Purgator (2022) by Sean Bw Parker
So often we hear the old adage “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” The thought is that a false allegation has to come from somewhere. Sometimes there is no fire, but just a little spark. Due to the suspicious nature of Police and Prosecutors, they tend to grasp at straws sometimes.
In my case, I think that not even the complainant (my stepdaughter, who was 15 ½ at the time) thought I was guilty. Her Mother, Aunt and Grandmother all went together to my Lawyer’s office and said they “wanted to help clear my name”.
Her Counsellor, who she saw ever Thursday for 6 Months before and after the time the “crime” supposedly happened, made not one single report to authorities. In fact, I had occasion to meet with this Counsellor after the fact and she expressed that at no stage had she had any concerns whatsoever (incidentally, this organization also runs a specialist child protection program).
My stepdaughter even wrote the following retraction letter, which was never submitted to the Court:
To whom it may concern,
Please do not charge [REDACTED] as he does not deserve to be charged. I think it has been misunderstood. I have told the Police the whole truth but my family up in [REDACTED] have made up a few lies as they never really liked him. [REDACTED] is innocent. Please do NOT charge him. I am the victim in this situation and please let this letter show you that he didn't do enough to be charged. My family says that its just a misunderstanding. I don't really think that's true but when I reported [REDACTED] to the [REDACTED] Police, they said that [REDACTED] didn't do enough to be charged, and at that time I said the whole truth, and I said the exact same things to the [REDACTED] Police Department as I did [REDACTED]. About a week or two after that, I found out that my family up in [REDACTED] have made more reports, reports that are not true, and that, I think, is why he is being charged. Please do not charge [REDACTED] as he is innocent. Thank you all for your help and consideration.
Autism on Trial
My local newspaper of January 29 2019 carried the following front page headline about my story:
"DESPERATE APPEAL FOR JUSTICE: Autistic man sent to jail by his own testimony cries for help"
Here is a brief quote from that article:
"John (not his real name) was at home with his then wife's daughter from a previous relationship when, in wishing her goodnight, he says he briefly ran his hand over her lower back, which was covered with a blanket.
Some months later he was contacted by police and taken in for questioning over allegations he assaulted her.
He claims his interviewing officer lacked the "maturity, objectivity and experience... and crucially, the training" to identify John's condition and assess how to deal with it.
"My autistic responses became dynamite in his hands," John said."
False Allegations and Unnecessary Prosecutions
It is a very shameful and humiliating thing for a man to be accused of a supposed ‘sexual offence’ that they did not commit.
The ‘crime’ that I was literally arrested for, and which is stated on the charge sheet, is apparently touching my 15 ½ year old stepdaughter, on the lower back. I struggled to comprehend how they could make a “crime” out of that, but this utterly unnecessary prosecution still ended up being enough to destroy my life and career and put me through all manner of unspeakable trauma.
Unbelievably, despite the evidence being almost non-existent, I ended up being incarcerated for 2 months. But Jail wasn’t the worst part! It’s what comes after.
Being rejected from the workforce and unable to obtain ordinary employment because of police checks is one of the worst nightmares anyone could go through. Life becomes unbearable, a never ending, soul-destroying struggle to survive.
I am still dealing with it now. It will be another 2 ½ years before my conviction expires.
How it all started – two little sparks
Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would ever go through something like this. And it all started with something so trifling! As I said before, there was no fire, but there was a couple of small sparks.
Some time early in 2012, I was briefly saying goodnight to my stepdaughter. It was winter, and she had thick blankets over her. I ran my hand down over her back, over the thick blankets. It was just an absent-minded thing at the time, and I thought nothing of it.
Unfortunately, she got a completely wrong impression from this. Her mother, aunt and myself all talked about it with her and attempted to reason with her.
One morning a little while after this, I had to have a brief conversation with her about decorum (specifically the need to close doors when changing). My exact words to her were: “You are growing up to be an attractive young lady”.
As luck would have it, she only heard one word. Later that day at school she got upset and was saying: “My stepfather said he’s attracted to me!”
Because she said this in front of school friends, it got to the attention of the school counsellor and the school chaplain. They alerted the school-based police officer, and the girl was taken to the local police station to give an interview.
This interview never went anywhere. There was no questions, no investigation, just nothing. Effectively, it was just thrown out the first time around.
Interestingly, it was around that conversation mentioned earlier that the whole court matter ended up revolving.
The following is an educational assessment on my stepdaughter:
“It is possible that [Redacted]’s educational difficulties are attributable to her weaknesses in processing speed and verbal comprehension. Students who have language processing difficulties are likely to have problems with any aspect of language (e.g. hearing words correctly, understanding their meaning, remembering verbal material and communicating clearly). It is common for students with language difficulties to process information more slowly and find it challenging to remember and organise information effectively.”
Case gets dug up again!
Six months later, the whole thing got dug up again when she was visiting her natural father.
A day or two after they got there, a violent argument broke out between her and her younger brother. She kicked him and her father came storming in, demanding “what’s going on?”
She then had a heart-to-heart with her father during which she made disclosures of what she believed had happened to her.
He marched her down to the local Police Station. Unfortunately, it was a week before they were able to get hold of a child protection investigation detective to interview her.
There was a history of animosity between our two families – mostly from them. None of this had anything to do with me!
So for a whole week she was left with this family, foaming at the mouth and making a huge deal and going on and on and on about it.
The detective arrived, briefly interviewed her and the file was closed, marked: "SOLVED AS UNFOUNDED – NIL DISCLOSURES."
So the matter had been thrown out for a second time! But it was dug up AGAIN for a third time after the mother went to retrieve her daughter from her father. The half-sister, desperate to get her back up there, made a vexatious complaint that the girl had ‘bruises on her legs’. Of course, this was completely untrue – the Police attended her aunt’s house, and I’m told she was sitting there quite happily, wearing shorts. They could see immediately that there was no bruising.
That terrible interview!
Despite this, it was at this time that they decided to call me in for an interview, perhaps out of an abundance of caution. They asked me to come in as they had ‘a few questions’ for me. I honestly thought “what’s the harm? It’s all perfectly simple and they will understand once I explain it to them”. Famous last words.
I knew nothing of legal matters. I didn’t know I was supposed to bring a Lawyer. Also, unfortunately for me, I didn’t know I was autistic at that time either. I should definitely have had a Lawyer or Support Person with me.
They began by mentioning the half-sisters complaint and saying that it was obviously vexatious. So far so good.
They interrogated me over and over about an incident where I had walked past the bathroom door and the girl had been standing at the sink with the door wide open, in a state of undress. It was less than half a second walking past a door, but they were like a dog with a bone about it.
My Lawyer told me it was the ‘worst interview he had ever heard’. I mean, it was an absolute train wreck. But it was simply me, an autistic person, trying to explain perfectly innocent happenings to two Police Officers with very suspicious natures.
Interestingly, subsequent to this interview, and the 26 year old junior Constable calling me back to answer ‘a few more questions’ upon which he arrested me for touching the girl on the lower back, the DPP threw out the case again:
File Note
[Redacted] - [Redacted]
Author: [Redacted]
Date/time: [Redacted]
Subject: Discussion with AO about the evidence
Type: File Note
I called the arresting officer, [Redacted], about this file. I told [Redacted] that I have reviewed the whole brief and at this stage and (sic) I am of the view that we may have no reasonable prospect of convincing a jury that the complainant is telling the truth.
Subsequent to this, they discovered a missing 30 minutes from my interview and decided to proceed with the prosecution after all. So the case was dug up AGAIN, for a fourth time, even though it is patently obvious that the evidence of the complainant was not enough to secure a conviction. It was my own interview, and my autism that I was on trial for!
Autism and Police Interviewing
The effect autism can have on an interrogative interview is quite surprising. Rather than go into detail about the multitude of things that went wrong, I’ll leave some excerpts from the closing addresses in my trial.
My Defence Lawyer:
"You imagine living with [this] character. You heard the record of interview. It went for almost two hours. There were the diatribes of soul searching, over-analysing, analysis paralysis. Imagine living with him. It’d be like watching paint dry. He was a human irritant..."
"You heard him. It was an irritation to listen to him in the record of interview. Please don’t hold that against him. His boring monologue and his soul searching and his insights into this family dynamic, you would have found them quite boring."
"...and we had to sit – listen to that boring diatribe of a record of interview."
The Crown Prosecutor:
"Ladies and gentlemen, look at the qualified way in which this denial, if you can call it a denial, is made about this ... incident. The question was perfectly simple in terms of whether you’ve ever gone out of your – sorry, whether you’ve attempted to ...., and he says he doesn’t understand the question. You might think that’s just trying to buy more time. And then “not really” after a long pause. When you’ve got such a qualified denial, it’s simply completely uncompelling, you might think."
"You’ve got The Defendant’s denials to this, which I’d suggest to you, again, you just have to reject. They’re incredibly qualified, you might think."
"But, again, the allegation’s been put to him. It’s not, you might think, this steadfast, “Absolutely not. Nothing like that’s ever happened.” It’s always a qualification."
"...you’d look at his denials which are – throughout the entire record of interview are always qualified, I’d suggest to you."
"Then if – in relation to The Defendant’s denials, you’d have to find them completely, I’d suggest to you, unconvincing. They’re qualified. He’s clearly shown, if you accept those acts about ..... , he’s clearly shown a reluctance to be completely upfront. And in any event, you might think it’s completely implausible the way in which he describes it. If you come to those conclusions, then, ladies and gentlemen, invariably it would lead you to a conclusion of guilt. Thank you."
Judges sentencing remarks:
"...then as you were getting up, you slid your hand down her back onto her bottom over the top of her pyjama shorts"
"I accept that the touching involved in this case is unquestionably at the low end of seriousness for this type of offence."
"Mitigating factors do include that the behaviour was at the lower end of seriousness. No further offending since this incident or indeed any other criminal history, your otherwise apparent good character."
"Nonetheless, having regard to all of the mitigating circumstances that have been – that I’ve discussed in giving my reasons, I’ve considered it’s appropriate that you serve the two months."
Bad Lawyers
3 1/2 years later, my Lawyer was arrested after drunkenly crashing his car into a road sign and attempting to bribe police. He no longer practices Law.
He was publicly reprimanded a number of times over the years for unprofessional conduct (being notorious for using foul language in court) and ultimately found guilty of official corruption.
In 2019, The Court of Appeal found he had failed to follow his client’s instructions in a criminal trial, and found him to not be a credible witness, after noting “significant problems and implausibility plaguing [his] evidence”.
This man's description of his experience with the same Lawyer are eerily similar to my own.
I don’t know if it was due to my autism, but my Lawyer made precious little effort to communicate with me. In fact, he didn’t even tell me until literally the night before my trial (2 years and 5 months after I was arrested) that the charge against me had been altered from what was on the charge sheet.
My Lawyer went out of his way to actively discourage me from appealing my conviction. He refused to entertain any talk of an appeal, saying “just leave it and get on with your life”. By this time my funds were exhausted after paying for the trial. I had nothing left to argue with.
The Twilight Zone
I know exactly where the allegation came from. I said so in my interview. My Lawyer failed to put this version of events to her during cross examination. How was I supposed to insist he do so when I still believed the charge against me was what was stated on the charge sheet?
I don't believe the complainant deliberately set out to make any false accusations. I honestly think she was just confused.
Interestingly, the very first answer she gave when prompted aligns exactly with my version.
She said it happened when I was saying goodnight to her. But then suddenly she says:
"...no no it was that time when..."
She then linked it to the conversation we had. Of course, her retelling of this short conversation is completely different to the conversation we actually had, which I can clearly recall (see the educational assessment I quoted earlier).
I honestly don’t know how, but somehow she managed to mix completely unrelated happenings together.
What really struck me about the testimony was that there was so little of it. Two very short interviews and that was it.
The description of the 'crime' was just so incredibly vague.
Essentially, she said I went 'like that' and then 'over that area' as I went to stand up.
The way she described it was as a sort of a grabby feeling, but not a 'full' one.
But the Prosecutors and the Court still took all this and ran with it.
Deficiencies in the Investigation
I have in my possession an email from the Department of Prosecutions asking the investigating Officer why he did not obtain one single statement from any of the parties mentioned in the testimony, variously referred to as:
1. “Mother”
2. “Auntie”
3. “Nanna”
4. “Father”
5. “Counsellor”.
Some of his responses were: “He could look into that” and he was “unsure why he did not obtain statements from the Father or Counsellor.”
The Counsellor would have been compellable to testify in the state of Queensland.
Additionally, he did not obtain one single statement from other parties named in the testimony:
6. “Chaplain”
7. “Guidance Officer”
8. “School-Based Police Officer”.
Clearly, the Police failed in their obligation to mount a proper and thorough investigation.
Out of all the parties mentioned above, not one witness was called. They also failed to include the earlier police interview, which was taken right after the event was supposed to have happened. I would have thought this would be highly relevant!
Thank you for listening!
Written by John, not his real name.
For more information on the issues with autism and Police interviewing, please watch the excellent video, 'Autism is not a crime.'
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