Today was a sad day for all Australians who thought that they lived in a free country where truth, justice and freedom of speech were meant to be rights of all citizens.

In a case that's been suppressed in the mainstream media, or when reported, grossly misrepresented, Australia's leading corruption author has been declared guilty of "contempt" of court for publishing the truth about corruption in the legal system in two best-selling books.

The double jeopardy case involved Attorney General Rob Hulls, charging Hoser with "contempt" of court after Hoser had won a defamation action to which Hulls had been a party.

Three judges upheld an earlier decision by fellow judge Geoff Eames that said Hoser and no other Australians a right to make statements adverse to fellow judges and magistrates.

Free speech case (legal) precedents were ruled irrelevant and Hoser and his publishing company were fined $5000 for publishing the truth about corruption in the legal system.

The killer blow was an open-ended "costs" order against Hoser of an estimated $50,000.

This was designed for both specific deterrence and general deterrence to stop Hoser or any other persons trying to expose corruption in the legal system.

The judges effectively ruled that judicial officers are exempt from criticism by members of the public, even if the criticism is valid.

In this case, the three appeal court judges made a series of defective claims and inferences that can be shown to be patently false by cross referencing with the books subject of the case or source documents and tapes, if the latter were relevant to the Judges claims.

Clearly it would seem the judges are either corrupt, incompetent or perhaps something else we cannot think of, and/or they are hoping that no one cross-checks their judgement against the documents it is allegedly derived from.

The defects of fact stem from what appears to be a deliberate misrepresentation of the contents of the books, which may also stem from a failure by the judges to have read them.

For example, upheld by the judges was a claim by the previous judge (Eames) that Hoser had misrepresented the facts by withholding a critically important letter from an adversely named judge from his readers.

That letter was in the relevant book at the relevant place, but either not read or ignored by judge Eames in the earlier trial. Based on the fact that these three appeal court judges have upheld this obvious Eames falsehood, one must make similar assumtions in terms of their inability to deal with the obvious facts.

Other claims made by these judges against the books do not stand up to a cursory check.

Ironically, in the front of both Hoser books, Hoser himself admitted the possibility that material in Hoser's books may be incorrect and in spite of meticulous checking.

Notwithstanding this caveat, neither judge Eames or the three apepal court judges were able to accurately identify a single fault with either book and hence so far they remain bullet proof in terms of their writing and being truthful and accurate.

Hence as a result of this judgement handed down today, the Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls and the three appeal court judges themselves have scandalised the legal system.

Hoser and his publisher will take the matter to the High Court due to the ramifications of the case in terms of it being a precedent to shut down all forms of whistleblowing against corruption by members of the Australian public.

A documentary on this case is being made by an Australian TV network and the case so far will go down in history as one of the darkest moments in Australia's legal system.

A full appraisal of the defects in the judgement will be published shortly, so as to aid uninformed people in terms of cross checking the judgement.

But an indication as to how important the anti-Hoser judgements will be in terms of suppressing freedom of speech and related whistleblowing matters can be seen from a search of legal cases since the Eames judgement against Hoser in late 2001.

That judgement was shown to defective by Hoser and agreed by all parties, but not withstanding these obvious defects, the three Supreme Court of Apepal justices refused to find against this judge (Eames).

Perhaps this may stem from the fact that Eames was promoted by Rob Hulls (Attorney General), the man who charged Hoser, to the same court and hence all three appeal court judges had sat with Eames on cases in the past.

In other words it was an in house hatchet job on Hoser.

Seeing what was coming, Hoser had applied at the start of the case for the three appeal court judges (Batt, Vincent and Harper) to disqualify themselves on the basis of obvious conflict of interest, but they all denied that this conflict would influence them and refused to stand aside from the trial.

The judges own judgement appears to rebutt their claims of no bias, but of course to allege these judges were biased would be treated as contempt, so perhaps it is better to assume that these learned men are merely incompetent and/or have very warped reasoning powers.

Notable is that on this same day, a corruption whistleblower was wrongly convicted and heavily punished for publishing truth, while in two other Victorian courts a drug dealing cop and a pedophile were both allowed to walk free.

This perhaps sums up the priorities of the Victorian legal system and shows the seriousness of how Hoser has now been punished for merely publishing truth and stating obvious facts and/or conclusions.

The case has been reported in some media, but severely misrepresented by the ABC who falsely implied that Hoser himself made a false claim about a magistrate Hugh Adams taking a bribe.

The facts of the matter are as follows:

On 21 December 1988 Policeman Ross Allen Bingley made the statement of fact that Adams had been bribed to wrongly convict Hoser of Theft and assault charges. Bingley was the SECOND person to make this claim (the first being Alan "NAME SUPPRESSED"). This Bingley statement was tape recorded and has been transcribed since (as was the "NAME SUPPRESSED" claim).

Hoser was innocent and exonerated on appeal.

Evidence that Magistrate Adams was corrupt has been substantial and goes beyond the improper conviction of Hoser (in the first instance in 1988), in spite of overwhelming proof of Hoser's innocence, including a last minute confession by the alleged victim that no assault or theft had taken place and a covertly made tape recording of the informant that had him stating that he knew Hoser was innocent but that he'd fabricate statements and evidence to convict Hoser.

Hugh Adams is also the magistrate that bungled the first inquest into corrupt policeman Denis Tanner and allowed him to get away with the murder and escape charges for killing Jennifer Tanner.

A later inquest into the murder by another coroner, overturned the Adams "findings", stating that the Adams inquest had been bungled and that Tanner was a murderer but the DPP ruled that too much time had elapsed to charge Tanner (or words to that effect), due to "destruction of evidence" and related matters.

Hoser first raised the issues of Magistrate Adams and his probity in the book "The Hoser Files: The Fight Against Entrenched Official Corruption" published in June 1995. John Silvester and Andew Rule of the Melbourne Age followed on from Hoser's lead and published stories on the Tanner case (involving Adams) in September the same year. This earlier Hoser book was not found to be in contempt of court, even though three appeal court judges have now ruled the same material in two later books ("Victoria Police Corruption" 1 and 2 to be "in contempt").

Hugh Adams was also the magistrate involved in the Wagnegg, Denis Allen and Higgins, Glare and Strang matters all of which resulted in "judgements" or "findings" that appeared to fly in the face of decency and logic.

The three appeal court judges also ignored the fact that prior to publication of these later books, both Hulls and his predecessor Jan Wade approved of them. Wade as Attorney General had been sent and received a full manuscript and save for names of jurors wanted nothing else deleted.

In accordance with the directions of one of Wade's staff these names were blacked out.

Hoser was then charged with contempt by her successor, Rob Hulls, after Labor won office from the Liberals.

What this means is that a person who is told they are within the law in terms of what they write, may be declared outlaw on the whims of a change in government or policy and this can be made retrospective as happened with Hoser's books.

It is for these and other reasons that the case must be taken as far as possible, not to clear Hoser's name, which based on a scrutiny of the judgements remains untarnished, but rather to stop the same precedent to be used to suppress whistleblowing and lawful democratic activities and/or legal dissent in future affecting all Australians.

Earlier information on this case including judgements, rulings, transcripts and so on can be found at:

http://www.smuggled.com/arc2003.htm

and

http://www.smuggled.com/arc2001.htm

See below for some news clips (not necessarily accurate) relating three cases in Victoria, the first involving a whistleblower Hoser, the others involving the drug dealing cop and the pedophile, the latter two generally treated well by the Victorian judiciary.

Author losses contempt of court appeal

The Victorian Court of Appeal has handed down a second contempt of court conviction to a self-published author.

Raymond Terrence Hoser and his private publishing company were fined $5,000 two years ago after the release of two books which contained corruption allegations against two county court judges.

Hoser has lost his appeal against that conviction.

The court has also found him guilty of a second contempt charge which was originally dismissed.

That charge related to unfounded bribery allegations against a third judge.

Priest walks free on sex assault charges

By Dan Silkstone

December 16, 2003

A Catholic priest who sexually abused a schoolboy and said celibacy was to blame for his indiscretions walked free from the County Court yesterday after being given a suspended sentence.

John Barry Gwillim, 71, was a model priest, popular with his flock at St Peter's Church in East Keilor and a gifted arranger of hymns, Judge Fred Davey said.

But Father Gwillim had an unholy secret, one that took more than 20 years to emerge.

Judge Davey said Father Gwillim met the boy, then 15, for sexual encounters in his car, in a motel room and at his presbytery during late 1979 and early 1980.

Judge Davey said Father Gwillim was unlikely to reoffend and wholly suspended his sentence of two years and eight months. "In any event, you will serve another sentence, the sentence of a disgraced priest whose good works will be forgotten," he said. "The memory of your disgraceful conduct will blot your good deeds from people's memories forever."

Father Gwillim left St Peter's in 1999 and has since worked as a relieving priest. He is on sick leave from the archdiocese.

The president of victim support group Broken Rites, Chris MacIsaac, yesterday called on the archdiocese not to reinstate him. "This is just another example of a pedophile priest," she said. "It's been 10 years since people started coming forward with these stories. How many more are there?"

The encounters began in late 1979 when Father Gwillim met the boy and offered him a lift home from a swimming lesson.

Judge Davey said Father Gwillim stopped his car in a Parkville side street and asked if the boy "wanted to do something nice for him". He then directed the child to perform oral sex.

Father Gwillim began regularly collecting the boy from his swimming lessons. The pair performed sexual acts on each other in the car, at a motel and in the presbytery at St Peter's.

Father Gwillim pleaded guilty last week to five counts of indecent assault on a child under 16 and four counts of gross indecency with a child under 16.

In July, the priest told police: "If we could do away with celibacy this would all go away. It was the sort of thing (where there was) a lovely slice of cake and I bloody well ate it."

Judge Davey said Father Gwillim had not used his position to influence the boy, who initially did not know he was a priest. He said that Father Gwillim had otherwise led an exemplary life.

Monsignor Les Tomlinson, from the Melbourne Archdiocese, said Father Gwillim had been formally stood down when the charges were laid. He would not be restored as a practising priest but there were no plans to formally remove him.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336887959.html

Suspended detective gets bail on drug allegations

By Steve Butcher

December 16, 2003

A Victorian detective charged last week by anti-corruption police with conspiracy to deal in drugs was released from custody yesterday on $100,000 bail.

Detective Sergeant Paul Dale, 34, who is suspended without pay, was described in court as being respected, well regarded and having had a distinguished career.

Dale, who faces a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted, was released on bail after a magistrate said the case against him was "less than overwhelming".

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard that he was arrested and charged last week with a fellow detective from the major drug investigation division, David Miechel.

It was alleged that Miechel and another man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were arrested in September after allegedly burgling a house and stealing drugs worth $1 million.

Dale faces four charges that include conspiracy to traffic large commercial quantities of ecstasy and ice amphetamines.

Miechel, 33, who was mauled by a police dog during his arrest outside the house in Oakleigh East, faces 16 charges that include trafficking large commercial quantities of ecstasy and ice and trafficking LSD.

Prosecutor Damien Maguire said Dale had to show exceptional circumstances why detention in custody was not justified.

Detective Senior Sergeant Murray Gregor, from the police anti-corruption division, said drugs worth a conservative $1.3 million were involved in the charges. He agreed with defence barrister Ian Hill, QC, that there was no evidence implicating Dale in any of a number of telephone intercepts.

Mr Hill submitted that the prosecution case rested on the word of a man who previously lied to police and who had a serious record of convictions.

Mr Maguire said Dale had not shown exceptional circumstances and that any delay from the time of his arrest until trial was not exceptional.

Magistrate Lisa Hannan, in granting bail, disagreed. She said there would be a significant delay - analysis of the drugs would not be resolved until next May and a trial might not be held until 2005.

Ms Hannan said that while the charges were serious, Dale had ties to Victoria, had no previous convictions and any risk he might pose while on bail could be met by strict conditions.

Dale, who will reappear in March, must report regularly to police, not approach witnesses and keep away from ports and airports.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336887485.html