Any reference to CASACIR or its directors, shareholders, owners or operators relates to pre-14 February 2024 when the company was sold. In no way can anything said relate to the company or its new owners, operators, directors, and shareholders after that sale.
I have had significant problems with my legal team. Some of the issues relating to, what appears to me to be, their various inadequate representations are as follows:
2007-2008: Lewis Spaulding (solicitor)
- told council he would “control” me (how denigrating when all I was trying to do was protect our legal rights, and rights which Lewis was supposed to be, but was not, protecting on our behalf – it certainly appeared that he was acting more for council than for us);
- went considerably outside our costs agreement without discussion or agreement and insisted on immediate payment knowing that we were struggling to raise the money. This was so problematic that I was forced to take him to the legal practice board but they refused to take action against him, yet they later cancelled his licence for other unconscionable, illegal and somewhat similar conduct against a different client(!);
- repeatedly refused to pass on money paid into his trust account to pay the barrister; and
- refused to return my file until the legal practice board made him do so (and even then he refused to return the whole file).
Lewis was later taken off the solicitor’s role and had his licence at least temporarily cancelled for his conduct in relation to a different client.
VCAT 2008-2010: Craig Porter (barrister)
- went against a number of instructions, prior to and during the cases. This was including, but certainly not limited to, when he went against my explicit instructions and told tribunal members that I would not be putting in a formal complaint against their conduct (even though I had specifically told him that I wanted to put in a complaint because (1) they had significantly breached their own directions and instructions – instructions that, because man X, man Y and CASACIR had Peake present to answer any questions and that man X was to remain silent but they asked him questions and (2) had continued a private meeting with man X and Peake. The LPUC Rules state: “A barrister must not give an undertaking to the court on behalf of a solicitor or a client without express authority of the person concerned” – but that didn’t stop Craig;
- significantly changed direction without discussion, permission or instructions:
- wanted direct payment for some of his work (i.e. not through his clerk), which is against the Rules that govern his conduct.
VCAT 2010-2011: Rob Sadler (barrister)
- insisted that I take action in relation to a works on waterway permit that had already been granted (I didn’t want to and didn’t think we could win it, and we didn’t – it just cost us much more money in Rob’s costs as well as having us lumped with the other side’s costs as well);
- settled an inadequate application then denied that he had done so and it was blamed on me;
- told me that we could not lose an application because it was unlosable, then:
* was, in my opinion, too friendly with the opposition (e.g. going for walks and laughing and talking with the opposition barrister);
* agreed with the other barrister to cut examination and cross-examination as short as possible so as to not have to come back – thereby severely reducing the ability to really deal with the issues at hand;
* allowed the other side to waste significant precious time grilling me on entirely irrelevant matters, and failed to bring the cross-examination of me into line with the application – I had to bring it back on track;
* failed to push home the point when he had man X on the ropes – no knockout blow (if he had followed through then I don’t believe that it would have had the results it did);
* failed to accuse man X of perjury when he lied under oath;
* failed to object to considerable hearsay;
* had a meeting with the mediator and Peake to which I was unaware – I only became aware because I left my private room to go to the toilet and saw them in a closed room (Rob had only said he was going for a walk (which I resumed was to go outside and have a cigarette) – even when he came back he did not tell me he had had the meeting);
* knowing that he had acted for me in relation to taking the other side to VCAT for their illegal works and for stealing our water, he then allowed the other side to grill me and make fraudulent accusations against me in relation to the water issues which he knew to be untrue;
* failed to complain enough about use of a document that had been not only not disclosed, but which had been deliberately concealed from us until its revealing at the very end of the hearing during the examination of man X (on behalf of CASACIR, and with man Y’s approval) – thereby deliberately leaving us no time to discuss or prepare for it, and leaving me no time to get back in the witness box and respond to it;
* failed to refuse private, confidential and/or without prejudice letters being revealed;
* failed to follow through on cross-examination of man X;
* having said that we lost the unlosable, failed to suggest that we appeal to the Supreme Court, and
* although an expert in water and drainage rights, failed to be able to assert my rights to the flow of water designated by the Water Act, and to not have polluted drainage sent through our property.
Supreme Court (appeal of VCAT costs) 2012: Nik Dragojlovic (barrister)
- refused to fight many of Southall’s claims because “they went outside points of law”, thereby allowing Southall to defame me and make entirely fraudulent misrepresentations and negligent misstatements as absolute fact; and
- did not even object when Southall effectively tried to intimidate the judge.
Supreme Court 2011-2013: Rob Sadler (barrister), Kerri Judd (Silk, now QC) and Mark Featherby (solicitor)
- The team:
* failed to file the original appeal of the VCAT costs in the right section of the court;
* in relation to the claims of injurious falsehood and misleading and deceptive conduct, they failed to take action for a summary dismissal, or to have the claims struck out, even though I had instructed that they do so. After my team allowed the other side to continue with their fraudulent claims virtually unopposed for just days short of a year, my team then failed to accept my instructions to object to the removal of the injurious falsehoodand misleading and deceptive conduct claims made against me – claims that were removed by man X, man Y, CASACIR, Smith, Kaye and Southall because they knew that they would fail in every one of them – the claims had been made simply to bully and intimidate me into removing the entirety of my former website. Insisting on the continuation of the claims would have caused the court to find in my favour, but my team’s action caused so many headaches and huge costs;
* even though I had instructed that they do so, they failed to take action for summary dismissal against the defamation claims (because everything I had written was true);
* failed to seek to have the aggravated damages claims removed (which claims were entirely rejected later at court);
* failed to seek to have the court make a determination that the costs of certainly the first and second iterations of the statement of claim be costs against man X, man Y and CASACIR – given that in each iteration man X, man Y and CASACIR added yet more fraudulent claims;
* failed to let me use any defence in spite of my instructions that they use 6 defences (including truth and justification, and they wouldn’t even let me use “personal opinion” as a defence!)[1]– they deliberately left me entirely defenceless when what I written in my former website was true and the website even had pictures proving what I said[2]– if my team had provided me with at least the defence of truth and justification as I demanded, man X, man Y and CASACIR would have removed their claims and not taken it to trial, would not have had to further lie, and would not have won by their lies. What I wrote was true, was more than just “substantially” true, was my opinion, and was entirely justified;
* failed to amend my defence after man X, man Y and CASACIR amended their statement of claim (many times), and then failed to tell me (after I had sacked them) that I could, let alone should, amend my defence;
* failed to refute the other side’s claims that the injurious falsehood and misleading and deceptive conduct claims could be carried through to the defamation case regardless of having been overtly removed and withdrawn, and like-wise in relation to CASACIR;
* failed to tell me I could use a r40.1 notice[3] (required because Rob, Kerri and Mark didn’t let me use truth and justification as a defence, and because they didn’t then tell me I could amend my defence);
* failed to take action against the other side for abuse of process when the other side had (1) taken action against me for the sole purpose of intimidating and bullying me into removing my former website, and then, once the other side had achieved their goal, (2) had immediately removed the actions – proving the abuse of process;
* told me not to attend a direction hearing (presumably so that I could not hear what was said), then told me that direction hearings were not taped (presumably so that I would not obtain a copy of the transcripts to hear what was said) – however, the hearing was taped and I later got a copy of the transcript and was appalled by what they let Southall get away with;
* failed to object to the unnecessary revealing of “in confidence” and “without prejudice” correspondence in spite of there not having been any request for release or discussion about the release;
13. failed to insist that the other side provide affidavits, even though they told me the affidavits were necessary. In fact, I was told in email dated 21 December 2011:
We will be served with a whole raft of affidavits in support on their application, and it is those affidavits which we will need to answer in detail. They will be served I guess early February.
Not only were we not served with any affidavits at any time, but the team did not demand them;
* failed to insist that the other side provide meaningful further and better particulars even when they noted that the further and better particulars were severely lacking and were grossly deficient,
and that was not all:
2. Rob told me that I had to have a solicitor and that he could not act directly for me in the Supreme Court, and strongly recommended Mark be my solicitor as they often worked together (even though he knew that Mark’s office was grossly inconvenient for me being 86km away – each way (i.e. each visit was a 172km round-trip). This is against the Rules:
19. A barrister must not require that any other particular legal practitioner be instructed or briefed so as in any way to impose that requirement as a condition of the barrister accepting any brief or instructions.
3. In fact, Rob personally knew that what I had written was true because (a) he had been to the property twice and had seen a number of the issues for himself, and (b) he had seen over 200 pages of photographs and FOI results and (c) had acted for me at VCAT in trying to obtain an enforcement order in relation to those breaches (yet refused to allow me to plead truth and justification or even that it was my personal opinion!).
4. Mark repeatedly threatened to withdraw the whole team if I kept asking too many questions and didn’t just trust them;
5. Kerri had previously “read” for Kaye J. This meant she took the Bar Readers’ Course: a 2-month full-time course in advocacy and barristers’ practice and skills, ethics and rules – as well as serving pupillage or reading (a sort of apprenticeship) for 9 months with a barrister of at least 10 years’ standing, in this case with a person who is now a sitting judge, and whose daughter was on the opposition from me. Kerri should most certainly have told me of this association, but didn’t.
6. Kerri failed to inform me of the details and results, or what transpired, in communications she had with Southall and/or Kaye (telephone call with Kaye on 1 February 2012; telephone call with Kaye on 23 February 2012; telephone call with Kaye on 22 November 2012; correspondence with Southall 15 February 2012).
7. They together brought in Andrew to represent them in court when I had sacked them (but I had to pay for him).
2014-2015 Court of Appeal (court appointed): John Ribbands (barrister) & Kylie Kylie Weston-Scheuber (barrister)
- failed to take adequate notice of instructions;
- failed to stand-down when instructed to do so;
- failed to fight Southall in the many aspects where he went outside points of law; and
- John believed that it was fitting and right to have, what I will call grossly offensive, drawings and “artwork” of naked women on full display in his office[4].
Taking what my legal team has done to me by them adding to the injustice caused me – why would I ever willingly choose to trust another legal practitioner[5]??[6]
Of course, if man X, man Y, CASACIR, Peake, Barrister ABC (a short-term pseudonym required by court action), Southall, Kaye, Spencer, Smith, Schivo, Carson, Kraan, McWhinney, Dunn, Bignell, Duncan, McDevitt, and others, had not perpetrated the severe injustices they have, and not caused the personal injury and damage to me (and my related parties) that they have, I would not have needed my legal team and what can only be called, at best, their ineptness – ultimately it still all comes back to all of them and their appalling conduct.
[1] Others included: contextual truth, proceedings of public interest, qualified privilege, and triviality
[2] In fact, man X has since admitted to some of my accusations and agreed that there were pictures proving it
[3] Under the then Supreme Court (General Civil Proceedings) Rules 2005
[4] The pictures are possibly still there
[5] Having said that, (1) my costs lawyer (Sergey) and (2) the court appointed pro bono barrister (Daniel) appointed for mediations in the Supreme Court in 2013, were both great.
[6] That’s not even taking into account all the obstructions of justice, and the causing of gross injustice, that man X, man Y and CASACIR’s legal team have done to me (Smith, KSA, Carson, Collins, Schivo, Southall, Peake, Green, Fary, Spencer, Kaye, and Kraan (quasi-legal) – and that does not include the at least 4 (if not 5) of their costs lawyers)