Noose case inflames race tensions in Queensland

BRISBANE - One law for whites, another for blacks.

Aboriginal leaders are convinced that's the state of play with the justice system in Queensland.

Small fines handed out this week to a white man and his son who assaulted an indigenous teenager and dragged him with a noose around his neck have inflamed already tense race relations on the Queensland-NSW border.

David Hillary Tomkins, 44, and his son Clint William Tomkins, 23, faced court in the southern Queensland town of Goondiwindi over the assault on 16-year-old Alan Boland on November 30 last year.

The incident happened on a farm outside Goondiwindi where both Tomkins worked just four days after riots occurred in the indigenous community of Palm Island, off the north Queensland coast.

Rioters there burned down the local police station and courthouse after learning a man who died in custody a week earlier had suffered injuries including a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Publicity surrounding Palm Island ensured that the Goondiwindi noose incident would also attract national attention.

And this week it has become the source of outrage for the Aboriginal community after what was supposed to be a committal hearing for Tomkins and son on serious assault charges ended with both being fined $A500 ($NZ538).

Charges against the pair were reduced from assault causing bodily harm to assault and both pleaded guilty.

The two farm employees were also ordered to each pay $A300 compensation to the victim and had their convictions recorded.

What had been a small crowd of about 25 protesters when court proceedings began that day quadrupled as the Tomkins were helped out a side door with police protection.

Protesters waved placards declaring "one law for whites and one law for blacks - still" and "this is KKK land".

Mr Boland, still said to be traumatised by the incident, did not attend court to give evidence.

Local indigenous leader Bert Button said the youth's mother Roslyn Boland was pressured by prosecutors into accepting a plea bargain.

He said she agreed to the proposal not realising that David and Clint Tomkins would escape jail.

Aboriginal Legal Aid will appeal to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Queensland Attorney-General Rod Welford, while civil action against the Tomkins is being considered.

"This is going to incite racial violence," Mr Button said.

"The justice system stinks. It's saying it's all right for non-indigenous people to go and put a rope around someone's neck and drag them up and down a river and give them a flogging. We're saying that's not on."

High profile Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner, who was prominent in the aftermath of the Palm Island controversy, said the leniency of the decision was outrageous.

"I bet if two blackfellas had gone out and done that to two or three white children we would not be receiving an $A800 fine," he said.

"That alone is the essence of the proof of racism.

"You can't imagine two blacks being let off with an $A800 fine for doing a similar thing, that's impossible in this state."

But the lawyer for the two men strongly rejects the argument that race played a part in the incident and that they were just protecting property.

Mr Boland was with three other residents of the Toomelah Aboriginal Mission, just across the NSW border from Goondiwindi, on the day of the incident at the farm. His mother said they were looking to steal marijuana.

The Tomkins' lawyer Robbie Davies said the farm had been subjected to frequent break-ins and local police had given the owner permission to restrain offenders.

Mr Davies said the Tomkins' actions were not race related.

"It's a pity they didn't have the hindsight to put a rope around his waist and not his neck," he said.

"This is not a racial event. It would have been the same if it was a white youth.

"It's been misconstrued to everyone's grave horror and concern."

Police in Goondiwindi reported a quiet night after Wednesday's controversial court case.

But the region has known race trouble in the past and friends of the Tomkins have reportedly said the family fears reprisals.

"They've received death threats, been threatened to have their house burned down. They're doing it tough," family friend Kurt Rabbitt said earlier this year.

- AAP