Tom Danos

Tom Danos is a high-profile barrister in Victoria, Australia. He mainly practices in the area of criminal law, and is Treasurer of the Victorian Criminal Bar Association.[1] Danos is a trustee member of the Maccabi World Union Board. He represented Australian athletes who were injured in the Maccabiah bridge collapse in Israel in 1997.[2] He also represented John Patrick Ford, a convicted man who gave evidence in the trial of alleged drug courier Schapelle Corby in Indonesia.[3]

Danos successfully represented Julian Michael Clarke before the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2005. Clarke's conviction at a first trial before the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2004 for the murder of Melbourne solicitor Keith William Allan, together with co-accused Sudo Cavkic and Costas Athanasi, was annulled, and a re-trial ordered.[4] [5] Argument by Danos in relation to the definition of reasonable doubt, that the jury should have been told by the trial judge that it should not be construed as a percentage,[6] was accepted by the Court of Appeal. This judgment of the Court of Appeal created an important precedent in Australian law.[7]

Danos represented Clarke subsequently at the second trial in 2006 and third trial in 2007. The second trial resulted in a hung jury, but Clarke, together with his two other co-accused, were convicted at the third trial.[8]