JUDGE LOOKS BACK ON DRUG IMPACT

AUSTRALIA'S longest serving judge, WA Supreme Court Justice William
Pidgeon, has seen many changes in his 31 years on the bench - not just
in the justice system but in society itself.

On the eve of retirement, he said one of the biggest was the influence
of drugs and the number of people coming into court whose lives had been
affected by them.

Justice Pidgeon officially retires on Monday, the day before he turns
70.

He was a judge in the District Court when it started in 1970 and was
appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982.

"One of the real highlights was taking justice to people in outer areas,
where they could see justice in action," Justice Pidgeon told The West
Australian.

In 1999, he went as far as a WA judge could when he presided over a
murder trial on Christmas Island.

"There was great interest in it - it doesn't happen every day," he said.

At the end of the case he was forced to warn the community not to
intimidate jurors who found a local man guilty of murder.

Justice Pidgeon sentenced the 43-year-old to 15 years jail with parole
under a Christmas Island amendment of the WA Sentencing Act.

The only other Supreme Court sitting on the Australian territory was in
1987 but it was abandoned after the court was unable to assemble a jury
for a murder trial.

Justice Pidgeon's Christmas Island case was a far cry from his first
trial - of an alleged burglar in the District Court in April 1970.

Justice Pidgeon said many of his early cases involved breaking and
entering offences, but not against homes - that came later.

Lower-scale drugs had come into the community in the 1970s but it wasn't
until the 1980s that heroin began to have its influence.

Justice Pidgeon said positive changes to the justice system over the
past three decades included provision for child victims and other
vulnerable witnesses to give evidence without coming to court, via
video-link. Witness support services had also helped.

The fast-track plea system - where an offender can plead guilty at the
first opportunity and earn a discount on sentence - was another change
that had reduced pressure on the courts. Increasing use of computers had
also been good for the courts.