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Black and White Justice Foundation Ltd – Building Bridges to Justice
 

The Black and White Justice Foundation Ltd was formerly known as the Errol Wyles Justice Foundation Ltd. 

Errol Wyles Jnr. died two months after his fifteenth birthday, having been callously run down and killed in Townsville, Queensland by twenty year-old Scott Hasenkamp on 7 June 2003.

Seventeen eyewitness accounts provided statements substantially corroborative of the conclusion hat Hasenkamp seemed determined to run Errol down, swerving to hit him until he eventually struck Errol with the rear of his car, ran over his body and then stopped momentarily on the side of the road with Errol lying underneath.   There is evidence that Hasenkamp then drove forward over Errol before speeding away from the scene. Errol died at the side of the road.

Despite the strong evidence against Hasenkamp, the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions only sought a conviction for the traffic offence “Driving in a manner dangerous causing death”. So, the deliberateness of Hasenkamp’s actions was no-longer a point of contention and the Wyles family was precluded from making a claim against the Queensland Government for Victim’s Compensation.

Hasenkamp pleaded guilty to the traffic charge and was sentenced to 15 months in prison, of which he served just 11 weeks in custody and the balance on a WORC release programme in rural Queensland.  He was released, a free man, on 26 June 2005.

Since the case of Errol Wyles Jnr, the Foundation has confronted many more cases across Australia where Indigenous communities and individuals are denied justice and equality in their interaction with the legal system, from the suspicions in the collective psyche of the community to the actions of police, through the court system and into custody.

In the words of the Foundation’s founder, Sydney lawyer and advocate Stewart Levitt, the Black and White Justice Foundation is “targeting cases which have political, social or historical significance, and where the victims are prepared to speak out, be courageous and stand up to be counted on behalf of their communities. We encounter constant cases where there is no reasonable excuse for people to suffer and the injustices they face are symptomatic of a broader and deeper social malaise.

We believe that a failure to act when empowered with capacity is the essence of cowardice.  ‘‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ We are privileged to have the opportunity to act”.

Foundation Consitution (pdf)