Australia - The Right To Fair Trials
http://www.robertsonj32.freeserve.co.uk/Australia-TheRightToFairTrials.htm
A Call to Law Schools and
Lawyers to Study Two Australian Case Histories Where There Are Abuses Of
Human Rights
This is An Actual Present Time Overview - To the Reader –
links as per ‘poison pen letter’ below
take you to more information.
Email from John Robertson (me)
November 12, 2003
I have lodged the submission
below as you see, but not living in SA leaves me without an MP to see that my
submission is fully considered.
This relates back to Easter,
1974 when we made up the Coober Pedy Game at Wellington.A poison
pen letter followed; the Tax Office then wrongly attacked our
business (you were all shareholders) before we went to NZ.
In 1984 Ian Ward QC of Sydney
was preparing to represent us in Adelaide in substantial claims for damages
against the TAX people.As shareholders you would have been entitled to a
share of the damages received.
To block Ward, some SA people
convicted and jailed me.
I have inserted in
brown special family related notes.
Some SA media are interested.If
you are prepared to say something let me know.
What I am asking you all to do
is write a letter to your SA MP and as a shareholder of JR Export Pty Ltd (
now liquidated) and as a family member, write how the 1974 TAX attack, and
the subsequent blocking of Ward, hurt you and to ask the MP to fully address
the issues raised in my submission that has been emailed as you see below.
Now to my brown family notes
Love
John/Dad
AmendedSubmissionToECI_intoDPP
November 11 2003
Mr Paul Collett
The Secretary, Economic Committee Inquiry into DPP
Parliament House
Adelaide
South Australia
Dear Sir
This is the airmailed confirmation of emails sent
yesterday of my amended and final submission to the Economic
Committee Inquiry into DPP.
Please acknowledge by email to JohnRobertson@freedomsolution.info the receipt of
this letter and the URL that I may access it to follow the progress of the
Inquiry.
Sincerely
John Robertson
St Osyth
Essex, UK
-------Original Message-------
From:freedom <JohnRobertson@freedomsolution.info>
Date: 10 November 2003 23:25:14
To:davenport@parliament.sa.gov.au;
Cc:Robert Semmens ;
dpp@agd.sa.gov.au
Subject: Amended Submission to Economic
Committee Inquiry into DPP
Amended Submission
to Economic Committee Inquiry into DPP
AND to Paul Rofe and Robert Semmens
By John William Robertson
November 10 2003
Having finished this submission I can see that this submission is more
comprehensive than my letter sent to Mr Rofe in about 1999 and also I see Mr
Rofe’s words on the internet, November 8, 2003 saying "The sole function of the Office of the DPP is to
seek justice," Mr Rofe said. "It is not about winning or losing or
maximising results .http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,7802423%255E2682,00.html
My submission is that Paul Rofe perverted the course of justice in
January 1989 when he refused to prosecute Barbara Anne Thorpe for Perjury.
In fairness to Mr Rofe, and as an extra $500,000 a year has just been approved to boost
resources at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, I
am inviting him here to reconsider his 1989 decision to not prosecute Thorpe
and to proceed against her forthwith. That paves the way for the
convictions of Semmens and me to be quashed and for compensation to us to be
settled.
BACKGROUND
In 1971 my business, JR
Export, was listed in the Commonwealth’s Report on Export Consultants by
Panel 38 as a specialised export consultant for selected products in the US
market.
In 1978 Prime Minister Fraser and
Trade Minister Anthony announced a Commonwealth Export Campaign and I
responded with a public seminar at the Hotel Australia. I printed 100 copies
of my 'Yellow Book' recommending that people form partnerships to export
sheepskin car seat covers and opal to the United States of America
(USA). Robert Semmens, an accountant, attended with one or two
associates and expressed his interest.
I took copies of my Yellow Book to
both the Export Development Grants Board and to the Australian Taxation
Office in Canberra to show them my proposal of aiming to set up 1,000
Sheepskin Shop clients in the USA and to invite their comments.
-----, I first thought of
Sheepskin Shops when a NZ Motel Owner and I discussed what could be a good
type of business for our daughters.
Later in 1978 I took Semmens to
New Zealand to meet my NZ business contacts and to view some excellent NZ
Sheepskin Shops for us to use as 'models' when setting up the planned shops
in USA.
In early 1979 Semmens (then a
practicing Accountant and Member of the Australian Society of Accountants)
with a number of his accounting practice clients created about nine (9)
'Export Partnerships' to export South Australian made Sheepskin Car Seat
Covers to the US, and these Export Partnerships became clients of my two (2)
Export Consulting companies. Semmens included five (5) Trustee
Companies as part of the 'Partnership Structuring', however that was no
concern of mine.
The Semmens Group speedily opened
up four or five retail Sheepskin Shops in the US to enable them to sell shopfuls
of stock to credit-worthy Americans. Semmens together with other
accountants/consultants (Jon Noolan, John Konstas and others) had done
careful financial projections and Semmens submitted this information to the
(then) Export Development Grants Board before embarking on the venture.
Semmens got the green light in principle from Tom Roberts of the Adelaide
Office of the Grants Board.
This is when JR Export Pty Ltd
earned big fees and we planned to build a new house
In late 1979 the Grants Board had
employee strife and also the then Treasurer John Howard did not budget
sufficient money for the Grants Scheme. No Grants were paid to the
Semmens Group, so the budgeted cash income for the opening export market
promotion was missing. To this end, Semmens went into ‘Fire Sale Mode’
and all parties involved licked their wounds and got on with their lives.
THE ‘INVESTIGATION’ BY THORPE AND
CALABY OF CORPORATE AFFAIRS COMMISSION
About three years later (in 1983),
Thorpe together with Calaby called at an opal jewellery shop my daughter and
I were running at Hahndorf to ‘ask some questions’. I readily agreed.
With the resulting Semmens Group
cash flow shortage from late 1979 they became slow in paying the remaining
partnership debts. An airfreight company (Meadows) mistakenly put the
five Trust Companies into liquidation. The mistake was corrected and
Meadows were paid personally by Semmens for & on behalf of the partnerships.
Calaby & Thorpe were
'investigating' the five Trust Companies that never had a proof of debt
lodged against them!!!
THE CONSPIRACY TO FABRICATE
EVIDENCE
Thorpe asked me five times if I
knew ‘such and such’ different company and five times I answered ‘No.’
(Two company names were Warszawa Pty Ltd and Amazonas (1979) Pty Ltd)
Peter Calaby and Barbara Anne
Thorpe, Senior Investigators for SA’s Corporate Affairs Commission, conspired
to falsify the record of interview between Thorpe and me, John William
Robertson. Thorpe, on Calaby’s advice, upon returning to her office
unstapled her hand written record, rewrote several pages of questions and
several pages of answers, omitting and changing several material passages
including all references to the five companies.
Thorpe then re-stapled the pages
and had the record typed. At that time her action did not matter as she
ceased working on the file soon afterwards.
The original pages contain an
extra set of staple holes.
MALICIOUS PROSECUTION
In 1984 Simon Lane of Corporate
Affairs Commission was told by persons unknown to me to prosecute me, so he
picked up Thorpe’s closed work and distorted it into a Malicious Prosecution
that succeeded because Thorpe committed perjury.
Lane acted as he did because Ian
Ward QC of Sydney had applied to be admitted to the South Australian Bar so
that he could present my civil claims for damages against Government people.
I phoned Ward upon receiving the summons instigated by Lane and he
immediately said, ‘That is their defence to your civil claims’.
That was the end of your chance
to get a share of the compensation (until now).
South Australian Legal People did not want Ward to be in the South Australian
Supreme Court.
THE PERJURY OF BARBARA ANNE THORPE
In 1985, Thorpe lied to
Magistrate Peter Kelly at my Trial in the Magistrates Court for aiding and
abetting Robert Semmens breach para.374C(2) of the Companies Act (SA) 1962
for knowingly being a party to carrying on a business of a company, namely
Warszawa Pty Ltd and Amazonas (1979) Pty Ltd for a fraudulent purpose.
Thorpe told Kelly that she had not edited her record of interview of me.
At the end of my trial I reported
Thorpe’s perjury to Detective Polacek at SA Police Headquarters. My
solicitor, Joe Kilby of Johnsons, later advised me to spend money on having
forensic tests done by documents experts Don Gangell and David Ellen of
Amdel, Glenside, SA.
The perjury in 1985 was Thorpe’s
sole doing – she should have simply said to Magistrate Peter Kelly that yes,
she had edited the interview notes by rewriting some pages. My Trial
would have then taken an opposite course and I would not have been jailed and
she would not be a perjurer.
My trial went wrong at the moment
of Thorpe’s perjury as the Magistrate chose to believe all of her evidence,
much of which was a fabrication by omission of accounting information
(because she closed her file and did not record payments that Semmens and or
the Export Partnerships made).
About three years after Thorpe’s
perjury (1988), Detective Polacek finished his investigation and the SA
Police submitted a report for Thorpe’s prosecution for perjury to Paul Rofe,
then Acting Crown Prosecutor.
In January 1989 Rofe refused to
prosecute Thorpe and so enabled the SA Full Supreme Court to disregard
Thorpe’s perjury, rescind my appeal to them, and send Robert Semmens and me
to jail for two months, giving us both criminal records.
South Australia owes me a lot of
compensation as a result of South Australian Government people acting to
corrupt Commonwealth Matters. Income Tax and Export Grants are Commonwealth
Matters; South Australian Government workers got involved and took over the
responsibility for the wrong actions by Commonwealth people.
What was Rofe’s justification for
not prosecuting Thorpe?
I see a concise Australian legal
definition of Perjury at
http://elo.legalaid.qld.gov.au/Category/Criminal/Offences/perjury.htm
PERJURY
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Any person who in
any judicial proceeding knowingly
gives false evidence on any material issue, is guilty of a crime
called perjury .
Perjury is a very serious offence and attracts severe penalties. It applies to all courts
including the Family Court.
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The false evidence need not be given under
oath.
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It does not matter whether the false
evidence is given orally or in writing (eg: in an affidavit).
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Perjury can be committed by a child.
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A person who gives false evidence through
inadvertence cannot be guilty of perjury.
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The maximum penalty for perjury is 14 years
imprisonment, unless, if done in order to prove the conviction of another
of an offence carrying life imprisonment, when the maximum is life
imprisonment.
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The SA Police report was watertight; Thorpe did it.
Rofe refused to prosecute on the
grounds of no ‘material issue’.
THE MATERIAL ISSUES
After I was released from jail in
1990 I returned to Far North Queensland where I was then living. I
later saw Rofe twice while visiting Adelaide to seek the quashing of my
conviction. Rofe told me he had read Justice Michael White’s Judgement
and that Thorpe’s fabricated record of interview and false statement to
Magistrate Kelly made no difference to the outcome.
----- and -----, remember
White!?!?
Rofe’s excuse for not prosecuting
is ridiculous. Under SA’s uncivilised Appeal from a Magistrate Law
(Justice Zelling, 1979) my appeal to White was NOT a rehearing before a
Judge, as it would have been in Victoria. White REFUSED to look at new
evidence not available to me at my trial - the accounting evidence of Robert
Semmens and the evidence on Thorpe’s fabrication and perjury.
My solicitor, Joe Kilby, told me
that White was insisting on hearing my Appeal despite my application that he
not hear my appeal. White and I knew each other privately and White was
mentioned in one of my Supreme Court Claims for damages.
Kilby told me that he was not
going to be able to get the fresh evidence admitted by White so I told Kilby
that I would take over my own case and try to get the fresh evidence in
through my conduct of my Appeal.
I told White of the SA Police investigation
of Thorpe and he replied somewhat knowingly that nothing may come of that.
White also quipped to me, ‘You are on trial not the public servants.’
Rofe made his Decision not to prosecute Thorpe in January 1989; I received a
letter from Rofe in May 1989 telling me of that. I do not believe Rofe
made his decision based on White’s Judgement; I believe he looked at White’s
Judgement afterwards, just prior to seeing me on my later visits to Adelaide.
In any event White’s Judgement
carries no weight as he was biased and should have disqualified himself as
per my Application put to him by Kilby.
There was no lack of ‘Material
Issue’ at the time Rofe made his Decision in January 1989.
I was jailed and I
have a criminal record because I was said to have aided and abetted Semmens
to knowingly
carry on company business to ATTEMPT to defraud the Commonwealth Export
Grants Board when:
1. Thorpe destroyed the
record of me saying I did not even know the five named companies.
2. I was not a director,
shareholder, employee or anything else of those five ‘such and such’
companies.
3. Semmens did not attempt to
defraud the Grants Board. It was the Grants Board that actually
defrauded Semmens by giving him the green light in principle to put in the
export effort and money, then not paying the grants.
4. The five companies were
liquidated in error and nothing merited an investigation by Calaby and
Thorpe; Calaby was on a fishing expedition ‘because he saw names he knew’.
5. If Semmens had attempted to
defraud the Grants Board then the Board had a responsibility to prosecute
Semmens under the Commonwealth Act; they showed no interest in doing that.
Another part of Thorpe’s interview
of me that was deleted by Thorpe was a passage where I said ‘if there was a
fraud that is where the fraud was’. I was responding to an 'off the
cuff' question from Calaby and I was referring to my employees in the USA, Garren
McPhee and Gail McMurray and making the comment that I could not understand
why they had not actually sold any shopfuls of car seat covers to American
residents.
That interview was in 1983 and it
was not until 1988, when Polacek showed me the report of Documents Experts,
Gangell and Ellen, that I saw the fraud passage to trigger my memory of that
part of the 1983 interview.
Thorpe told Magistrate Kelly in
1985 that she recorded the 1983 interview so exactly that, ‘if he said um I
wrote down um’ yet she deleted the important words on fraud that I said.
If the record of interview put to
the Court had been accurate I would have remembered the fraud passage and
been able to brief my counsel, Brian Martin QC, so that he could have better
cross-examined McPhee.
After my trial I saw Garren McPhee
and he told me, ‘we could have tried harder to sell the shops to the
Americans.’
Early in 2003 Gail McMurray (who
still resides in Los Angeles where the 'beach head' shops were set up as part
of the initial exporting plan), saw my website and emailed to say hello and
to tell me how successful the 1979 promotion turned out for her and that she
was still in the sheepskin industry, along with many others.
In January 1989, Rofe decided that
it was OK for an investigator to set out to deceive by re-writing several
pages before having the record typed. And Rofe decided it was OK for the investigator to
tell the Magistrate that she did not edit her hand written record, when she
did. And Rofe decided that it was OK for the investigator to lie to
Polacek and say she made the changes before she interviewed me – only to get
caught out when I then said to Polacek, ‘Well she could not have re-written
my answers before she saw me, could she?’
Rofe perverted the
course of justice in January 1989 by deciding Thope’s actions were OK.
Rofe has caused great
damage to South Australia, Robert Semmens and me by ridiculously holding that
Thorpe’s fabrication of evidence and Perjury was not a material issue.
VICTIMS
Robertson: In 1983 I started evaluating my
idea of Developing the Opal Lands Waterway which would stretch from Port
Augusta to the Burdekin River in Far North Queensland. In 1984, to
raise money, I arranged with Ian Ward QC of Sydney for him to represent me in
Adelaide to win some civil claims for damages against some government
people. In retaliation, and to keep Ward away from the South
Australian Courts, someone told Lane to prosecute me.
The best years of my business life
were then taken from me by Thorpe committing perjury and by Rofe covering up
for her.
Semmens: Following unsuccessful appeals in 1982 to
the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (decision dated 12 May 1982) in relation
to his clients not being paid exporting grants from exporting activities
undertaken during 1979 and 1980, Semmens continued with his Accounting
Practice he established in 1973 and built it to successful business employing
some 25 people.
In or about July / August 1985 at
the Magistrates Court before Chivell regarding the matter of Semmens having
attempted fraud, Semmens chose not to give evidence on the grounds that he
had no case to answer, as the Prosecution had (in Semmens opinion) not proved
its case or produced evidence of him having attempted to commit fraud.
During Semmens appeal to the
Supreme Court to have the judgement of Chivell overturned, he was offered by
the Prosecution via Micheal David QC, a compromise to Plead Guilty, pay a
fine of $1,000 and have no conviction recorded. Semmens refused this plea
bargain and Michael David was successful in overturning the decision of
Chivell.
Subsequently, on appeal from Lane
to the Full Bench of the Supreme Court, O'Laughlan J on behalf of Prior J and
Another, reversed the decision ofthe Single Judge, Bolan J.Barry Beasley
(then a barrister) was upset by the O'Laughlan J flawed judgement and at his
expense Beasley sort leave to the High Court to have the matter appealed.
At a High Court sitting in
Adelaide, Semmens leave to appeal was denied on the Grounds
- There
was no longer in existence the State Laws governing the Companies Act
under which he was charged,
- The
Export Development Grants Act had been substantially changed and was now
administered by Austrade, and accordingly
- The
matter was of no public interest.
As a result of these actions,
- the
Australian Taxation Office rescinded Semmens licence as a Tax Agent,
- the
then Australian Society of Accountants (now CPA Australia) deregistered
Semmens as a Practicing Accountant,
- the
laws of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission prevented
Semmens from being a Director of his family companies and any other
company,
- Semmens
resigned as a member of other professional bodies including the Taxation
Institute of Australia, the Company Directors Association, the Institute
of Purchasing & Supply Management, the Life Underwriters Association
and others,
- the
Family Court granted Semmens wife a decree nisi and Semmens wife
requested that he not object ... thereby ending their 22 years of
marriage and causing severe stress and hardship to their 3 teenage
children,
- substantial
value of Semmens family assets were lost from the associated costs,
- Semmens
successful accounting practice was destroyed including all income and
goodwill,
- Semmens
good public standing and credibility were lost, and
- Semmens
no longer had the ability to conduct any business and was even unable to
get a job.
The best years of Semmens life have also been taken away
from him, and whilst he has from his determination and hardwork redirected
his life, the scars are deep rooted where there is no trust recognised by
Semmens in Governments and the Laws they make.
CONSPIRACY
Did the conspirators who told Lane to
prosecute Semmens and me also tell Rofe to not prosecute Thorpe?
Or was Rofe like Thorpe; doing
from experience what he knew the conspirators wanted him to do?
MY BONA FIDES
In about 1960 Alan Catamole of the
then Commonwealth Department of Trade saw in a Commonwealth Government report
that my business Roulf Fluorescent Lighting Co was one of the leaders in
Australian Light Fitting manufacturing. Catamole called at my factory
and asked me to start exporting my products. I took up his request.
In 2003, Gail McMurray reported
that my campaign to launch sheepskin car seat covers on the US market,
against the US plastic covers, proved to be successful for people and Nations
other than Semmens, his partners, and Australia.
John Robertson
-------Original Message-------
From: freedom
Date: 13 November 2003 12:16:45
To:Robert Semmens
Subject: Musings
Robert,
Now for a little musing. You telling me
of Lane's, 'I dd what I was told' and my recollection of Ward being surprised
at the cool response to his application to the SA Courts, and thinking of my
family having equal shareholding in JR Export PL, plus the Plea Bargain has
me thinking of contacting my pre-Matheson clients to ask them to write to
their MP's.
As I reflect - the 'no conviction recorded' appears to be
very important. At the time Chivell had alteady said his 'greed not
need' so was the damage done then, and by pleading guilty and by paying $1000
fine have still caused you to resign etc, as you did?
What happened to Chivell? I recall he resigned from
being a magistrate. I wonder if he was leaned on in his handling of our
trials, or was he just stupid?
When I was together with you before Chivell, trying
to get the documents from TAX and Grants that Ward had drafted the subpoenas
for, Chivell should have seen that my human rights to a fair trial were being
breached then and there,
I wonder if Chivell's conscience got to him and that is
why he quit the Bench?
I certainly did not get a fair trial and I am going to
start right now to prepare an application to the European Court of Human
Rights.
I have done the letter to the Governor bit and this
Submission to Parliament bit - Now to the big guns!
I will not actually lodge documents in any court as that
will gag me with sub-judice. First I will get it on my website.
So any further thoughts on Chivell, plea bargain, your
human rights?
You went for 'No Case' - The High Court would not hear
your legal argument - and I could not get the documentary evidence that Ward
told me I needed!
What a Set-Up!
Robbo
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