Professor Frank Vincent

Biography

The Honorable Frank Vincent AO was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1985 and went on to preside over the Court of Appeals from 2001 until his retirement in 2009. He has been a Board Member of Court Network, and chaired the Judicial College of Victoria Sentencing Manual editorial board and the committee for the College’s Charge Book. In his legal career his focus was on criminal law, and he appeared in approximately 200 murder trials. He was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Swinburne Law School in 2018.

During his career, Frank worked with several Aboriginal legal aid services, particularly between 1975 to 1985 when he spent a substantial part of each year in the Northern Territory working with the Aboriginal community. He has been president of the Forensic Leave Panel, chaired a review panel for leave arrangements at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health and been an Australian Academy of Forensic Science Victorian Chapter committee member. He was Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Victorian Adult Parole Board, a position he occupied for 17 years from 1987 to 2001. Frank was also Chancellor of Victoria University in Melbourne from 2001 to 2009.

 From 2012-2019, Frank was a commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. He has also been Chairman of the Victorian Criminal Bar Association and consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission on its evidence reference. Between 2009 and 2017, Frank was appointed to conduct 8 separate reviews into a number of diverse issues such as the Witness Protection Act 1991 (2015), Certain Events at the Melbourne Juvenile Centre in 1995-1996 (2016) and a Review of the Open Courts Act 2013 into whether the laws were operating effectively (2017). In 2019 he was appointed to chair the South Gippsland Inquiry.

Frank was appointed Queen’s Counsel for the State of Victoria in 1980 and for the Northern Territory of Australia in 1982. He was appointed Officer in the Order of Australia (General Division) in 2007.