I recently released my new book ABOVE THE LAW at www.abovethelaw.au.
Its 295 pages reveal an alarming log of wrong doings by the Queensland Government from 1998 – 2003, all of which have caused massive damages and impacted heavily on my assets, reputation and income.
My book contains powerful evidence and extensive research into the false, deliberate and malicious charges and perversion of justice which unfairly targeted me, and which in 1998 were declared in its first court hearing as being ‘speculative in the extreme’ when Justice Ambrose dismissed a wildly false claim that I had defrauded the Electoral Commission of Queensland when applying for the Queensland State Division registration of a Federally registered political party named Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
My book is alarming for the evidence and clarity of its claims that the actions taken against me were clearly malicious and totally without foundation and truth. The early court actions arose when Pauline Hanson refused to pay a dis-endorsed One Nation candidate named Terry Sharples his rightful electoral campaign expenses.
Unsurprisingly, Terry sought revenge and conceived the false allegation that the One Nation Party registration lodged in December 1997 was accomplish by the application claiming that the party had used the names of members of the Pauline Hanson’s Support Movement. Sharple’s claimed the party had no members and had defrauded the Electoral Commission.
The following provides a summary of factual and transcript evidence contained in my book of Terry’s two attempts to abuse the courts of Queensland to vengefully apply damage against the One Nation party. His claims were wrong at law and a false manifestation which was very easily shown to be false by elementary examination of the existing legislation and evidence available at that time. The abuse of natural law and justice included the Beattie Government.
Court Number ONE: July 1998.
Presiding Judge Brian Ambrose in his final rulings said:
- The Sharples action was dismissed as being ‘speculative in the extreme’.
- The One Nation application was legally entitled to have been made and registered as a ‘Parliamentary Party, which required just a single member of the party to meet the requirements of the Qld Electoral Act. Pauline Hanson was the Federal Member for Oxley at that time and qualified.
- The Queensland members on the list of names submitted were already members of the Federally registered One Nation Party and were simply being provided to establish a Queensland Division of the federally registered party.
- Sharple’s claim that those submitted names were members of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement failed on two grounds – one being that they were legally acceptable and defined in the Electoral Act as being members of an associated entity of the Federally registered parent party (Had we in fact used their names) and secondly that the list Sharples produced to the court was not the list submitted to the Electoral Commission.
- The Crown’s Barrister and the Electoral Commissioner were adamant that the party’s registration was sound and that the ECQ had not been deceived by the application.
- The false list of names alleged by Sharple’s and the genuine list of names were not produced for forensic comparison in this first court. The Crown withheld the genuine list claiming that the names were protected by the privacy section in the electoral act.
COURT number 2.
- Terry Sharple’s lodged the same false argument in a second attack in August 1999 in the court of Justice Roslyn Atkinson.
- This second court action was a double jeopardy offence.
- Justice Atkinson’s rulings alluded to contradictions, weaknesses in evidence and testimony heard in her court but still found that Terrys claim and false list was valid and that Ettridge and Hanson had defrauded the ECQ.
- Justice Atkinson’s rulings ignored the rulings made in July 1998 by Justice Ambrose.
- On 15/10/2001 Sharple’s attempted to have the Atkinson Judgment overturned when he applied for a mistrial on the grounds that the court had heard perjury and received false evidence. His mistrial application was rejected. Justice Atkinson ruled that the false list of support Movement names was valid and was the list submitted in the registration process – a fact already denied by the Crown and the Electoral Commissioner Des O’Shea in the first court – and that Ettridge and Hanson had defrauded the Electoral commission. This was an astonishing ruling that defied existing court one evidence to the contrary.
- The laws regarding double jeopardy where we could not be tried twice for the same offence were ignored and the rulings made by Justice Ambrose were ignored under the doctrine of Estoppel.
- The false list offered by Sharples, and the genuine list were NEVER both produced for forensic comparison in courts 1 and 2. Such an examination would have made a mockery of the Sharple’s claim and would have prevented Justice Atkinson from making her ruling. That alone is a very damning and suspicious failure of due process when the defence evidence was not in the court and not assessed or compared with what Sharple’s had submitted.
In between court number 2 and the Committal hearing, the Crown sought a Police investigation into the matter. The Police responded after a lengthy investigation declaring that a conviction was unlikely. Three investigating Police officers told persons who they had interviewed that their orders came from the very top. It didn’t take long before it was clear who those orders came from.
The Crown asked for a second review of the investigation and was told again that a conviction was unlikely. This Police investigation was critical and never produced to the defence in discovery. It was denied to me in my FOI requests just before it was destroyed. This was without doubt a document that assisted my defence of innocence. I was told later by a Police detective that the Police Report made it absolutely clear that we had not committed any offence which is what I had maintained in all of my correspondence to the DPP and court number 3. This alone was a disgraceful abuse and miscarriage of justice.
SHARPLE’S calls for a Mistrial of the Atkinson courts decision.
On 15th of October 2001 Terry Sharples lodged documents in the Brisbane Supreme court calling for the Atkinson court’s decision to be declared a mistrial citing that the court was infected with fraud, deliberate withholding of evidence, conspiracy and perjured evidence. His application was rejected. He also cited that the court displayed institutional bias by the Crown and by members of the judiciary for political purpose.
Premier Beattie took the credit for this farcical abuse of the justice system and the decision of the Atkinson court when on the same day Justice Atkinson delivered her false judgement Premier Beattie declared under parliamentary priviledge….
‘I gave a commitment that by the end of this term we would get rid of One Nation, and we have’. 18/8/1999.
Then on 18/8/1999 on the ABC Television programme 7.30 Report Mr. Beattie again publicly took the credit for the decision of the Atkinson court when he said…
‘I did say by the way that we would get rid of One Nation. We expected it to take the full term’.
Mr. Beattie’s use of the word ‘WE’ includes others within the judiciary and public service who were required to assist in delivering the conspired result of the second court.
Premier Beattie had made an astonishing and audacious admission that he had used his authority as Premier to breach the various laws of the Criminal Code and the Electoral Act. He clearly had the Motive, Means and Opportunity to act ABOVE THE LAW, and after my extensive research and accumulation of hundreds of pages of incriminating evidence it is time for the Queensland Government to compensate me for my damages and losses.
The Queensland justice officers of that period deliberately acted against their oaths of office and conspired to pervert the course of justice without regard for my innocence or human rights.
On September 20th 2002 I faxed a letter to Leanne Clare, Director of the DPP advising the Queensland Electoral Act definition of a party member. That definition was upheld by the Court–of-Appeal in November 2003 when they said it alone was sufficient to overturn the decision of the District Court but that defence argument was denied by Leanne Clare in 2002.
Most of my correspondence of innocence to the DPP was not responded to or denied.
Multi Walkley Award winning journalist Hedley Thomas wrote in 2002 about the deeply entrenched political influence infecting the D.P.P.
Court number 3. Committal hearing.
- The abuse of the courts being used to conduct criminal code legislated double jeopardy actions was breached again.
- The District Court action was based for the third time on Sharple’s false claim that we had used members of the support movement names to seek registration in Qld.
- However, the action in the District Court was now initiated by the Crown Law office and not by Sharple’s, and Crown Laws participation as the Plaintiff contradicted the evidence they had already given in the first court of Justice Brian Ambrose.
- As part of the Police evidence, files emerged for the first time to reveal the genuine list of names which had been attached to the application to register the party. This was the first time this list had been presented as evidence in any of the preceding courts.
- This genuine list of names made a complete mockery of the ruling of Justice Atkinson from court number 2 that the list of names used for registration was a list of members of the Pauline Hanson support movement.
- When Detective Sergeant Newton, who had been the lead investigator into the allegations against us was in the witness box, I asked him to examine the membership list known as EXHIBIT 17A to see if any of the names on that list contained persons who had paid a $5 fee which was the fee for membership of the Support movement. He declared that there were no $5 members on that list. His testimony alone contradicted the charges against me and should have brought the trial to an end.
- The committal hearing heard for the first time my submission that the laws of contract protected members who sought membership. Members had applied for membership, paid their fees and received receipts. These 3 stages were the basics of contract law being Offer, Acceptance and consideration (payment).
- The One Nation Party met that criterion with all of its members. The contract law defence was one of the most powerful legal arguments of innocence upheld by the Court-of-Appeal in November 2003 and on its own made the charges against me malicious and wrongful..
- Surprisingly, Justice Halliday allowed the action to proceed to the District court.
- For the first time the genuine list of names provided to the ECQ had been introduced into evidence by the Police. IT CONTRADICTED the ruling of Justice Atkinson in 1999 and gives justification for Justice Atkinsons trial to be declared a mistrial.
District Court number 4;
Judge Brian Hoath presiding.
- I submitted a detailed 15 page defence document to Judge Hoath and it included a clearly worded claim that the One Nation party application for registration in Queensland was based upon genuine members as defined in the Electoral Act.
- The electoral Act defined members as people who had joined the party or any associated entity of the federally registered party.
- The Contract Law argument was again placed before him.
- In his rulings which allowed this farce to move forward, Judge Hoath ignored both of those submission points 2 & 3 above which were upheld in November 2003 by the Court of appeal when the Court of Appeal quashed our convictions and overturned our 3 year sentences – sentences that at the time of the alleged offence were legislated for a maximum of 6 months prison or a $1,500 fine.
- Retrospective legislation from the criminal code was applied 5 years after the alleged offences and allowed the District Court to deliver up to 7 year prison terms. This was a serious abuse of natural law and my human rights.
- Judge Hoath recused himself from any further involvement in this trial and it fell into the court of Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe. By recusing himself suspicion arises that Judge Hoath wanted no more to do with this perversion of justice.
Court number 5, Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe presiding.
I was self – represented.
One of the very first requirements made strongly by Judge Wolfe was that we could not make any reference in her court to any preceding courts that had considered this (false) persecution.
Valuable defence evidence was not heard by the Jury in her court.
Prejudice had been building against me and Hanson through heavily biased media coverage for years and jurors were bound to bring a pre conceived view of our guilt to that court room.
This denial by Judge Wolfe prevented critical defence arguments and also blocked any revelation of the alarming error made by Justice Atkinsons ruling that the Sharple’s list was the list used to register the party in 1996. The extensive and damaging media coverage over the previous years was allowed to survive together with the prejudice it planted into the minds of jurors.
In 2004 Terry Sharple’s had a court of appeal judgment find against him in a related matter and of special interest was when Chief Justice Paul DeJersey claimed that the One Nation registration had been valid from the first time it had sought registration in spite of all the efforts in the courts to prove it wasn’t.
My 295 page book ABOVE THE LAW is available for free download at www.abovethelaw.au
Commitment to democracy, law, human rights, justice and fairness is a pre-requisite for holding esteemed public office and this series of abuses of law, justice and courts was a shocking, tyrannical and admitted perversion of justice.
Sincerely,
David Ettridge
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