DEAR FRIEND, COLLEAGUE, INTERESTED PARTY,
I have just spent the past four months in a Victorian prison.
The penalty was as a result of my blowing the whistle on Police and
other corruption in this state. Because being a whistleblower is not a
jailable offence under Victorian statutes, other charges had to be falsified
in order to obtain my illegal and improper incarceration.
I was charged with forging a fax by Vicroads (transport) officials and
Police. Those same officials have themselves been found guilty two years
ago (March 1995) with doing the same thing. In the case finalised then
they had forged a court document and then accused me of doing so (as they
did in this case), by charging me with several jailable offences.
During the course of that trial, the perjury by the Police and Vicroads
officials was obvious and proven and the charges against me were dismissed.
As an indictment of the Victorian judiciary, the presiding Judge in that
case (Duggan), admitted that the Police, Vicroads (and court) officials
lied on oath, but refused to take the matter further. (See the book, The
Hoser Files - The Fight Against Entrenched Official Corruption,
for further details about that case).
This latest case was heard in front of a known corrupt Judge Thomas
Neesham. Neesham is on the public record as having made false statements
and himself lying in court cases. Neesham had form for corruption prior
to this case including in an earlier case involving myself.
The case should never have made it to Court and it is significant that
before it got that far, the DPP itself made statements to the effect that
there was never any case against me. The case was only pursued against
me in order to attempt to financially destroy me and discredit me so that
my documenting of corruption would not be taken seriously.
The tactics used against me in this regard are not unique and have been
engaged in this state and elsewhere for many years. For example as far
back as 1970, John Winneke, (now head judge at the Supreme Court of Appeal),
made statements in a hearing against Dr. Bertram Wainer. Presiding Judge,
Kaye found against Wainer in favour of corrupt Police, going on to say
that Wainer was fantasising. That Wainer had been correct and that as a
result Winneke and Kaye were actively protecting Police corruption, was
proven some years later by Barry Beach QC and others in later corruption
inquiries.
During my recent trial, not only was my innocence proven, but also the
guilt of the Vicroads and Police officials, in an identical manner to the
case of two years ago. The Police/Vicroads officials repeatedly committed
perjury and this was again easily proven by cross checking prior statements
by the key Police and Vicroads witnesses. It was also the above Judge Winneke
who refused to allow an appeal to the above conviction. His father, Henry
Christian Winneke was also the person who unsuccessfully sued Frank Hardy
for criminal defamation over his corruption exposing book, "Power
Without Glory" in the 1950's. Henry Winneke was appointed by the corrupt
Bolte/Rylah government as Chief Justice in 1964-74 and aided and abetted
massive Police corruption in that period. (Rylah was allowed bycorrupt
Police to apparantly get away with murdering his wife, in return for covering
up other corruption in the Police force).
Returning to the trial involving myself, there are too many serious
faults in the trial to document here in this brief explanatory letter.
Suffice to say that the whole trial was a farce. For example during the
trial, Police attacked and bashed innocent members of the public who had
done nothing more than come to court to observe the case. Those people
had no direct interest in the matter, other than that they too were police
corruption whistleblowers. Police unlawfully dragged people from the court
room and carted them off to cells where they were bashed, and to make things
worse, this was done as a result of the direction of the Judge (Neesham).
This is the same Judge Neesham who let Janine Vasiliadis of West Footscray
walk free from Court after she pled guilty to attempting to rob an 83 year
old grandmother at knife-point at her own home in order to support her
heroin habit. Neesham's decision to allow Vasiliadis to walk free from
court without even paying a cent in fines, typifies his active aiding and
abetting of crime and corruption in Victoria.
In my case, Neesham made a number of dishonest and misleading statements
to the jury and in violation of established court procedures refused to
give them access to exhibits, transcript and other materials. At the end
of the case, Neesham directed the jury to ignore the proven perjury by
key Police and Vicroads witnesses and then handed each member of the jury
a sheet of paper effectively directing them to convict me.
I was convicted of the allegation of tendering a document I knew to
be forged in an earlier case involving a malfunctioning traffic signal
that Police and Vicroads had both acknowledged was not working. The standard
penalty for such an alleged offence is at most a fine of no more than a
few hundred dollars, but by the time this case was concluded, a number
of important politicians had become involved including Jeff
Kennett (State Premier) and Victor Perton. Both men have a substantial
record for corrupt, illegal and dishonest behaviour which is on the public
record. However as I may be sued for stating Kennett (or Perton) is corrupt,
I may be better off stating that all their well-documented illegal activities
result from stupidity and bad judgement instead. Recall Kennett got an
estimated $400,000 defamation payout for a story in the Packer media that
no one seems to be able to remember anyway!
The head of the DPP Geoff Flatman who is a Kennett government appointee
was also intimately involved in this case and it is on the public record
that he directed Neesham to have me jailed, which he did. Although the
matter is still under appeal, I was forced to spend the four months in
jail. That of course is yet another travesty of justice. That sentence
has now been completed.
I can assure you that spending 4 months in a hell hole with rapists,
murderers, drug pushers, thieves, and other hardened criminals is not my
idea of a holiday!
There are several avenues of appeal still open to me and it may take
up to ten years for me to overturn this improper conviction. However due
to the overwhelming and indisputable proof of my innocence (and the guilt
of the other side) that is already in the public domain (including the
transcript of this most recent hearing), it is effectively certain that
the conviction will be overturned eventually. I remind readers that on
22 December 1988 I was similarly convicted on three charges and sentenced
to jail. That conviction was overturned some years later AFTER the Police
informant Ross Allen Bingley admitted that he had gained the conviction
solely by bribing Magistrate Hugh Francis Adams.
Like in the present case, proof of my innocence was overwhelming, but
useless against the corruption I was up against. Also many readers of this
letter will be aware of the fact that Adams resigned as a magistrate suddenly
and within a month of public disclosure that he'd been illegally bribed
by Bingley (June 1995).
("No ordinary Australian or group of
Australians could have withstood this incredible juggernaught of Vindictiveness"
- Jeffrey Gibb Kennett, Premier of Victoria).
In relation to this most recent case, the conduct of the Police side
in nobbling the jury is perhaps most disturbing. On no fewer than five
occasions jurors have (without any form of encouragement) voluntarily come
foreword to state that they had been illegally directed to return a guilty
verdict.
Since the case was completed two jurors have openly complained that
they were FORCED to return a guilty verdict against me, even though they
knew I was innocent. During the trial, Neesham stated he was aware of the
illegal nobbling of the jury, but as this suited his aims against me, he
did nothing about it.
The names and details of the relevant jurors are not printed here due
to legal restrictions against my publication of them. To publish a juror's
name in Victoria can lead to imprisonment, and I do not fancy a return
trip! However I am investigating loopholes in laws, such as via parliamentary
privilege in order to make these facts known so that 1/ The conviction
can be overturned, 2/ The guilty Police and Vicroads officials as well
as Thomas Neesham themselves get incarcerated for their multiple crimes,
3/ I am compensated financially for the substantial losses in income and
reputation.
Due to my unplanned incarceration my finances and personal life are
presently in a bit of a mess. I was forced to cancel 1997 lecture tours
to the UK, USA, Canada, Queensland and NSW (all were to talk on reptiles
or wildlife trafficking). It will probably take a full 12 months for things
to return to 'normal', although I should be able to keep to engagements
and so on almost immediately. For those who may deal with me on any matter,
I ask for patience over the coming months while my life gets back to something
resembling normality. At the time of release (13th August 1997) I returned
home to find several thousand unanswered items of mail, all of which have
now been answered, except for 2,000 unread internet e-mails, which should
be cleared by Sunday August 25th 1997.
In relation to the case that led to my recent incarceration, a summary
will be posted on the internet within 6 months. Likewise for the case transcript
so that I can circumvent any potential criticisms by the enemy for quoting
out of context, etc. The case will also be incorporated into a forthcoming
book called Hoser Files 3 which will also have details of other
cases and corruption. That book is already 1/2 written and is expected
to be published some time in 1998, although as with almost all publishing
projects, that date cannot be certain.
Other publishing projects planned for the period 1997-2000 include the
following titles:-