Independent Australia Contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence fronts the Federal Court in Melbourne tomorrow in her appeal against the bankruptcy order made against her on November 11 last year. As she reports, much has happened to her since that hearing — very little of it good or just.
Only one more restless sleep before tomorrow’s welcome 9.30am hearing in Melbourne’s Federal Court of Australia for an extension of time and leave to Appeal last year’s November 11 Bankruptcy Order against me by Justice North and made in my absence as a result of PTSD triggered by threats made to me at the Magistrates Court last May 9, by my bankruptor’s lawyer, McKean Park’s Richard Ashley.
Since the assault and my breakdown, I have been trying to rebuild my life and confidence and my journalism, especially with the Diggers Fair Go campaign that I unashamedly and passionately support — and which remains an important part of my rehabilitation.
Thanks to the supportive work of psychologists Michael Crewdson and Dr David List and other doctors and good people, I have mended to the extent that I am able to again represent myself in Court; a choiceless matter, given my financial hardship and rejection by Legal Aid and PILCH (the Public Interest Legal Clearing House).
The severe personal and professional emotional blows of having my property stripped bare of even load bearing fittings and personal belongings stolen and trashed, including documents and files and business equipment, having my backyard bulldozed and front gate and front doors broken into on several occasions and possessions and family possessions stolen and sold without my knowledge or consultation has opened my eyes to the endemic culture of the brutalising of ordinary people by SOME within our legal and judicial systems and departments, including the Sherriff, bankruptcy trustees and banks and their agents and representatives who breach with impunity Commonwealth and State Laws and who remain indecently partisan to the banks and bankruptors, when they are legally obliged to remain impartial.
What is more, it seems we are nice fat little earners for bankruptcy trustees and all the bottom feeders in these chains of human misery — and if they are nice to the banks and bankruptors, they’ll get even more work. They answer to no-one it seems. They are a law and a lore unto themselves. And that’s also what SOME police believe.
Civil laws and protocols can be breached by criminal acts. Police seem to think that criminal conduct remains subservient to civil law.
The breakdown of law and order in our community streets is reflected in our bureaucratic streets as well. There is little scrutiny in these backstreets. And that’s the way the boys in the backroom like it.
On Saturday evening, an incident happened that was an enormous emotional setback to me and immediately triggered the flashbacks I thought I was ‘managing’. I daresay that was what the incident was supposed to do. But knowing that doesn’t stop the derailing of months of remedial work and therapy.
I don’t know who the man was. He didn’t identify himself. He was dressed in blackish clothing.
He terrified me to such an extent that I remained awake all night — too scared and upset to sleep …
