Dean Mildren, AM, RFD, KC (born 27 February 1943)[1] is a former judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.
[1] During his time on the bench, he was the judge responsible for giving confessed child-rapist Brett Peter Cowan the "benefit of any doubt" and a short sentence in his second conviction as a sex offender, despite expert recommendation against the man who had been found guilty of abducting and carrying out an anal rape, torture, and strangulation of a 6-year-old boy in such violent fashion that outcry witnesses initially thought the child had been hit by a car.
The judge's justification for the short sentence was that the pedophile had made a "fairly spontaneous indication to the police that he needs help," with the criminal's lies about intent during the assault and consciousness of guilt after it given more credence than the psychologist who questioned whether Cowan was even capable of the emotion of remorse.
[7] Mildren is also the author of the legal text The Appellate Jurisdictions of the Courts in Australia (2015, The Federation Press).
[2] He has been a Life Member of the Australian Centre of International Arbitration since 1986 and is a Patron of the Friends of the Territory Wildlife Park.