“COT Case Strategy” 

As shown on page 5169 in Australia's Government SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia Telstra's lawyers Freehill Hollingdale & Page devised a legal paper titled “COT Case Strategy” (see Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C) instructing their client Telstra (naming me and three other businesses) on how Telstra could conceal technical information from us under the guise of Legal Professional Privilege even though the information was not privileged. 

This COT Case Strategy was to be used against me, my named business, and the three other COT case members, Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan and Graham Schorer, and their three named businesses. Simply put, we and our four businesses were targeted even before our arbitrations commenced. The Kangaroo Court was devised before the four COT Cases signed our arbitration agreements. 

It is paramount that the visitor reading absentjustice.com understands the significance of pages 5168 and 5169 at points 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, which note: 

26. A possible reason for the AFP’s lack of enthusiasm emerged the following year. In 1993 and 1994, the Federal Member for Wannon, Mr David Hawker asked a series of questions about public sector fraud relating to the years 1991-1993. On 28 August 1994, the Sunday Telegraph reported under the headline, "$6.5 million missing in PS fraud," "Workers in sensitive areas including ASIO, the National Crime Authority, Customs, the Family Court, and the Australian Federal Police were convicted of fraud according to information given to Parliament."

27. Apparently, the NSW police had a similar problem. According to Mr Saul, he was never interviewed by police, and only token efforts were made to access and seize motel records as evidence. Invariably it was found that moteliers (often former police officers) had been warned to expect a visit. Mr Saul states that a senior police officer within the Professional Responsibility Group of the NSW Police Force (then under the command of former NSW Assistant Commissioner Geoff Schuberg), told him there had been no serious investigation of travel allowance irregularities in NSW—information consistent with a report in the Telegraph Mirror on 19 April 1995, under the headline "Police criminals ‘staying on duty’."

28. In the course of evidence given to the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Force, Assistant Commissioner Schuberg admitted that three detectives from Tamworth who admitted to rorting their travel expenses were dealt with internally and fined rather than charged with fraud. Commissioner Wood asked: "This is a fraud, is it not, of the kind we have seen politicians and others go to jail for? You have people who are proven liars with criminal records who are still carrying out policing and giving evidence?" Assistant Commissioner Schuberg replied: "Yes, I do think it raises a problem." Legal professional privilege.

29. Whether Telstra was active behind-the-scenes in preventing a proper investigation by the police is not known. What is known is that, at the time, Telstra had representatives of two law firms on its Board—Mr Peter Redlich, a Senior Partner in Holding Redlich, who had been appointed for 5 years from 2 December 1991 and Ms Elizabeth Nosworthy, a partner in Freehill Hollingdale & Page who had also been appointed for 5 years from 2 December 1991.  

• One of the notes to and forming part of Telstra’s financial statements for the 1993- 94 financial year indicates that during the year, the two law firms supplied legal advice to Telstra, totalling $2.7 million, an increase of almost 100 per cent over the previous year. Part of the advice from Freehill Hollingdale & Page was a strategy for "managing" the "Casualties of Telecom" (COT) cases.

30. The Freehill Hollingdale & Page strategy was set out in an issues paper of 11 pages, under cover of a letter dated 10 September 1993 to a Telstra Corporate Solicitor, Mr Ian Row from FH&P lawyer, Ms Denise McBurnie (see Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C).  The letter, headed "COT case strategy" and marked "Confidential," stated:

• "As requested, I now attach the issues paper which we have prepared in relation to Telecom’s management of ‘COT’ cases and customer complaints of that kind. The paper has been prepared by us together with input from Duesburys, drawing on our experience with a number of ‘COT’ cases. . . ."

31. The lawyer’s strategy was set out under four heads: "Profile of a ‘COT’ case" (based on the particulars of four businesses and their principals, named in the paper); "Problems and difficulties with ‘COT’ cases"; "Recommendations for the management of ‘COT’ cases; and "Referral of ‘COT’ cases to independent advisors and experts". The strategy was in essence that no-one should make any admissions and, lawyers should be involved in any dispute that may arise, from beginning to end. "There are numerous advantages to involving independent legal advisers and other experts at an early stage of a claim," wrote Ms McBride . Eleven purported advantages were listed.

Back then, Mr Redlich was, in most people's eyes, one of the finest lawyers in Australia at that time. He was also a stalwart within the Labor Party, a one-time friend of two Australian Prime Ministers (Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke) and a long-time friend of Mark Dreyfus, Australia's Attorney General until at least 2024, so who would be the slightest bit interested in listening to my perspective in comparison to someone so highly qualified and with such vital friends? 

And remember, the COT strategy was designed by Freehill Hollingdale & Page (now trading as  Herbert Smith Freehills Melbourne), when Elizabeth Holsworthy (a partner at Freehill's) was also a member of the Telstra Board, along with Mr Redlich. The whole aim of that ‘COT Case Strategy’ was to stop us, the legitimate claimants against Telstra, from having any chance of winning our claims. Do you think my claim would have even the tiniest possibility of being heard under those circumstances?

While I am not condemning either Mr Redlich or Ms Holsworthy for any personal wrongdoing as Telstra Board members, what I am condemning is their condoning of the COT Cases Strategy designed to destroy any chance of the four COT Cases (which included me and my business), of a proper assessment of the ongoing telephone problems that were destroying our four businesses. I ask how any ordinary person could get past Telstra's powerful Board. After all, in comparison to these so-called highly qualified, revered Aussie citizens, I am just a one-time Ships’ Cook who purchased a holiday camp with a very unreliable phone service.

The fabricated BCI report (see Telstra’s Falsified BCI Report and BCI Telstra’s M.D.C Exhibits 1 to 46 is most relevant because Telstra's arbitration defence lawyers provided it to Ian Joblin, a forensic psychologist who was assigned by Freehill Hollingdale & Page to assess my mental state during my arbitration. It is linked to statements made in the following page 5169 SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia concerning Telstra having adopted the Freehill Hollingdale & Page - COT Case Strategy during the COT arbitrations, which Denise McBurnie of Freehill Hollingdale & Page had spuriously prepared. 

What I did not know, when I was first threatened by Telstra in July 1993 and again by Denise McBurnie in September 1993, that if I did not register my telephone problems in writing with Denise McBurnie, then Telstra would NOT investigate my ongoing telephone fault complaints is that this "COT Case Strategy" was a set up by Telstra and their lawyers to hide all proof that I genuinely did have ongoing telephone problems affecting the viability of my business.  

The relentless demand to document every single telephone fault and report these trivial daily issues to Denise McBurnie before Telstra would even condescend to address them was maddening. Ian Joblin, the so-called "clinical psychologist" brought in by Telstra for arbitration, conducted his evaluation of my mental health on December 12, 1994, and made it clear just how twisted the system was. It was no wonder I was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); the very act of having to funnel complaints through Telstra's legal labyrinth before they would deign to investigate was a recipe for depression, warping anyone’s thought processes. Mr Joblin, in a rare moment of truth, ensured that his findings were documented in the grim pages of the arbitration report prepared by Freehills Hollingdale & Page—his employers in this corrupt charade.

Later, when the second-appointed Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) discovered that sections of Mr Joblin's witness statement had not been signed when submitted to arbitration, he contacted Telstra's arbitration counsel, Ted Banjamin, on October 23, 1997. His inquiry? A thinly veiled demand for answers—what was hidden, what had been stolen from the record? The whole affair reeked of deceit and manipulation, leaving a bitter taste of corruption looming overhead.

I was unaware I would later need this evidence for an arbitration process. This arbitration process meant I had to retrieve from Telstra the exact documentation I had previously provided to this legal firm under Freedom of Information. Imagine the frustration of knowing that you had already provided the evidence supporting your case, but Telstra and their lawyers were now withholding it from you.

I have consistently articulated, over an extended period, the necessity and methodology behind transcribing fault complaint records from exercise books into diaries while upholding the accuracy of my chronology of fault events. I must note my repeated reminders to the arbitration project manager regarding the solicitation of these fault complaint notebooks during my oral arbitration hearing, as evidenced by the meeting transcripts. However, it is noteworthy that Telstra contested the submission of these records, and the arbitrator, without conducting a proper examination, dismissed their relevance. Notably, Telstra omitted to disclose that, from June 1993 to January 1994, Freehill Hollingdale & Page refrained from documenting my phone complaints as reported by me and refused their release under FOI guidelines on the basis of Legal Professional Privilege.

I posit that the acceptance of these notations from my exercise books as evidence, in conjunction with the retrieval of my fault complaints registered with Freehill Hollingdale & Page in the presence of Telstra's Forensic Documents Examiner, Mr Holland, would have furnished substantial clarity and dispelled any suspicion of deceit. I acknowledge the potential scepticism concerning the narrative's veracity presented here, attributable to its seemingly incredulous nature.

The arbitrator's written findings in his award did not document the coercion I experienced during arbitration or the threats made and carried out against me by Telstra. He also failed to acknowledge that government solicitors and the Commonwealth Ombudsman had to be involved after Telstra refused to provide the requested documents. These documents were promised to us if the commercial assessment process we had agreed to would be turned into an arbitration process. However, the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, did mention it in his award.

"… I have considered, and have no grounds to reject the expert evidence provided by Telecom from Neil William Holland, Forensic Document Examiner, who examined the claimant’s diaries and because of numerous instances of non-chronological entries, thereby causing doubt on their veracity and reliability."