Paul Wilson, Paedophile

It must have been a terrible shock for 75 year old Paul Wilson, after living his whole life as a respected criminologist, to be found guilty of child abuse this week.

And it has since been discovered that he has a history of defending paedophiles and promoting 'man-boy love.'

In 1981, Wilson published a book called The Man They Called A Monster based on the life of Clarence Howard-Osborne, a government official.  In the book he defends his child abuse and called it a mere 'hobby' and that paedophiles go to great lengths to look after the child they sexually abuse.

He also argued that the age of consent should be abolished. So you have to wonder then why Howard-Osborne committed suicide when he discovered that police were about to arrest him.

There was nothing wrong with having sex with children, Wilson believes, provided no 'violence, fraud, or pressure' was used. Paedophiles were portrayed as 'folk devils created by a vengeful society and a sensational press.'

In a section dealing with the 'rights of children', he added 'It is only logical that children should have the right to conduct their sexual lives with no more restrictions than adults do.'

Fast forward twenty years and Wilson's words came back to bite him.  He was found guilty of sexually abusing a girl under the age of 12 at his home in Brisbane between 1973 and 1976.

Prosecutor Phil McCarthy previously told the jury that Wilson had a persistent sexual interest in his victim and the abuse didn't stop until her family moved away.

He was convicted of four counts of indecent treatment of a child on Wednesday after an eight-day trial. The jury of 6 men and 6 women reached a unanimous verdict after two hours deliberation.

Wilson was sentenced to 18 months jail, to be suspended after six months.  

Credit must be given to the woman who was brave enough to bring this powerful, well respected man to justice after all this time.  It just goes to prove that no matter how long ago the abuse took place, justice can still prevail.

Let Dr Chamari Liyanage stay in Australia

Dr Chamari Liyanage

Two married doctors in Western Australia were living a happy professional life, according to their patients, friends and associates, but they had no idea what was really going on behind closed doors.

Dr Liyanage 36, bludgeoned her sleeping husband to death with a mallet and after reading what he expected her to do as his wife, it could be argued that she did a great service to the community.

She was acquitted of murder and sentenced to four years jail for manslaughter.

Her story is a sorry tale of physical and sexual abuse which sounds like a convenient defence for murdering your husband, but when police found what was on his computers, it became clear that what she had been saying, was true.

She said he used a metal chair to beat her with a wooden rolling pin and there were marks on the walls where he threw dinner plates at her.

He was addicted to porn and would keep her up at night to perform sexual acts to be streamed to strangers online and forced her to watch little children being sexually abused while they had sex.

Dr Dinendra Athukorala.

The court heard that her husband - Dr Dinendra Athukorala - kept 13 terabytes of encrypted child exploitation and bestiality images on his three laptops and hard drives.

Dr Chamari Liyanage is currently serving a four year prison term at Greenough Regional Prison and has been eligible for parole since June.  

But if her parole is granted early next year, she will be moved to an immigration detention centre and deported back to Sri Lanka because her visa was cancelled when she went to jail.

So she has asked Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to reconsider her case.  Because there is a shortage of doctors and it's very unlikely she will reoffend, it seems like a reasonable request.  

But Minister Dutton said he was unable to comment, as her visa cancellation is under review.

Springvale Commonwealth Bank fire

They all arrived at once. Dandenong Hospital's emergency department director Rachel Rosler cleared out the ER wing and they were ready and waiting.

"We didn't really know what was going to happen" she said. "People were on ambulance trolleys and chairs all being assessed by medical staff....their faces and necks were all black, all exposed skin covered in soot."

They were all victims of a 21 year old refugee who said the Commonwealth Bank had given him the run around and he had had enough.  Because he wanted them to pay, he was responsible for injuring twenty seven people, including children, two of whom are currently still in hospital fighting for their lives.

CCTV footage shows Nur Islam, a Burmese refugee who arrived by boat in 2013, then aged 17, leaving the bank and walking past the Asmara Cafe with an empty plastic container to a service station and returning with it full of brown liquid.  Witnesses allege he then poured the liquid over himself and on the floor of the bank before setting it alight and running around on fire.

It's a sad tale.  He has no relatives in Australia and his bridging visa prohibits him for working, but he is entitled to benefits of $430 a fortnight from Centrelink.

His housemates, other refugees from Burma, said they noticed the change in his personality as he became more and more frustrated with his immigration status.

When his mother told him his sister at home was sick and needed help to pay her medical bills, he was distraught and his housemates pooled $500 to help him.  

But last month his welfare payments were cut off and he was told he had to renew his income support information but when he went to Centrelink to have the problem sorted out, he became agitated and didn't wait, he left saying the 'line was too long.'

It's alleged that his case officer told him his welfare had been approved, but when he went to the bank, there was nothing in his account.  He went back week after week, until finally he snapped. 

His poor English didn't help him at the bank, he begged them to fix the problem because he didn't have enough money to buy food.

Nur Islam spent time on Christmas Island and then at a detention centre in Weipa. He moved into the share house about two months ago.

Mr Joseph who lives in the house first met Nur three years ago in detention.  "We stayed together in the camp for one month" he said. "After that he was released and when I was released, I came here to Springvale."

"Then two months ago, he had no place to stay and because we are all Burmese people, we helped him."

But Mr Joseph became concerned when he saw how he was behaving.  He started talking to himself and would pace back and forth in the backyard in the dark and thought there were spirits and ghosts in the house. 

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group living in Myanmar and are one of the most persecuted people in the world.

Melbourne mother Phalla Neary Khmer was inside the bank with her three children when Mr Islam entered the bank, doused himself with fuel and set both himself and the bank on fire.

She said two of her friends managed to escape but she and her children were trapped inside the bank when its emergency door locked them and several others inside.  "I thought I was going to die" she said.

Junior Dean

She said they owed their lives to brave onlookers including a quick-thinking father of twelve, New Zealand man Junior Dean who sprinted down a nearby arcade and charged into the bank's rear entrance and helped the people out.

It was there in a rear laneway that he caught the man and held him there until police arrived.

So if someone at the bank or someone at Centrelink or his case officer had taken pity on the boy and helped him resolve his problem with the system, would it have come to this?

Melania Trump's new job

The former Melania Knauss started dating Donald Trump in 1998. They married in 2005 and she gave birth to their son Barron the following year.

Before Melania, Donald was married to Marla Maples, a television personality, former beauty queen and mother to their daughter Tiffany Trump.  The couple met while Donald was still married to his first wife Czechoslovakian Ivana Zelnickova who he married in 1977.  They have three children - Ivanka, Eric and eldest child, 38 year old Donald Trump Jnr.  Ivana and Donald's marriage ended in 1992.

Melania grew up in communist Yugoslavia and speaks five languages - Slovenian, English, French, Serbian and German.

Sevnica

Sevnica, the Slovene town where Melania grew up has a population of around 5,000.  She moved to the US in the mid-90s, changed her surname from Knavs to Knauss and hasn't been back to her hometown for over 20 years.  Her parents and sister also live in the US.

A childhood friends remembers Melania as a quiet, kind girl who never complained and was always the mediator in a quarrel.

Nobody knows if Donald Trump and his wife are a happy couple, Michelle Obama and her happy family, is a hard act to follow.

So can this quiet, shy woman cope with the enormous task of being the wife of the most powerful man in the world?  Only time will tell and we can only wish her well.

Australian shearers accused of cruelty

Animal welfare group PETA have produced video footage of shearers abusing sheep who may be on drugs.

"They use sports enhancing drugs to shear more" one Victorian worker said.

The videos - which show sheep being stomped on, hit in the head with a handpiece and stitching up wounds without anaesthetic - were taken as part of an investigation by the US affiliate of PETA and published online.

Sam Beechy from the Australian Workers Union said he'd heard reports of sheep having eyes gouged and jaws broken by frustrated shearers.

"A lot of these unfortunate instances could well be stopped very early if farmers and shearing contractors would take action as soon as this behaviour is noticed" he said.  "They're scared, they're scared to take action against the shearers."

The video footage was allegedly taken at 19 different shearing sheds in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.

Shearer piecework agreements mean the faster the shearer works, the more he gets paid and it's been suggested that some contractors don't care if their shearers are on drugs because the end result is what really counts - it's all about productivity.

But if they are being paid piece rates, I don't understand how abusing sheep adds to their tally at the end of the day.  

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce thinks the video is a setup. "One of the questions I ask is with the close-up shot of the man hitting the sheep - which is obviously exceptionally cruel and in many instances would mean instant dismissal - where exactly was the camera?"

"Did the person know he was being filmed, were they actually part of the process, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked."

PETA Australia has denied any suggestion that the video was a setup or staged.

There's talk of changing the payment system but it won't work.  A good shearer shearing 200 a day will not tolerate being paid the same as someone who shears 130 - he'll walk away.

South Australian livestock agent Peter DeGaris said the video could damage the entire Australian sheep industry and it is not a true indication of the shearing community.

"There's a growing demand for our mutton overseas, we're in a good period in the next 10 years and this could affect it" he said.

Absolutely it could affect it because cruelty to sheep won't be tolerated by anyone,  - not now, not ever!

Paedophile Christopher Donald Lobban extradited to US

It's been a long time coming, but finally Christopher Donald Lobban is getting his just deserts. Yesterday he exhausted his last chance - an appeal to the High Court - and he will now be extradited to the US.

The 58 year old is accused of giving detailed instructions to an online girlfriend  in the US on how to handcuff her two naked girls, 14 and 15, to a whipping bench, and shoot video of herself beating them with a leather paddle.

His girlfriend, Robin Pargoria, worked in the Polk County prison system.  She was arrested and after a plea bargain in which she agreed to testify against Lobban, she was sentenced to 20 years jail.

Lobban was arrested in 2011 after a raid on his property by officers seized laptops, DVDs, mobile phones and other electronic devices.

In his appeal, he claimed that the penalties in the US would be "grossly disproportionate" to those here in Australia. 

And he's right.  Judges here let paedophiles off lightly, leaving the public frustrated and angry. The excuse offered by the judiciary is that everyone 'deserves' the chance of rehabilitation in jail, even though the theory has been disproved time and time again.

Lobban also claimed his surrender to the US would "violate his right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or other degrading treatment or punishment" which is rather ironic as watching naked girls being whipped gave him immense pleasure.

Yesterday's judgement by the High Court was the end of a long line of appeals and if convicted, he faces a minimum jail term of 25 years.

Schapelle Corby coming home

Schapelle Corby's parole is set for mid 2017 and her devoted sister Mercedes has a job waiting for her.  She has opened a new tapas bar on the Gold Coast called the Laneway Bar and Dining with her friend and former pro-surfer Trudy Todd.

When Schapelle was arrested, Mercedes move her life to Indonesia and started a family.  She refused to leave the country until Schapelle was released but decided to return to Australia earlier this year with her three children after she split from husband Wayan Widyartha.

Her two older children are working at the bar and Schapelle is welcome to join the family business, if that's what she wants when she comes home.

Cindy Prior's case thrown out

Cindy Prior

Cindy Prior, an Indigenous staff member of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), lodged a complaint under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act after student Alex Wood posted on Facebook in 2013 "Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT is stopping segregation with segregation."

"I wonder where the white supremacist lab is" wrote another student, Jackson Powell, who is also being sued.  Wood, Powell and Calum Thwaites were all sued under the act over alleged Facebook posts in 2013.

They were accused of racially vilifying an indigenous woman - Cindy Prior.  The trio, along with the university and two staff members were sued by Ms Prior who was the administration officer who asked Mr Wood to leave the room.  Little did she know she had opened Pandora's box.

Soon after the story broke, Ms Prior had to leave her job because of stress.  She said she couldn't return to a job that required her to have face-to-face contact with "white" people and asked for $250,000 in damages.

But justice has prevailed.  On Friday, the lawsuit was thrown out by Brisbane's Federal Court Judge Michael Jarrett who found that Ms Prior did not have a reasonable chance of success.

Professor Gillian Triggs

Professor Gillian Triggs who is president of the Australian Human Rights Commission sat on the case for 14 months before the students were even told there had been a complaint made against them.  She allowed it to proceed, knowing full well it was a farce. 

Outside court on Friday, Mr Thwaites' lawyer, Tony Morris QC, slammed Professor triggs for allowing the case to get so far.

He said the commissioner should have told Ms Prior there was no substance to her claim and dismissed the complaint.  

"Triggs takes $400,000 a year out of the pockets of taxpayers of this country for a job she doesn't bother to do" Mr Morris said. "If the woman had any decency whatsoever, her resignation would be on the Governor-General's desk on Monday."

Calum Thwaites (L) and Tony Morris QC arriving at the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane.

Ms Prior was not in court for the judgment and is said to be facing a six-figure bill if the students recoup their legal costs from her.

But there's more.

Several other students involved in the incident who were also threatened by Ms Prior, settled out of court, reportedly for $5000 each - not a bad little earner - while QLT is still subject to a lawsuit.

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to participate in an act that is reasonably likely to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" someone because of their race or ethnicity.

This unjust act almost ruined the lives of several university students and Professor Gillian Triggs should hang her head in shame.

Usain Bolt runs at Flemington

Usain Bolt  and Australian sprinter John Steffensen  go for a gallop down the world famous straight at Flemington race track yesterday.

When it comes to an athletics track, he's the world's fastest man, but Usain Bolt looked equally at home, running down the famous straight at Flemington yesterday.

The nine-time Olympic gold medalist mingled with the ladies during the afternoon at Oaks Day, part of Melbourne's spring racing carnival.

Lyme disease doesn't exist, says new report

For the many Australians who are suffering from what they believe to be tick-borne Lyme disease, this new report must be very frustrating.  The experts are still saying that it doesn’t exist in Australia.

Even though hundreds of people have presented to doctors around the country with Lyme disease-like symptoms, they are treated like idiots because the medical profession still refuses to acknowledge the truth.

In this latest report, researchers said there was no evidence the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease was found in local animals or ticks, and positive test results in people who had not been overseas were likely to be false positives.

An ongoing Senate inquiry into the tick-borne disease in Australia has received more than 1,200 submissions, many from people whose lives have been devastated by Lyme-like illness.

Jamie David

Scottish-born 27-year-old Jamie David had been in Australia for fewer than two months when he noticed a red bullseye rash on his leg.

He had begun a PhD in science at Coffs Harbour's Southern Cross University, and had been spending time in bushland along the New South Wales Mid North Coast.

"I went to a Coffs Harbour GP who said it was most likely a redback spider bite," he said.

But over the following two months, it became clear he was suffering from something more serious.

"I had high anxiety levels and just couldn't focus on my work … I was very lethargic all the time, I had blurred vision."

As a science student, Mr David had studied Lyme disease and suspected he may have contracted it.

In November last year, the Australian Senate launched an inquiry into "growing evidence of an emerging tick-borne disease that causes a Lyme-like illness for many Australian patients." 

Mr David said it was not taken seriously by many of the doctors who treated him.  "They thought I was playing it up, that it was a psychological issue," he said.

Deciding to ignore his symptoms, Mr David tried and failed to return to his work and studies.  But in October 2014 he completely lost the function of his left leg.

"I had to be wheel-chaired to Coffs Harbour Base Hospital," he said.

"One doctor, who wasn't Australian, said straight away that it sounded like Lyme disease. The Australian doctors were very against that."

After eight weeks in hospital sending blood tests to America, Mr David received a positive diagnosis for Lyme disease.

"Coming from Europe where it's openly accepted, it was bizarre for me to come here and for there to be such a high level of denial," he said.

"It crossed my mind that I should just go back to the UK where the disease is fully accepted and they can treat you properly."

Now Mr David is seeing one of the few doctors in Australia who treat the condition, and said his health, while still fragile, had improved.

"I still struggle with anxiety and lethargy and lack of focus, but that's just something myself and other Lyme sufferers have to deal with," he said.

"I used to be very sporty, but I can't do any of that anymore. I can maybe manage a 40-minute walk, but I'm exhausted at the end of that."

Mr David said the Senate Inquiry was an important development in starting a national dialogue about Lyme disease in Australia.

"From a psychological standpoint, this will help Lyme sufferers so much," he said.

"It's frustrating having so many people say 'you don't have anything, you're just crazy'."

Mr David said he believed the profession was refusing to acknowledge the issue because doing so would be admitting to an error.

"Doctors are afraid of losing their jobs, because it's not mainstream medicine," he said. "But governing bodies and medical practitioners need to be brave about this."

He said he hoped the inquiry would lead to increased funding for Lyme disease research in Australia.