criminal justice
A no-nonsense judge dubbed ‘The Rottweiler’ by his colleagues and ‘Judge Dread’ by the media has been praised for locking up a vile paedophile for decades.
Judge Paul Conlon, 66, sentenced Tim Stewart to a total of 955 years behind bars for drugging and filming himself raping a young, vulnerable girl.
Before being appointed as a District Court Judge in 2006, he spent two decades as a hot-shot prosecutor responsible for trying some of Australia’s most notorious killers.
Conlon sent away a man who slashed the throats of his three young kids and wife in 1994 and another who decapitated his own father and then mutilated a city mayor.
The Sydney-based judge also served as chairman of the NRL judiciary board for eight years, resigning in protest of a $50,000 fine levelled against Cronulla Sharks skipper Paul Gallen in 2014 – arguing the punishment was a gross overreaction.
Timothy James Stewart (pictured) was found guilty of drugging a vulnerable teenage girl and filming himself raping her over a number of years. Judge Conlon was praised for sentencing him to a total of 955 years behind bars
After an education at Marist Brother’s High School, in Sydney’s south, Conlon landed a job working in the Attorney-General and Justice Department as he studied law.
He quickly worked up a reputation as a fearless protector of the law who fought hard for the rights of children who had been sexually abused by those they trusted.
Frustrated by a system he saw as unfairly stacked against vulnerable kids, Conlon worked to change the culture to properly value their testimonies in court.
‘It was a major challenge for me to be able to get juries to accept that these things actually occurred,’ he told The Mercury in 2012.
‘Things did change over the years and we gradually got juries to accept the words of these young complainants, thankfully.’
As one of NSW’s youngest Crown prosecutors, Conlon helped put away a collection of some of the nation’s most twisted murderers.
In 1994, he tried Ljube Velevski, a father who was given a minimum 19-year sentence after he was found guilty of slitting the throats of his three children and wife.
Two years later he helped put away Matthew De Gruchy for a minimum of 21 years after he bludgeoned three of his family members as an 18-year-old.
Before his role as a Sydney District Court judge, Conlon helped put away a collection of some of the nation’s most twisted murderers. Pictured is double-murderer Mark Valera, who he helped put away for two consecutive life terms
In 1994, Conlon tried Ljube Velevski (left), a father who was given a minimum 19-year sentence after he was found guilty of slitting the throats of his three children and wife (right)
Two years later Conlon helped put away Matthew De Gruchy for a minimum of 21 years after he bludgeoned three of his family members as an 18-year-old
In yet another high-profile murder case, he was the prosecutor responsible for jailing double-murderer Mark Valera in 1998, sending him away for two consecutive terms of life imprisonment with no chance of parole.
Valera disemboweled and decapitated one of his victims and then sliced off his hand and used it to draw satanic pictures on the living room walls with his own blood.
Two weeks later Valera brutally killed Frank Arkell, a former Wollongong Mayor, by choking him to death with an electric cord and stuck tie pins in his face.
He was also on the prosecution for Sandor Cikos, who choked his two kids to death after murdering his partner and received a minimum 15-year jail sentence in 2001.
Conlon said that his ‘sense of humour’ had helped him deal with the horrific crimes he had seen in his lengthy career as a lawyer and judge.
‘There aren’t many joys in the job at all … there’s no enjoyment in sending people away to prison for a long period of time, it’s just something that must be done,’ he told The Mercury.
Conlon said that his ‘sense of humour’ had helped him deal with the horrific crimes he had seen in his lengthy career as a lawyer and judge
Conlon attracted media attention in 2010 for overturning an assault conviction against a man who smacked his 13-year-old stepson lightly over the head.
He blasted anti-smacking experts, saying they didn’t ‘live in the real world’, and defended the father’s ‘reasonable’ use of physical force to discipline the boy.
Again in 2016, Conlon overturned an AVO against a father who lifted his eight-year-old son out of bed when he chucked a tantrum and wouldn’t move.
‘Responsible parents would be rightly concerned they too could find themselves dragged into the criminal justice system for doing nothing other than enforcing some discipline in the home, demanding some respect and letting the child know that they don’t call the shots,’ he said at the time, the Daily Telegraph reported.