Home grown author Jamelle Wells returned to Cobar this week to speak at the Cobar Library as part of her book promotion tour.
Jamelle gave an insight to her book, The Court Reporter, which details stories from her past 10 years working as a court reporter for the ABC.
Growing up in Cobar, Jamelle attended Cobar High School and recalls being part of the school’s debating team.
“We won our way through to the finals of the Apex competition which was held at the Sydney Opera House,” Jamelle said.
“We came second in the competition to a private school.”
Jamelle said it was that experience that opened her eyes to the “big world beyond Cobar”.
After completing her HSC, Jamelle went onto university where she studied journalism and then got a job in commercial radio.
She later moved on to reading the news for the ABC.
In 2008 a job came up in court reporting to cover the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) inquiry into Wollongong Council and Jamelle stepped into the role.
“What a soap opera,” Jamelle said of the case. “It was the first case I covered and I was hooked.”
In her 10 years of working as a court reporter, Jamelle said she has covered long running murder investigations, defamation cases, inquests, drink driving offences and domestic violence cases.
She recounted her time in court covering the case against former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld (who lied to get out of traffic ticket), the Gordon Wood murder trial in which he was convicted and later acquitted for pushing his girlfriend off a cliff, and also the proceedings which saw the judge throw the case out as being ridiculous after two years of deliberation about vandalism caused by a goat.
