Life after Black Saturday: ‘I certainly couldn’t say it won’t happen again’ – WBNews

Posted February 13, 2017 06:23:35 In the last instalment of Jane Cowan’s seven-part series revisiting some of the people touched by Black Saturday, former Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague recounts how chairing the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission was rewarding work in a long legal career. Gone is the bow tie at Bernard Teague’s neck. On the verge of 79, his life is finally beginning to take on a more relaxed shape. Where once Bernard’s days were spent immersed in legal wrangling, now he’s more likely to be found haggling good-naturedly with his wife Patrice over where he might have put the china (that she sees as precious, and he sees as clutter). The self-described workaholic still gets up between 5:00-6:00am. Weekdays you’ll find him on an early tram to the city, where he chairs boards and committees, including one relating to victims of crime. There’s charitable work, too, focused on mental illness affecting lawyers. By midday-ish he’s usually on his way back to the eastern suburbs where he’ll each lunch out with his wife, Patrice. Life after Black Saturday Empty his pockets and you’ll invariably find crosswords from the day’s newspaper, completed on the commute. For relaxation there are jigsaw puzzles, a backlog in the basement waiting to be tackled. By the time the former Supreme Court judge chaired the bushfires royal commission, he had presided over 90 murder trials and was seemingly unflappable. “People think it’s very strange. How can you possibly enjoy presiding over a murder trial?…more detail