The former mayor of the Fraser Coast Regional Council has been found guilty of using his position to push for his former campaign manager to be appointed his chief-of-staff.

Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who claims he made the world's first "gene-edited" babies by altering human embryos in 2018, is convicted on charges of practising medicine illegally, according to Chinese state media.

A teenage driver is jailed for running a red light and fatally crashing her car at high speed into an elderly woman in the Perth suburb of Floreat.

A Perth man who viewed violence as an acceptable way to manage his relationships is jailed for life for killing his partner, who had a chronic heart condition, by bashing her to death with his fists and a metal pipe.

Perth brothers Ambrose and Xavier Clarke, who had their original murder convictions quashed, are given heavier sentences after being found guilty for the second time for killing a business partner.

When Keennan Dickie contacted police for help after her rib was broken in a violent robbery, she was instead arrested and sent to jail for failing to pay traffic fines, a situation branded a "shame on WA".

Paul Gary Turner used his training in commando knife skills to "deliberately and intentionally" stab his former partner and mother of his children to death inside a Perth court complex during a mediation hearing.

The Court of Appeal unanimously overturns the convictions of three men found guilty last year of killing a mother who was left outside a Perth hospital in 2016, with the trio now set to face a retrial.

A year after Lachie Yeo was killed in a crash on a WA highway, the man who caused the accident and who was high on drugs when he drove onto the wrong side of the road is jailed for six years.

The marriage of one of WA's worst sex offenders is one of the key factors why he should not be released from prison because of fears his wife could be "at risk of harm from him".

A Vietnamese man is sentenced to seven years behind bars for growing one of the biggest marijuana crops ever discovered in Western Australia, with an estimated street value of more than $17 million.

A Perth father is jailed for life for murdering his teenage partner after their violent relationship culminated in a "frenzied" and "ferocious" attack.

A former Perth rugby league coach who spent more than 14 years behind bars for "horrendous and abhorrent" child sex offences is jailed for another seven months for molesting a boy 25 years ago.

One of Australia's most notorious paedophiles has applied for parole, but South Australia is considering whether the former magistrate should be indefinitely detained behind bars.

A Melbourne man who killed his former wife with an electrical cord and then fled to Queensland is jailed for 25 years for what the judge described as a crime of "extravagant drawn-out violence".

Former school deputy principal Kenneth Ralph Ernst is jailed for the prolonged sexual abuse of a young girl, in a case the judge described as a "gross breach of trust" made worse by Ernst's decision to plead not guilty.

Taxi driver Reg Kelly will bear the scars of a murder attempt for the rest of his life, but he wants to thank his home town for rallying to his side.

An Albany man has been sentenced to an immediate jail term after admitting operating a clandestine drug laboratory from a Milpara home.

A prominent businessman on Western Australia's south coast has been sentenced to eight years and six months in jail for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged daughter-in-law. Brian Vincent Attwell paid $10,000 to an undercover police officer who had posed as a hitman in September last year. The court heard the 74-year-old was angry over legal action after his son's divorce and he was motivated by "sheer hatred" of Michelle Attwell. The trial was played recordings of the businessman saying his daughter-in-law had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he wanted her "strangled and buried".

A Narrogin man, who admitted to indecent dealing with his underage stepdaughter, has avoided an immediate jail term.

A man has been sent to jail for a crime spree, that included the theft of firearms, tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewellery, and an attempted theft of an ATM.

Graham Morrison, 55, is given a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence after hitting a family car on the Newell Highway near the end of an 11-hour trip.

A Dubbo man is handed a community correction order and community service after pleading guilty to animal cruelty following his appearance in a video of an emu being plucked.

The Yetta Dhinnakkal Centre, meaning "right pathway" in traditional language, was established as Australia's first prison exclusively for young Aboriginal men but next year it will close and locals are warning the impact will be disastrous.

Rajkumar Janagani stabbed his wife more than 20 times while she slept in their Brisbane home. She survived, but has suffered serious physical and emotional trauma.

The bashing was so violent, a nurse at the hospital couldn't do a blood test when the 79-year-old was first admitted because he'd "lost that much blood". His grandson was later convicted of assault.

Nicholas John Crilley is sentenced to life in prison for what prosecutors said was the "sadistic" torture of a woman that left her with broken facial bones and burns to almost half her body.

Suzanne Miller earnt a high wage but in a "gross abuse of high office" she also illegally spent a further $75,000 in taxpayer funds on personal purchases, a Brisbane court hears.

A man is jailed for circling a family in his car and hurling anti-Islamic abuse at them on the New South Wales south coast last year.

Three girls accused of attacking another teen near Wollongong face a maximum 25 years behind bars if found guilty of the shopping centre assault.

Business owners at Ivanhoe in outback NSW are staring down closure if a plan to shut the jail goes ahead, and say the jail inmates make a huge contribution to the community.

New Zealand man Cody Frost is sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in jail for manslaughter after he gave a stranger his last cigarette, called him mate and then stabbed him outside a Melbourne train station in 2017.

Melbourne footballer Hakeem al-Araibi should never have been locked up in a Thai jail instead of being on his honeymoon. Now, the ABC has documents that reveal the series of critical errors made by the Department of Home Affairs and AFP INTERPOL.

A judge jails a Melbourne couple for fraud, acknowledging their imprisonment will be difficult for their young daughters and the family members who will need to look after the girls while their parents are in jail.

A woman who worked as a financial officer at the since-failed SKM Recycling has been sentenced to six months' jail after siphoning more than $168,000 from the business into her own accounts.

A man responsible for an "atrocious attack" on an off-duty paramedic during a crime spree on the Mornington Peninsula last year is sentenced to five years and nine months in jail.

A judge describes the attack on 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe as "unsophisticated and opportunistic" in sentencing her killer to 36 years' prison, with a non-parole period of 30, as the victim's father and sister watch on in court.

Making it through the night in a dark cell surrounded by spirits, ghost-seekers, psychics and spooky storytellers.

The life of a 92-year-old woman bashed in her own home in Mount Isa in north-west Queensland has been completely ruined, family say, as her attacker is sentenced to seven years in jail for the violent assault.

A judge says Victorian paedophile priest Robert Claffey "mocked" his priestly authority to access and abuse children, while sentencing him to more jail time.

A Christian Brother who sexually assaulted boys at some of Victoria's most prestigious Catholic schools is sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

A man disqualified from driving and tested positive to methamphetamines has been jailed for at least two years for dangerous driving causing the death of a former regional Victorian mayor near Ballarat in 2017.

A former Catholic priest who showed pornographic images to children and assaulted a teenager while he slept is jailed for two years and two months.

The ABC understands the Victorian Department of Corrections considers the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, 200 kilometres west of Melbourne, to be the most appropriate place to send the high-profile cleric.

A bus driver jailed for seriously injuring six passengers when he crashed into South Melbourne's Montague Street Bridge in 2016 is released after an appeal.

The family of a grandmother killed when a minibus clipped a fuel tanker offers generous sympathy to the bus driver at his sentencing in Wollongong District Court today.

In March 1996, teenager Matthew De Gruchy bludgeoned his family to death in a "frenzied attack" in NSW. Twenty-three years later, he is set to be released from prison as a 41-year-old man.

A man has been sentenced to six months in prison after being found with an explosive device at Wollongong train station last Thursday during peak hour.

The mother of a young boy who was killed when a truck driver with sleep apnoea crashed into their car says she won't get to hear "Happy Mother's Day" from her son on Sunday or ever again.

Katherine man Lorenzo Deegan is sentenced to 10 years by the Northern Territory Supreme Court after fatally assaulting his ex-partner while on parole.