THE TIP OF THE BRIMSTONE - PART 1

Terrorism has become a real concern in modern society. Whenever we hear the word we think of extremists, the kind of nutjobs that claim ties to religion, insisting some malignant entity has told them to commit sadistic acts of cowardice to force on others (conveniently) the kind of sick ideologies in which they themselves believe. But stop and think about the word and you realise that terrorism is nothing new. Terrorism is the use of extreme fear to force others to bend knee to the rule of those inflicting it, so that those using it can gain and maintain power.

Our governments are very good at pointing the finger at others and expressing outrage as foreign societies and political rivals use terror and inflict Human Rights violations to force their rule on the most vulnerable, the disadvantaged, the weak and oppressed. Our governments will even spend billions of dollars fighting against these vile behaviours, and justify the deaths and continued suffering of innocents in campaigns of Commissions and war waged to overthrow brutal tyrants. It is considered a noble, righteous action, but the excuses, even the act itself, is hypocritical in the face of reality.


Western society is plagued by a festering canker, our communities founded on stagnant, decaying ideologies that are infected by an entrenched culture of corruption. Terrorism is a daily way of life for far too many people in our own countries, and our government’s bureaucratic process ensures that these horrors rarely make the media. It is our very laws, policies and procedures that are used to circumvent justice by reducing legal outcomes to commodities the most disadvantaged cannot access let alone afford, and allow too many police, public servants and so-called political representatives to isolate and silence victims while concealing and enabling predators, crime, systemic failure, and injustice.

Don’t kid yourself – child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse are acts of terror. They have been inflicted on victims every day for countless decades. Even if a victim manages to escape the direct attentions of abusers, they continue to live in terror, the psychological (and too often physical injuries) forever impacting upon their lives. The fact that these vile practices continue unabated despite scores, hundreds, thousands of acts of extreme violence, deaths, inquests and recommendations, speaks volumes of just how far this rampant, entrenched culture of corruption goes.

In mid-2016, I received the official response from the police in Victoria for the Timeline of Abuse I was permitted to submit back in March. I had been instructed by a member of the Victorian police in Victoria (we’ll call him ‘Bollard One’) to submit it – with as much detail as possible – to a Constable in the Queensland police force, who would submit it to (we’ll call him) ‘Bollard Two’, an officer who had previously failed to ask me to do so three years earlier. He, in turn, would forward it on to a specialist in [DELETED], where it would reviewed and assessed. This was the process for offences committed in another State.

After six weeks, I received the official response. It arrived on a Monday. I had a sick feeling that something wasn’t right all that day. I didn’t get the email until Wednesday. Our computer was having problems and we had to reboot the whole thing and then reload the programs. It still has problems, particularly loading content from the Internet, like emails. Sometimes it takes a while before we can open them, even if the account is open and we can see there is mail there, we cannot open it. It’s weird.

What’s weirder is the official response. While ‘Bollard Two’ indicated that nobody doubted that I had spoken truthfully, the response would be absolutely nothing. No action. Apparently, after many months on my part seeking answers elsewhere, Statute laws and the chance of a conviction mean they have no interest in pursuing the matter. There will be no investigation. They would not even bother speaking to those I had named, claiming any accusations made by others would simply be denied. The matter is closed. There is not even an official record of my report that can be accessed. Again, I was advised to stop talking about it or trying to get help.


Unfortunately, and after a thorough review of the documentation you forwarded, there will be no further investigation into this matter by myself.  The information was reviewed by a Sergeant from [DELETED], who then consulted the Detective Sergeant at the [DELETED] Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team.  I was unaware that you had already been down this path.  I am aware that you have pursued these matters via many means and I am sorry that I am unable to assist you further.  I agree fully with the comments made by [we’ll call her ‘Bollard Three’] sent you on the [DELETED], in particular, the likelihood of the matters going before a court. 

No one is doubting the information you have presented, but the bottom line is, I believe there is nothing more the Victoria Police or myself can do based on the circumstances you have outlined.  Please, also understand that this is not a part of a conspiracy on my or any other member of the Victoria Police to cover up the matters you have raised.


Once again, I contacted a legal firm for advice. I’ve tried this several times over the years. A week later a girl called to organise a phone conversation with a lawyer, apologising for the delay. They had suffered a problem retrieving my message from their website email contact access. The following day, a different girl called and made the same apologies and wanted to organise a phone call with a lawyer. She had no record of anyone previously arranging this and I hadn’t bothered to ask the first girl what her name was.

When the lawyer called, he wasn’t interested in the details of the abuse, or looking at any of the evidence or the Timeline of Abuse I’d submitted. He wanted to know if I knew how much money my parents had. Then asked who else I’d told and what they’d said. Then he told me nobody can sue the government for failures in the public service and there was nothing more I could do. He advised me to stop talking about it or trying to get help.

I found myself in that very, very dark, lonely place I had occupied so many years ago. What was the point of going on? There’s only one way left to end the injustice. The next day, one of my wife’s work colleagues committed suicide. A few weeks later, a woman on a domestic violence and child abuse forum did the same after months of being trolled by the same individuals, unable to deal with the failures and aggression of Family Services. For some reason, the pages referencing her have been removed and are now no longer available.

In my case, the officer that reviewed my Timeline of Abuse – ‘Bollard Two’ - had spoken to me almost a year earlier. The conversation lasted three minutes. She hadn’t bothered to listen to my account of the abuse, or ask for any statement or evidence. Her manner was rude and aggressive, then she dismissed me and hung up. Given the content of that Timeline, I doubt she even read it.

You see, ‘Bollard Two’ works in the very same police station as one of the people involved in the abuse and other immoral and criminal acts that I recorded in that Timeline of Abuse once did. He and another of the abusers were friends of another officer there, one who became a Chief Prosecutor in that town. That particular station also has, according to several sources on the Internet, a high incidence of misconduct and corruption, and even had the highest record in the entire State of Victoria.


I have exhausted every avenue of possible help available to reveal those crimes. Like many victims, I am not trained in the intricacies of the law and have no real understanding of the bureaucratic process. I simply needed help to report crimes and systemic failure, but the police, Child Safety Services, the Ombudsman, Hetty Johnston and Bravehearts, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, Crime and Misconduct Commission, Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay, IBAC, politicians, and even Rosie Batty in her new position have no interest in exposing and addressing these failures and this entrenched culture of corruption in the very agencies that are supposed to help victims get help and justice.

When these people refuse to heed warnings, and actively silence victims and whistle-blowers, there is an absence of social justice and corruption festers and thrives because it need not hide in the shadows. When the accused are afforded the presumption of innocence but the victims are not, the victim is automatically assumed to be a liar, undermining any possibility of equality of justice. When the burden of proof is placed on the victim alone, with no investigation by authorities, and the bar is continually reset until that evidence fails, there is no possibility of even considering the facts let alone obtaining justice, at all.

Therefore, since nobody in a position of authority has shown any interest in doing their jobs and what is right, a sterilised copy of that Timeline of Abuse has been shared here for anyone who wishes to read it. The names of individuals involved have been changed for legal reasons: a victim is not allowed to identify their abusers and others who have failed to render assistance because doing so is considered a breach of their privacy rights and slanderous, liable and defamatory despite the incidents usually being cold, hard – often confronting – fact.

This is the horror in which the victims of child abuse, domestic violence and other crimes must suffer. They are not allowed to speak of what was inflicted upon them as their rights were (and continue to be) denied while those that violated them continue to live their lives, hiding in plain sight, never held to account for what they did and often continuing with, profiting from, and escalating, their crimes. Worse, the victims not only endure a life sentence – with all the psychological, emotional, physical and financial hardships that come with it – but are forced, by the law, to be complicit in any future crimes their abusers commit because they must remain silent.

Over the years, I have witnessed too much ignorance, bigotry, hypocrisy and projection that too many predators inflict on others. Many of them even claim they are Christians. If you read some of the responses to posts on Facebook, then you know what I mean. Cyber-bullying. Narcissistic, self-absorbed, sociopathic cowardice at its best. Disgusting creatures who mock victims of rape, domestic violence, child abuse and paedophilia, blame the victim, and accuse all victims of lying for the assumption of false testimony to gain financially.

The only thing I can say to those trolls is that not everyone thinks like them. When they claim someone is a liar for having the courage to speak of what they have ‘allegedly’ suffered – because they never came forward earlier – that troll demonstrates idiocy that makes good people wonder how said troll survives the day. How do we know a victim never came forward earlier? How do we know how the trauma affected their self-esteem? What would we know of the psychological hold an abuser has on their victim?

It’s very easy, too easy, to dismiss a complaint, an ‘allegation’ as a lie. It’s too easy to hypocritically apply a presumption of innocence to the accused while assuming the victim is a liar. It’s too easy for scumbags to respond with comments like “you talk crap” and “get over it”. Those were the attitudes of authorities within the Catholic Church. Look how that turned out. Those are the attitudes of too many authorities within the police and public service, and even the media, and in decades to come we will say the same: look how that turned out.

It’s not enough for public figures in positions of authority to make the right, opportunistic, politically motivated sounds yet maintain the status quo and continue to force victims to remain silent. The tired old argument that the job of helping victims is hard, traumatic and thankless is unacceptable. We get that. Nobody disputes that. The good ones are not the problem. But step back. Think about it. The life of a victim of child abuse, domestic violence and other crimes isn’t easy either. In fact, it’s harder.

A victim doesn’t get paid for their suffering. They do not have an opportunity to expose what was inflicted upon them and others. They do not get to clock off at five. They do not get to walk away from what they have suffered if it gets too hard, unless it involves an action leading to their death. They have a hard life, twenty-four seven, with no remuneration and, far too often, some arsehole who is supposed to help doing the exact opposite, then justifying their inaction or covering-up their failure through laws, policies and procedures specifically designed to circumvent justice by isolating and silencing victims while concealing and enabling predators, crime, systemic failure and injustice.


The excuse of ‘not enough evidence to warrant an investigation’ is self-serving. Victims, especially children, are not schooled in the intricacies of the law. Most predators do not allow their victims to document the abuse, then admit it was them that inflicted it. How can a victim gather all the evidence when they may be unaware of other victims and how would that evidence even be admissible? Suppression of information, forcing victims to remain silent, prevents other victims from hearing of abusers and coming forward with supporting evidence. The current ‘take no action’ response protects predators and should have always been replaced with ‘take no chances’.

Here’s an opportunity to see what abuse does to victims, and how a lack of action conceals and enables predators. How predators escalate when the authorities and laws, policies and procedures that circumvent justice force victims to remain silent. How victims sometimes become predators themselves, their personalities over-written by that of the abuser. How those who force others to remain silent are complicit, and how society fails when bad people are able to force good people to do nothing.

Read through all of the Timeline of Abuse pages included on this Blog, and when you are done, ask yourself how the authorities could have allowed these immoral behaviours to not only go unchecked, but to continue and escalate the way they did. Then ask yourself if the things detailed are crimes and worth investigating. Then ask yourself two more questions: what kind of society allows victims to be denied justice, and what kind of legacy do we want to leave for future generations.

My grandfather wanted to build something wonderful, leaving all his grandchildren land within a few kilometres of one another so we could be close and work together as friends as well as relatives. He wanted us all to have a future where we were not lost, impoverished and unproductive. Unfortunately, he refused to listen to those who were loyal enough to warn him of problems including predation, and even punished them and then rewarded the people who caused harm and wanted to corrupt – and ultimately destroyed – his legacy. In reality, his actual legacy was the exact opposite of what he intended.

This is the same legacy we see the Australian government establishing, and it is reflected in the governments of other Western societies. The ideologies of freedom, equality, justice, liberty, meritocracy and accountability are hypocrisy because the reality is the absence of these, where victims and whistle-blowers are too often silenced and predators rewarded by concealing and enabling crimes and systemic failure. What we do know, is that the only way that those who are part of the problem can ever be part of the solution is if they step down so better people can fix their mess.

The only way to end the entrenched culture of corruption in the cyclical, self-perpetuating, and unnavigable bureaucracy, is by applying the same recommendations the government run Royal Commissions into Unions and Churches have tabled. Foremost among these is an end to the practice of ‘internal investigation’, a conflict of interest that inevitably leads to cover-ups to protect those involved. If you doubt this assertion, have a look at the facts, close your mouth, engage your brain, and the reality becomes all too apparent.

As a functional society based on equality and justice, we need to have Independent Oversight, external and impartial agencies to represent the most disadvantaged, consider all the evidence, make sure justice is served  and victims get the help they need, make recommendations to correct and prevent systemic failures, and limited authority to ensure those are implemented. If the injustice and corruption in the Churches and government have taught us anything, it is nothing to do with equality and justice, it is that while those who are silent may be said to condone, those who force others to remain silent are complicit.



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