Mark Tedeschi AM, QC, LLB, MA
Born	1952 Sydney, Australia
Occupation(s)	Senior Crown Prosecutor Photographer[1] Academic Author
Organization(s)	Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (New South Wales); Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors
Website	Official Website of Mark Tedeschi

Mark Alfred Guido Tedeschi, AM, QC (born 1952) is an Australian barrister, law professor, photographer and author. He has won numerous awards for his photography and has been featured in galleries throughout the world including in the State Library of New South Wales, the New South Wales Art Gallery,^[1] the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado,^[2] and the National Library in Canberra.^[3] He is the Senior Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales and the Head of Chambers of the 84 Crown Prosecutors.^[3] He is the founder and president of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors^[4] and a visiting professor at the University of Wollongong.^[5] As a prosecutor, Tedeschi is best known for the prosecution of numerous high-profile cases in Australia including the 2006 conviction of Dr. Suman Sood for illegal abortion and the Backpacker Murders committed by Ivan Milat in the 1990s.^[6]

Early life and education

Tedeschi earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1974 and was then admitted as a Solicitor for New South Wales. He later received a Master of Arts in Business Law, specialising in International Business, Trade and Taxation Law, from the London Metropolitan University (then the City of London Polytechnic), where he also served as a part-time Lecturer in Law.^[7]

Professional career

Legal career

Tedeschi became a Barrister in 1977. He became a Crown Prosecutor in 1983, a Queen's Counsel in 1988, a Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1990, and the Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1997. During his career, he has worked on numerous high-profile cases in New South Wales. He was a defence barrister for the "Greek Conspiracy Case" in the late 1970s where over 100 people, the majority of whom were of Greek origin, were arrested and charged with defrauding Social Security. The case sparked a documentary entitled Witch Hunt that premiered at the 1987 Sydney Film Festival.^[8]

Tedeschi prosecuted the Backpacker Murders committed by Ivan Milat in the 1990s where a total of seven bodies were discovered in the Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales. Milat was later arrested and found guilty of all murders on 27 July 1996. Milat later appealed the conviction but it was upheld.^[6]

Tedeschi successfully prosecuted Chew Seng Liew and Choon Tee Lim for the 1991 shooting death of prominent Australian heart surgeon Victor Chang. On 4 July 1991, Chang was forced to pull his vehicle over by Liew and Lim and they attempted to rob him. After pulling over, Chang refused to give Liew and Lim his money. An argument ensued and Liew fired two shots, killing Chang. A third suspect was granted immunity for testifying against Liew and Lim. The original plan was to abduct Chang for ransom; however, the third suspect backed out of the plan the day before the shooting.^[9]

Tedeschi was a prosecutor for the infamous 2000 Fijian coup d'état led by George Speight. In 2004, he prosecuted then Vice-President Jope Seniloli for falsely swearing in ministers. He also won convictions against Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Rakuita Vakalalabure, Ratu Viliame Volavola, Peceli Rinakama, and Viliame Savu for the same offence. All were sentenced to various prison terms.^[6]

In 2007, Tedeschi was the Counsel Assisting the Coroner for the deaths of five Australian journalists at Balibo. Dubbed the Balibo Five, all were killed on 16 October 1975 during Indonesia incursions prior to the invasion. The deaths were declared deliberate in 2007 by an Australian coroner and ruled that they were deliberately killed by Indonesian special forces soldiers. The incident was the subject of the 2009 film Balibo which won several awards.^[6]

Tedeschi prosecuted Phuong Ngo for the assassination of Australian Parliament Member John Newman. This was the first assassination in Australia's history and the trial ended in two mistrials before Ngo was found guilty of the murder in 2001. Ngo was a rival politician to Newman and was also said to have offered a relative $10,000 to perform the murder (which the relative turned down).^[6]

Controversies as a prosecutor

Mark Tedeschi as a prosecutor was severely criticised by the Court of Criminal Appeal, for misrepresenting prosecution cases to juries. In acquitting Gordon Wood over the alleged murder of Caroline Byrne “appeal judges found he relied on fiction and dangerous reasoning in the Wood case” ^[10]. Chief Justice Peter McLellan made “numerous critical references” to Mark Tedeschi’s presentation of evidence, concluding: “The difficulties which the prosecutor’s conduct created are so significant that I am satisfied it caused the trial to miscarry occasioning a miscarriage of justice. The fundamental problem with the course taken by the prosecutor was that both generally and with respect to particular questions the prosecutor reversed the onus of proof. ^[11]

Twenty years earlier the states’ top judges made similar criticism, in acquitting Tim Anderson of charges related to the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing. Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said, in a unanimous judgement: "The trial of the appellant miscarried principally because of an error which resulted in large part from the failure of the prosecuting authorities adequately to check aspects of the Jayewardene theory. This was compounded by what I regard as an inappropriate and unfair attempt by the Crown [Mr Tedeschi] to persuade the jury to draw inferences of fact, and accept argumentative suggestions, that were not properly open on the evidence. I do not consider that in those circumstances the Crown should be given a further opportunity to patch up its case against the appellant. It has already made one attempt too many to do that, and I believe that, if that attempt had never been made, there is a strong likelihood that the appellant would have been acquitted.” ^[12]

After the Wood acquittal in 2012 Tim Anderson told ABC television that the Legal Aid Commission has filed a large number of misconduct complaints with the NSW Bar Council, but they had gone nowhere. “The Legal Aid Commission laid almost 50 complaints against Mark Tedeschi to the Bar Council. None of it came to anything.” ^[13]

Mark Tedeschi resigned from his position amidst controversy. In April 2017, as Gordon Wood sued the state of NSW for his wrongful conviction, Tedeschi took an extended period of leave from his position ^[14].

During the Wood case, Tedeschi was accused of malice and Peter Neil, SC, for the state, said that Tedeschi “must know that his career and his personal reputation stand or fall on the outcome of this case” ^[15].

During the period of leave Mark Tedeschi wrote two messages to state prosecutors, arguing that prosecutors were making too many concessions to the defence. He said that the key role of a Crown prosecutor was “to act as a contradictor” ^[16]. This claim was quickly rejected by the President of the NSW Bar Council, Arthur Moses, SC; and later also by the Lloyd Babb SC, the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Bar Council media statement said Tedeschi’s messages had presented a “fundamental misunderstanding of the independent role of Crown prosecutors, as mere agents, rather than independent counsel” ^[17], ^[18]. A DPP media release agreed with the main points of the Bar Council’s statement ^[19]. In December 2017, with the Wood case still unresolved, Tedeschi resigned from his position as Senior Crown prosecutor ^[20].

Academic career

From 1974 to 1975, Tedeschi served as a Lecturer in Law at the London Metropolitan University. At that time, it was known as the City of London Polytechnic. He was a part-time lecturer while earning his master's degree.^[21]

In 2005, he was appointed as a visiting professorial fellow at the University of Wollongong.^[5]

Photography

Tedeschi is a well-known photographer. He has had fourteen solo exhibitions and has participated in over twenty group exhibitions in Australia, Italy, France, and the United States.^[2] His images are included in the State Library of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of New South Wales,^[1][22] the National Library of Australia in Canberra,^[23] the Museum of Sydney, the Justice and Police Museum, the State Library of New South Wales (which has over 180 of his images),^[24] the Centre for Fine Art Photography in Colorado USA,^[25] and many private collections.

Tedeschi has been a judge of photographc competitions including the New South Wales Parliamentary Photograph Prize.^[26] He frequently lectures on photography to camera clubs, the Art Gallery Society, and community groups. Mark is a member of the board of directors of the National Art School in Sydney and a Trustee of Sydney Grammar School. He is a former artist-in-residence at Sydney Grammar School.^[27]

Bibliography

Tedeschi is the author of two books, one on law and the other on photography. In 1980, he co-authored Law of International Business in Australia with Dr. P.J. O'Keefe.^[28] He released a book of photograph in 2012 entitled Shooting Around Corners which featured over twenty five years of his photography.^[29][30]

Tedeschi is the author of a true crime book called Eugenia, published in 2012 by Simon & Schuster, which tells the story of Eugenia Falleni, a woman of Italian and New Zealand background who lived in Australia as a man from 1898 until she was charged with the murder of her first "wife" in 1920. In this book, Tedeschi describes the tortuous life that Eugenia Falleni led as a woman trying to lead life as a man in a society that did not understand such things. He describes her murder trial in Sydney in 1920 in which she was prosecuted by the first Senior Crown Prosecutor, William Coyle KC. Part of the book describes this very complex and interesting trial, and Eugenia Falleni's life after her trial.^[31]

Awards and recognitions

Tedeschi has been a four time finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra^[3][32] as well as the Contemporary Photographic Prize,^[33] the "Head On" Photographic Portrait Prize at the Australian Centre for Photography,^[34][35] and the Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London.^[36]

In 2013 he was announced a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), for significant service to the law as a prosecutor, and to photography.^{[citation needed]}

Family

Tedeschi is the father of the classical pianist Simon Tedeschi.^[37]