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Death of Christopher Skase:

Crime of the times, but no punishment

by Simon Longstaff

Christopher Skase died as he lived for more than a decade - a man accused of serious crime but presumed innocent. His flight from Australia and death in Majorca have ensured that this is how the matter must remain.

In almost all respects, this is an unsatisfactory outcome. Unfortunately for Skase and his remaining family, many Australians are left with a memory of him as one who refused to answer to his community. Although his innocence in relation to the crimes with which he was charged must be presumed, he stands condemned, by many as a coward.

The opportunity to remove this stain from the memory of his character has now been lost forever.

Now that he is gone we are left to ask if all of the expense, effort and inconvenience of his pursuit can be justified. There are also questions to do with the ethics of hounding a man who claimed to be mortally ill. After all, does not this unhappy ending make the whole exercise now seem futile?

How one answers this question depends on whether or not one thinks that success or failure determines the ultimate justification for a particular course of action. In my opinion, there are some things worth attempting - even if you ultimately fail.

One of these was the attempt to bring Skase to justice. For a start, Skase was accused of serious crimes which are, in a strict sense, offences against the community.

Our system of justice is founded on the belief that allegations should be investigated without fear or favour and that, for the sake of all, questions of guilt and innocence should be decided by an impartial tribunal. To have left Skase in peace to wile away his days in luxury would have sent all the wrong messages about our commitment to justice in Australia. It would have seemed as if we had given up on justice for all.

Unfortunately many people are sceptical of claims that we are all equal before the law. There seems to be a widespread apprehension that the rich and the powerful have the means to escape justice. In his heyday, Skase allowed himself to become an iconic symbol of wealth, power and privilege.

Having fled our shores he became a living challenge to one of the central tenets of the rule of law. So he was pursued as much for being a symbol of inequity as for the seriousness of the crimes that he was alleged to have committed.

To speak of justice is to raise the other big ethical question concerning the pursuit of Skase. Some will argue that his early death is tragic proof of his contention that extradition to Australia would have been for him a death sentence. Seen in this light, it may seem that successive Australian governments were cruel or heartless in their relentless efforts to ensure his trial in Australia.

To put it another way, it might be claimed that, in this case, justice should have been tempered by mercy. If this was the view of Skase and his family, then it might have been treated with greater sympathy had it been matched by some evidence of genuine remorse for those of his actions that led to the ruin of many that he left behind. Instead, his continued prosperity seemed to mock those who had been harmed by his actions. I suppose compassion should be exercised for its own sake and without conditions. However, in life, Skase tested that noble proposition to the limit.

One of the misfortunes in the life of Skase was that although he was able to run away to Majorca with most of his assets intact, he left behind and lost forever his credibility and reputation for integrity. One consequence of this was that hardly anybody believed his claim to be seriously ill. Indeed, the initial reaction of many to news of his death was sceptical desbelief. All this worked against any balanced consideration of Skase's circumstances.

Then again, Skase's final predicament was of his own making - a direct product of his decision to flee. In making this choice he created the conditions for an ignominious death in a foreign land and denied himself the opportunity to see his name cleared.

There is a tragic element to his life and death. The sum of his life made it inevitable that the government would pursue him to the end. His degraded reputation meant that his mortal illness was assumed to be a lie. Even the claim for justice tempered with mercy rang hollow, for he seemed to have no interest in justice at all.

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