WARNING: This story contains details readers may find distressing.
After more than four decades in public life, there isn’t much prosecutor, judge and corruption fighter John McKechnie hasn’t seen.
“I’ve had the hapless, the helpless, premiers, paupers, the foolish, the wise,”
he said.
“And as a judge, you get the best seat in the house because it all unfolds before you.”
Mr McKechnie took up that seat on the Supreme Court after a legal career which saw him appointed the state’s first director of public prosecutions in 1991.
The latest chapter of Mr McKechnie’s career, with the CCC, came to an end this week. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
After 16 years on the bench, rather than retire, he was appointed to lead WA’s Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) out of a troubled period — a role he held from 2015 to earlier this week.
Former Chief Justice Wayne Martin once described the legal juggernaut as having “something of an addiction” to public service.
Through it all though, one topic still weighs heavily: the scourge of domestic violence.
For the legal juggernaut, domestic violence is still one of the biggest issues in society. (ABC News: Kenith Png)
“It’s a very complex issue, and at heart, it’s our community values, it’s all of us on trial” he said.
“What do we do when we hear neighbours screaming? Nothing, or do something?
The last case Mr McKechnie saw as a judge centred around domestic violence. (Supplied: WAN)
“We can’t put it all on police. We certainly can’t put it all on courts.
“Courts are always there at the end of the process, not at the beginning.”
50 years and no change
It has been one of few constants in Mr McKechnie’s life.
“The proper term is serious crime,” he said of family violence when he announced his retirement.
Mr McKechnie was chief crown prosecutor in 1990. (ABC News)
“I started my career as prosecutor … in a case where a man had stabbed his wife to death.
“My last case as a judge … was a case where a man had stabbed his wife to death.”
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And his second-last report at the CCC investigated the circumstances around one of the state’s most shocking family and domestic violence deaths.
“Fifty-odd years … nothing had changed,” Mr McKechnie said.
“The only thing that’s changed is that politicians have now discovered domestic violence. It’s always been there.
“Laws won’t help it. More police won’t help. We need a fundamental change in the community attitude to domestic violence.”
Abortion firestorm
McKechnie’s influence on Western Australia’s laws began long before he took his seat on the Supreme Court bench.
He was director of public prosecutions in 1998 when a boy told his teacher about a baby his family had in their freezer.
In 1999, Mr McKechnie was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court. (AAP: Richard Wainwright)
“The mother had had a termination at a clinic with two doctors, and she wished to take the fetus back to her homelands for burial,” McKechnie said.
“In the end, I charged, or caused to be charged, the two doctors. That ignited a firestorm.
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“As I said to my junior counsel at the time, as they say on fireworks, light blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance.
“There was a complete firestorm, but eventually politicians did what they had ducked for years and passed a bill effectively decriminalising abortion in most cases.”
That legislation led to WA becoming the first place in the country to remove most criminal penalties for women seeking the procedure and doctors providing it.
Those laws stood from 1998 to 2024, when they were overhauled again to remove the need for mandatory counselling and completely moving provisions out of the criminal code.
‘When law ends, mercy begins’
Another case which stood out for McKechnie was that of “Alice”, describing it “one of the sadder cases” he came across.
Mr McKechnie showed mercy to a woman who tried to end her and her baby’s lives. (ABC News: Kenith Png)
“She was married and had a child, and after 18 months, psychologically, she parted from the child,” he said.
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“Eventually, she decided the only thing to do was to kill herself and the child.
“The baby was killed. She lived but was terribly broken and she was charged with murder.”
The charge was later downgraded to manslaughter, and by the time she came before McKechnie she had been in custody for 11 months.
“There was nothing that I could do to punish her that she wasn’t doing to herself,” he said.
“I sentenced her to the rising of the court … for 30 seconds, as long as it took for me to rise and leave the court.
“I took the view that when law ends, mercy begins.
“I hope she’s rebuilt her life.”
Anti-corruption chapter ends
The most recent chapter of McKechnie’s working life, which came to an end on Tuesday, was spending nearly a decade as the head of Western Australia’s corruption watchdog.
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He was credited with publishing 277 reports over that time, including one which uncovered what had been described as Australia’s single biggest case of public sector fraud.
It led to former Department of Communities head Paul Whyte being sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Another high-profile probe accused a Liberal MP of misusing his electoral allowance to pay for strippers and overseas travel, which kicked off a long-running fight over the tension between the powers of the CCC and parliament.
“Corruption hasn’t changed for at least 3,000 years,” McKechnie said.
The parallels between the corruption cases 3,000 years ago and now are clear, according to Mr McKechnie. (ABC News: Kenith Png)
“In the Bible, the prophet Micah talks about kings who give favours for money, judges who take judgements for a bribe.
“So what’s changed?”
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