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Free Speech case FULL UPDATE - day five 31 10 01.
(Hulls/Hoser "contempt" case)
See below for details.
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This is the high-profile case where the Victorian Attorney General the Dishonorable Robert Justin Hulls is trying to jail Australia's leading corruption author Raymond Hoser for publishing the truth in the two "Victoria Police Corruption" books.
On day five about thirty independent observers attended and watched proceedings, including several people from various media outlets, however the case's details have still been suppressed by the Herald-Sun and Age newspapers - even though people from BOTH have attended the hearings.
The case has been set down for a "date to be fixed" for judgement.
We anticipate this will be in about a month and will notify interested parties as soon as we know more - unless incarcerated!
All evidence and summing up is now complete and all transcript is already available via the bottom of this webpage - which is at:
http://www.smuggled.com/medrel90.htm
There were some absolute clangers from the prosecution side in their summing up of their case.
Included were countless deliberate and misleading misquotes from the books, including cutting and pasting of bits and pieces of sentences from different paragraphs by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Langmead, who would cut and paste and quote out of context and then blurt that these words were "contemptuous".
If the case wasn't so serious, Langmead's deliberate lies and misquotes would have been quite humorous.
What was somewhat disturbing is that the judge didn't pull Langmead up for this blatant misleading of the court.
One can only hope that the judge wasn't blind to this as certainly most of the observers in the court who were also reading from the book (like the judge and the lawyers at the time), all noticed quite clearly what was going on.
Even more startling was the statements by Langmead on day four (PM) that Hoser had somehow invented Mr. Kim Sawyer (as depicted in the book "Victoria Police Corruption - 2"), and Langmead's somewhat bizarre assertion that there was absolutely no evidence that such a person named "Kim Sawyer" even actually existed!
We refer you to the fourth day's transcript (or day four) for the exact text.
As Langmead came out with this diatribe about Kim Sawyer a sizeable portion of the public gallery gasped in dismay.
Some no doubt as members of "Whistleblowers Australia", all of whom know Mr. Sawyer well, and others at the simply preposterous assertions being led by Mr. Langmead.
Dr. Kim Sawyer is a well-known Melbourne academic and for any fruitcakes who may believe the garbage sprouted by Langmead and may doubt Sawyer's existence, they may contact him directly at Melbourne University on Phone: (03) 8344-8061 Fax: (03) 8349-2379 or even via e-mail at: k.sawyer@ecomfac.unimelb.edu.au
This conduct by Mr. Langmead, may well have constituted the illegal misleading of the court as he had no evidence to back up such a hair-brained theory and his comments could also be interpreted as having tried to lead evidence from the bar table. According to bar rules this is a "no no".
In summing up, Langmead asserted that the alleged contempt in another case (Family Court Versus Trevor Torney) was different to that of Hoser because Torney (who handed out pamphlets outside a court) was (according to Langmead's side) supposedly a fruitcake and his allegations of corruption in the judiciary were so ridiculous that they would not be believed by any sane and rational person. The charge against Torney had been quite properly dismissed.
Langmead then went on to argue that Hoser's case was different and that his books constituted the most serious contempt because Hoser's books were highly credible and factual and that he had the credibility factor similar to that of " a retired judge who said the system was corrupt." Those were Langmead's exact words!
Langmead said that the Crown's case did not rely on proving a single word in Hoser's books was incorrect.
This he said many times
e.g. "it is not part of our case to have to
prove the truth of anything"
Or on day three when Graham for the prosecution said
"Our case, as Your Honour appreciates, is simply
particular passages appear in the book, true or false. We
don't need to go into that."
To make things worse, it appeared that the judge appeared to accept the Crown's proposition that proving the material in the books was untrue was not neccessary to sustain a conviction against Hoser ... in other words publishing the truth is a criminal offence!
This is shown by the transcript from day three of the case:
HIS HONOUR: Just on that proposition, I know that in a
prosecution for criminal libel there is no obligation on
the Crown to prove the falsity of what had been said. Is
that the same position, so far as a charge of contempt?
MR GRAHAM: Yes, Your Honour.
HIS HONOUR: Is there authority directly on that? I didn't
find any.
MR GRAHAM: I believe it emerges from the authorities rather
than by reason of a direct statement.
HIS HONOUR: I mean, it would make some logical sense that, just
as in criminal libel, that if a defendant sought to answer
it by proving the truth of what was said because it is a
libel action, that plea of justification in defence would
plainly be relevant for the defence to take. But this is
not a libel action, although elements of libel plainly
come into the question of contempt, or can come into the
question of contempt.
MR GRAHAM: Yes. Your Honour.
In other words the crown case as apparantly (but not neccessarily definitively) accepted by the judge was thus:
If you are a raving lunatic who comes out with complete and utter garbage, you can have all the free speech you want. But if you tell the truth in a sane and rational way and people actually listen to you and believe you, you must be locked up so as to protect those who are corrupt and in high places.
Now I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't heard it, so go check out the transcript for day five at the link below.
Hoser's lawyers also noted that at the start of the trial, the Crown had been alleging that Hoser was an idiot with no credibility and as the trial had progressed, their view of him as stated had gone up the spectrum to the opposite end, to him now having the credibility of a "retired judge".
Barrister Nicholas, pointed out, "It is an observation that,
talking of spectrum, Mr Hoser has shifted in the
prosecution's eyes from an unbalanced obsessed individual,
at that end of the spectrum, to one of some authority."
Evidently truth and consistency were not prerequisites of the crown case.
Langmead also came up with some other wonderful conspiracy theories that simply didn't stand up to the most basic of investigations.
For the photo and caption of Hugh Adams in the book "Victoria Police Corruption" he said that I had specifically chosen a photo of Adams looking guilty of crimes to put in the book.
The fact was that it was the only one available!
Then Langmead harped on the photo source citation being for "the Age" and lied to the judge by stating it was more prominent and in larger font than other similar citations in the book. He said "We also point out that the photo credit is
given to The Age, in bolder and larger font than perhaps
such attribution is typically accorded."
Langmead then went on to infer that the Age was somehow being roped into a grand conspiracy against this magistrate.
However a two second check of both books revealed the font's size and details to be identical to all other photo citations, including others from The Age, Herald-Sun, the author and various other sources, thereby shattering another of his idiot theories.
Langmead also engaged in a bout of hypocicy and double standards when he sought to claim that the list of sources used to compile the two "Victoria Police Corruption" books didn't help prove the material within them, and that he alleged was why they had not been formally tendered as evidence in the case. He knew this was a lie.
You see Hoser had referred to the list several times during his evidence in the case and Langmead could have easily called for it.
Furthermore, the list is specifically cited several times in the books themselves, which were tendered as evidence!
This was further established when Hoser's barrister, Mr. Nicholas, then sought to tender the list (which ran in excess of 100 pages) - as published on the internet and on the CD-rom version of the books - and Langmead jumped up and vigorously objected to the list being tendered.
Various observers in the public gallery noted that this was a case of the crown trying to hide away from the truth.
At the end of all this, one would have expected an immediate dismissal of the charges, but Judge Eames didn't do so, instead adjourning the proceedings to a date to be fixed, probably about a month or so away.
This is however a normal process in a case like this, so one cannot attack the judge for not handing down a decision on the day.
This is particularly so from the point of view of the judge who will no doubt not want to see his decision appealed to a higher court and any inference he had rushed his decision would therefore want to be avoided.
Notwithstanding the above, the judge also made some very disturbing remarks during the trial
which were not lost on the audience - including some which inferred that he seemed to have denied any possibility of corruption involving police and/or the legal system.
Maybe the revelations of the Wood Royal Commission and elsewhere
really were pure fiction? And maybe this judge is perfect as are all others?
Until then, all those who seek to have truth reign supreme over lies, deception and corruption will have to wait for a month or so to see if a legal precedent is set whereby it becomes a criminal offence to publish the truth about crime and corruption in high places including in the courts.
Further updates will appear on the website:
http://www.smuggled.com/arc2001.htm
and/or by phoning:
03 9812 3322 (evenings only)
or 0412 777 211 any time (urgent calls on the mobile only please)
Sentence - final - Summary.
Sentence - final - (Written) as MS Word File.
Sentence - final - (Written) as Adobe Acrobat File.
Sentencing submissions - summary.
Sentencing submissions - (Written) as MS Word File.
Sentencing submissions - (Written) as Adobe Acrobat File.
Judgement - Guilty Verdict - appeal likely.
Judgement - (Written) as MS Word File.
Judgement - (Written) as Adobe Acrobat File.
Judgement IN COURT - (Written) as MS Word File.
Judgement - IN COURT (Written) as Adobe Acrobat File.
Day Five of Case - Summary.
Day Five of Case - Transcript as MS Word File.
Day Five of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File.
Day Four of Case - Summary.
Day Four of Case - Transcript as MS Word File (PM only).
Day Four of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File (PM only).
Day Four of Case - Transcript as MS Word File (AM only).
Day Four of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File (AM only).
Day Three of Case - Summary.
Day Three of Case - Transcript as MS Word File.
Day Three of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File.
Day Two of Case - Summary.
Day Two of Case - Transcript as MS Word File.
Day Two of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File.
Day One of Case - Summary.
Day One of Case - Transcript as MS Word File.
Day One of Case - Transcript as Adobe Acrobat File.
List of relevant legal precedents.
List of relevant legal precedents.
Defence summary for Raymond Hoser - as prepared by his lawyers.
Defence summary for Raymond Hoser - as prepared by his lawyers.
"No Case" summary for Raymond Hoser against Hulls et. al. - as prepared by his lawyers.
"No Case" summary for Raymond Hoser against Hulls et. al. - as prepared by his lawyers.
Victorian Government/Rob Hulls set to jail Hoser for telling the truth!
Melbourne media contacts - list and details.
Full Transcript of Free Speech Case and other tendered documents (449 pages in total) - as MS Word File. (1.75 mb)
Full Transcript of Free Speech Case and other tendered documents (449 pages in total) - as Adobe Acrobat File. (1 mb)