Addenda
Reports today of Junot Diaz’s spectacularly offensive behaviour mirror the experience of myself and partner with our harrasser Robert Cripps. The courts, in our instance, supported Cripps’ behaviour determining we had no right to defend ourselves. Why? In part, it was because he used his traumatic war experience as a Vietnam Vet (claims he put in court) to influence how his behaviour would be perceived, the first anyone in the room other than he and his lawyer had heard on the subject. Diaz was raped as child and was a victim. Like our harrasser Diaz has chosen to take this victimhood and use it against others.
You’d think they would use their experiences to become more complete humans. Instead they use their experiences to get away with treating others badly. In the case of people like Diaz and Cripps they wear their trauma as an excuse and a shield that deflects any deserving consequences that emerge from their behaviour towards others.
So do we accept this is valid?
Traumatic experiences give no person the right to harrass, bully, or humiliate another.
The galling aspect all victims endure in such cases is to have their rights subsumed, diminished or completely denied in order that the bully with their moronic behviour will feel better about themselves. Victims apparently should not vex such persons in the first place. Galling.
Movements such as #metoo exist because when it comes down to it, victims have no support or influence without group action of some kind. Victims are not believed in courts (our case), are not believed or helped within thier own social circles or are literally thrown to the wolves because witnesses fear the same treatment or same ostracisation they see the victim receive. Apparently Diaz’s behaviour was ‘known’ so why was he still professionally lauded and given prestigious gigs (Sydney Writers Festival)? I cite the above and the reasons raised by other victims as to why this may be the case, in the link below. It was/is no different here within the Melbourne art scene. They don’t care we were victims, it is as if we don’t exist. Cripps may be less of a “household name” than is Diaz but his behaviour was still well known and witnessed by many in the Melbourne arts scene - but if it wasn’t them coping it they didn’t care to assist those who did. And, others who did “cop it” withdrew their stories as soon as they found out thier bully had sued us over the same behaviour
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-05/junot-diaz-pulled-from-sydney-writers-festival-sexual-misconduct/9731000
Defamation Law
Reports today of Junot Diaz’s spectacularly offensive behaviour mirror the experience of myself and partner with our harrasser Robert Cripps. The courts, in our instance, supported Cripps’ behaviour determining we had no right to defend ourselves. Why? In part, it was because he used his traumatic war experience as a Vietnam Vet (claims he put in court) to influence how his behaviour would be perceived, the first anyone in the room other than he and his lawyer had heard on the subject. Diaz was raped as child and was a victim. Like our harrasser Diaz has chosen to take this victimhood and use it against others.
You’d think they would use their experiences to become more complete humans. Instead they use their experiences to get away with treating others badly. In the case of people like Diaz and Cripps they wear their trauma as an excuse and a shield that deflects any deserving consequences that emerge from their behaviour towards others.
So do we accept this is valid?
Traumatic experiences give no person the right to harrass, bully, or humiliate another.
The galling aspect all victims endure in such cases is to have their rights subsumed, diminished or completely denied in order that the bully with their moronic behviour will feel better about themselves. Victims apparently should not vex such persons in the first place. Galling.
Movements such as #metoo exist because when it comes down to it, victims have no support or influence without group action of some kind. Victims are not believed in courts (our case), are not believed or helped within thier own social circles or are literally thrown to the wolves because witnesses fear the same treatment or same ostracisation they see the victim receive. Apparently Diaz’s behaviour was ‘known’ so why was he still professionally lauded and given prestigious gigs (Sydney Writers Festival)? I cite the above and the reasons raised by other victims as to why this may be the case, in the link below. It was/is no different here within the Melbourne art scene. They don’t care we were victims, it is as if we don’t exist. Cripps may be less of a “household name” than is Diaz but his behaviour was still well known and witnessed by many in the Melbourne arts scene - but if it wasn’t them coping it they didn’t care to assist those who did. And, others who did “cop it” withdrew their stories as soon as they found out thier bully had sued us over the same behaviour
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-05/junot-diaz-pulled-from-sydney-writers-festival-sexual-misconduct/9731000
Defamation Law
Defamation law was used as a tool to victimise and bully us personally
for reporting our bully and our experience. Furthermore, it was used to
disparage and discredit us, and our art, personally and professionally.
Defending the defamation claims of our bully resulted in an outcome that has
left us destroyed financially and artistically. We were first attacked by the
plaintiff and then by the legal institutions in Australia and finally by a
complicit media.
In regards the #Metoo #NameYourPig era our situation remains more one of
#ButNotYou.
We reported via our online art websites our experience of the inexcusable
bullying behaviour of a gallery director, of us, of other artists, and of many
of his staff and volunteers. His unprofessionalism and inappropriate conduct had been prior knowledge of others in the arts scene, mainly in
Melbourne but he had a history elsewhere in the art sector, where he was
"castigated" by the industry and was known as a
"troublemaker". His repeated aggressive abuse of us, and our art was unacceptable
and we had the right to defend our art and selves, ...you would think.
Some victims and witnesses had complained online prior our experiences
and prior our online complaints. When the same bully sued us those prior
complainants went to ground, pulling their complaints from online, or refusing
to come forward to speak as a witness to their issue during the trial. Witnesses
to his treatment of us refused to come forward - one witness who'd informed an
artist friend to avoid the gallery because of what he'd witnessed at our
exhibition opening declared complete memory loss of the incident.
All feared being sued. They feared what did eventually happen to us,
would happen to them too. They were also afraid of exposure to perceived detrimental
professional ramifications by association if they came forward.
These are the reasons why #Metoo has taken so long to even emerge and is
why spinoff inspirations such as #NameYourPig are understandable.
Those brave enough to come forward in our case told of a range of
inappropriate, unprofessional to despicable behaviours - the plaintiff himself,
even his own witnesses demonstrated the validity of the claims we made and that
our witnesses confirmed. The weight of evidence, facts, statements, meant our
defence was sound and the case un-losable.
But, we were later told, "The truth is what the judge says it is."
Against the weight of evidence – and in some instance in contradiction
to the evidence cited – and witness statements the trial judge found entirely for
the plaintiff. Oh, wait, that is not entirely true, the judge did find the
plaintiff had improperly withheld money owed to us, awarding our defence around
$3:00 AUD to cover the lost interest. The contempt for us, shown by the judge,
underpins the problems with defamation law.
The institutions of the State, being Australia, punitively awarded
massive costs against us. Costs that meant we lost everything we'd materially
worked for, as well as our dignity, to our bully. Our victimisation was
ruthlessly, systematic made complete by the State, the State's actor, being the
judiciary.
Defamation law in how it is conducted in this country assists in preventing
exposure of bullies and perpetrators. It does so through fear of its power to
destroy defendants, preventing the exposure, or prosecution, of already
powerful bullies. Defamation law in our case protected the bully who used it to
further victimise the victims.
 |
| "Judicatura (with pet/s)" - drawing, graphite on paper, Lee-Anne Raymond © 2018 |
The Media
Additionally, a complicit media supported this victimisation, actually
assisting in its amplification, when it could have done the opposite by looking
properly at the case.
Media reaction to our case was the antithesis of recent #Metoo exposés. In 2014 the media, reporting
on our case, simply regurgitated verbatim distortion of facts and evidence fed
them in the trial judge's media release. The judge being outraged more by the
atheist art of the defendants, as emphasised by an opportunistic counsel for
the plaintiff, aimed to ensure our exposure in the media would be in as poor as
possible a light. That it was untrue fabrication and distortion of facts, a
further defamation of our moral rights and us, didn't matter to a media hungry
for salacious headlines.
The reason for our complaints in the first place were due to the attack
on us and our art by the plaintiff's repeated accusations the art and we were
racist because of the criticism of religions. The plaintiff had couched his
shouted accusations at us in claims that were racist towards a culture not even
remotely depicted in our art. It was pointed out to him that this
kind of racist rant was historically what informed Nazi propaganda. Relaying historical
facts to a belligerent bully turned into headlines of the kind that would be
laughable if not for the fact they contribute to our ongoing denial of justice
and to our loss of dignity, resulting in a petition to Geneva (noted at conclusion).
Chief among the complaints by the plaintiff overall at the trial, in
his own words under examination by his own counsel, was that his business, an
art gallery was severely damaged by what we had exposed; he could no longer
procure female volunteers and that he had been unable to attract "a
lover". Declaring that he "loved women" and that he was "very
flirtatious" the judge ruled we had essentially damaged the plaintiff's
flirtatiousness. He lied that he had never caused our exhibition harm, claiming
that he always was, and still was "very supportive of the artists"
whilst under cross examination contradicting this claim confirming he had a
problem with the "whole lot" [exhibition and artists] and had a duty
to protect his staff and volunteers from it and apparently from us.
The trial judge was unconcerned with his behaviour with regard to us, or
our art, and the appeal court over-looked it as merely being "the milieu"
in which artists and gallery directors apparently operate. No understanding of
#Metoo concepts there...
Blame, Shame and Defame the Victim
We, our matter, had become an embarrassment to the Supreme Court of
Victoria, and so, in stark contrast with the trial judge's media attracting
release, the mostly reversed on appeal result went entirely unheralded. And,
though media were present at both events only one was reported on. All media involved
have ignored our efforts to have the appeal result reported. News of most of a
trial judge's findings, previously salaciously reported, being reversed on
appeal, under any circumstance, you would expect, should cause great interest
from the media. However, all prior keen interest shown had vaporised and has mysteriously
failed to materialise ever since.
The money we were forced under penalty to pay the plaintiff post trial was
ordered returned on appeal but without similarly imposed timelines or penalty for
failure to do so. It meant we would have to spend another 160k to get it back
from the plaintiff via legal action we could not finance. We had exhausted everything
on appeal. This was as deliberate as the overturned punitive damages awarded
against two artists with few financial means beyond their family home - which
was, by the appeal verdict stage, all gone. After losing the appeal the plaintiff
declared bankruptcy (hiding all of his assets) meaning, a) we could take no
action against him in the conventional courts anyway and, b) we'd have to pay a
trustee around 160k to progress their recommendation that 7 matters regarding
the bankruptcy warranted further investigation.
So, why would a victim come forward to denounce his or her bully
publicly? They will be dragged through the courts, made out to be liars, be stripped
of all financial assets, caused further damage in the media and even with
confirmation of their original claims will be left to swing in the noose the complicit
media had helped to string up.
The power wielded by a serial bully, misogynist or predator alike is
amplified and is emboldened under the protection of such system-supported
dysfunction. If a victim is brave (or stupid) enough to test this I refer to the
experience described above.
Ultimately the mere threat of punitive defamation court action prevents
most from speaking out. Indeed it looms as a threat for witnesses who feel exposed to litigation too. Combined with our actual experience this is the "chilling
effect" and its realisation through defamation law.
Defamation law is not only a threat to victims of bullies it is a threat
to an open, just society, to transparency and "free speech" in how it acts
to chill speech and by extension stifle an otherwise free (though easily confused) media. It is not a
new concern for the media and is regularly pointed out by commentators on its
own behalf.
Problems exist due to a persistently flawed understanding of
defamation law in how it is conducted in Australia.
The writer of the article above makes this inaccurate statement:
"Defamation turns on truth and falsity. No wrong is committed by telling the truth about a person."
In regard to Australian defamation law this is entirely wrong. And, it
is why all journalism and comment by anyone not actually practicing or experiencing defamation
law in Australia continue to get it wrong. Truth in Australia is irrelevant, as it is not a
complete defence. The if you have told
the truth you have nothing to fear mantra is completely without basis in
the Australian jurisdiction.
To defend a defamation in Australia merely demonstrates an admission to having defamed. You, the defendant, must then prove, not the truth of the claim/s you made, but the truth as against the imputations manufactured by a plaintiff. 'Truth' is a relative concept in Australian defamation law.
Australian defamation law is plaintiff
weighted in the first place and its feature tool, defamation imputation, is solely at the
disposal of the plaintiff. A plaintiff's claim, about what is written,
is that an imputation, or "innuendo" has been conveyed by what was
written or said. The plaintiff decides the meaning and it is then this meaning or
innuendo that a defendant is required to defend. This is precisely how
informing a ranting, belligerent, obnoxious gallery director that his repeated racist claims
belong historically in Nazi era propaganda becomes a screaming headline "Hitler
rant costs artists dearly" years down the track.
The media perpetuate the problems with defamation law by reporting,
without understanding; nonsensically what they are fed one screaming headline
after another. It is like a protection racket, infecting not only defamation
law but also the balance and functionality of democracy itself because how
defamation law is conducted in this country means you cannot reference history
in a debate as you risk having a defamation claim made against you! On this
basis our case should never have passed the first court hearing. There was
never a defamation to answer to but there was a disgruntled litigious plaintiff
who did not accept his historically based racism was the problem.
Additionally, as if the above was not nearly enough, under Australian
defamation law, perversely, truth does not even matter. The appeal court ultimately
found though what we'd proven what we claimed to be true we had no right to inform. Truth is not even close to being a defence
in Australia truth is irrelevant.
"Off with their heads!"
Like any protection racket defamation law can be abused from within. A
judge on a personal crusade can crush divergence by applying meanings that bear
no resemblance to the truth or statements made before him.
Our case is cautionary and is illustrative as to why, disturbing as it
may be for some to acknowledge, defamation law as it stands permits
unacceptable behaviour to go on unchallenged, and indeed to flourish for decades
if not for generations.
Defamation law is a destructive relic of a different age and it must go entirely
as it is unlikely to change enough to fit a modern society's values and
expectations.
For now, we barely survived the Alice in Wonderland experience, lost
down the rabbit hole into a court system where a real life Red Queen screamed "Off
with their heads!". It is a land where we, the victims, were dealt with
as perpetrators, punished, shamed and defamed for daring to out our bully, our
"pig".
Still shattered we've found nothing has changed for the better, not
least because nobody knew, or cared less, because it didn't happen to them.
Potentially an era post #Metoo, post #NameYourPig may see change for the
better.
A petition has since been lodged with Geneva under the ICCPR.
