Attack dog: when Lyndoch sent its lawyers after The Terrier

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A lot of people have asked me lately whether I was sued for defamation by Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power and if it all ended up in court.

The answers are: yes and no. Let me explain.

After I wrote a series of four stories late last year about my concerns around Lyndoch, its direction, and its leadership, I received a letter from Melbourne law firm K&L Gates, who represent Lyndoch Living.

(The Gates part, by the way, relates to the firm’s founder, the father of US billionaire Bill Gates, so this was not some tin pot law joint with broken blinds and wonky lampshades, but a downtown Collins St law firm with city views and a serious letterhead.)

K&L Gates wrote that they were acting on behalf of the Lyndoch CEO who was:

“disturbed by a series of recent articles, written and published by you on (The Terrier), attacking our client’s reputation and character”.

Gulp.

Naturally, I felt slightly sick, but only slightly, because in 30 years’ of working as a journalist in search of the ever-elusive truth, I have received one or two of these letters before. The scary bit was that I now work alone.

The letter then set out the CEO’s particular grievances – or imputations.

You can download the whole letter here, it is not confidential, but here is the list:

That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client bullies and intimidates staff and other third parties;

That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client manipulates staff by psychological means into doubting their own sanity;

That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client unfairly favours some people over others;

That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client has caused a detrimental impact on the care of Lyndoch’s residents;

That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client lacks transparency and endorses secrecy;

That in carrying out leadership roles as CEO of Seymour and Plenty Valley Community Health, our client destroyed the culture and workplace environment of those places, and caused irreparable physical and/or psychological harm to their staff;

That our client is a disinterested CEO who does not care about her staff or the residents of Lyndoch; and;

That our client is unfit to be the CEO of Lyndoch or of any other organisation.

Defamation law is an important law and one that I take extremely seriously.

It is there to protect all of us from malicious untruths, but it can also be used by powerful people to “chill” journalists from investigating or writing about issues of public interest.

Back in the days when journalists worked in robust newsrooms with bottomless budgets, such legal battles could be fought with vigour.

Those days are almost gone.

The unofficial legal team for The Terrier: Bon the Beagle, George the German Shepherd and Cindy the Crazy Kelpie.

Now, like many journos out on their own, I have no newsroom and no budget for legal battles, and I rely entirely on insurance via my union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

Like all journos, I also rely on thorough research and credible sources to get things right in the first place, but it is one thing to argue a fact like, “you have no money” compared to “why do you have no money?”

WHY is the very guts of investigative journalism, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and it attracts law suits. Many newsrooms have given up on it, but it is what I do.

So I got my legal letter, paid for by Lyndoch, which confirmed that the aged care home which once looked after my own Mum was now threatening to sue me.

This was serious and it’s precisely why I waited until my Mum passed away last April before I started to write this current series of stories: as feisty as Mum was, she would have been worried sick.

Over the holiday period K&L Gates talked to my lawyers and vice versa. Letters were exchanged.

And in the end, my insurers decided not to fight the imputations, because who knows if I would win or lose in trying to prove the “why?”

I agreed to pull the stories from the website and remove them from Facebook and I cannot publish them again. I also agreed to pay costs.

All of this cost me $2000 in an insurance excess, but, because of you wonderful beings, it actually cost me $200, because Foxy the Fighting Fund kicked in and helped me to cover that excess.

Did it go to court? No.

Did The Terrier win or lose? I will leave that up to you to decide.

Is it important that we keep going? More than ever.

Defamation can be designed to “chill”, and frighten journalists into tightening their buttocks, but you know what? I am being cautious, but also reaching for an extra coat.

If you are reading this and would like to support The Terrier, please throw something in the tip jar below.

The Tip Jar

WA Museum chief says claim from “confusion”

maritime-museum-of-western-australia14 — The contemporary WA Maritime Museum at the centre of the original, incorrect claim of missing items. Image: Articlesweb.

UPDATE – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]he Western Australian Museum has further investigated an incorrect claim by Flagstaff Hill director Peter Abbott that more than 6680 items from its collection were unaccounted for and believes the damaging claim was a result of “confusion”.

As first reported by Bluestone yesterday, the museum strongly rejected a statement by Mr Abbott in a January 10 letter to the Warrnambool Standard in which he used the example of the Western Australian Maritime Museum to defend the fact that Flagstaff Hill cannot locate more than 130 items listed in its collection.

Mr Abbott wrote that museums around the world “go through random collection reviews” that often reveal “items have been moved or misplaced”.

“As an example…Western Australian Maritime Museum in 2009 found over 6680 (items) unaccounted for,” he wrote.

The Western Australian Museum covers six sites, including the WA Maritime Museum.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] I [/dropcap]n a statement to Bluestone today, WA Museum Chief Executive Officer Alec Coles reiterated that 6680 items “are not missing from its collection nor ever were”.

He said, however, that further investigations revealed an internal report was commissioned in 2008 to “improve and harmonise the documentation and storage of the WA Museum’s extensive maritime archeology collection, as well as those collections from Western Australian wrecks held in private collections”.

Mr Coles said the report was separate to the operations of the WA Maritime Museum, which deals with contemporary material.

“(The WA Maritime Museum) was not the subject of this internal report, the purpose of which was to demonstrate the need for improved document and storage systems which have since been achieved,” he said.

“The report states that a number of items at the time were either not audited as part of the process, or that there were inconsistencies between database and object entries, not least because a number of different databases were in use at the time leading to conflicting numbers,” he said.

Mr Coles said the total of items either not audited or with inconsistent entries was “the number cited – 6680 – but does not represent missing items”.

“In fact, the museum conducts regular audits of its collections including two full collection audits for reporting and accounting purposes in 2009 and 2014 and in both cases there were no anomalies,” he said.

Mr Coles said the museum now understood the source of the information and “can also understand where the confusion may have arisen”.

[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”]Bluestone needs at least 500 subscribers in 2015. If you wish to support independent media, please click here to become one.[/button]

You might also enjoy…

Flagstaff Hill: a museum in transition, or a mess?

Are missing Loch Ard ingots the tip of the iceberg?

The changing landscape under Midfield Meats

Sucking the wind out of Portland’s sails

Granny’s Grave buried in bureaucracy

All words, no funding, for Fletcher Jones story

WA Museum rejects Abbott’s claims of lost items

Peter_Abbott — Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village director Peter Abbott, far right, has drawn the ire of the Western Australian Museum for incorrect claims he made about lost items from its collection. Image: Warrnambool City Council.

EXCLUSIVE – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]he Western Australian Museum has strongly rejected a claim by Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village director Peter Abbott that it could not locate more than 6600 items in its collection.

[box]See our update to this story here: WA Museum chief says claim came from “confusion”.[/box]

Mr Abbott made the claim in a January 10 letter to the Warrnambool Standard in which he used the Western Australian example to defend the fact that Flagstaff Hill cannot locate more than 130 items listed in its collection.

Mr Abbott wrote that museums around the world “go through random collection reviews” that often reveal items “have been moved or misplaced”.

“As an example…Western Australian Maritime Museum in 2009 found over 6680 (items) unaccounted for,” he wrote.

The Western Australian Museum covers six sites, including the WA Maritime Museum. Its chief executive officer, Alec Coles, tonight described the claim as simply erroneous.

“The Western Australian Museum rejects any suggestion that (it) could not locate more than 6680 items in 2009 or at any other time,” he said.

“The number is almost half of the Maritime History Department’s total collection, so any claim that WAMM could not locate more than 6680 items is clearly erroneous.”

wa museum

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] M [/dropcap]r Coles said the Maritime History Department had “occasionally found discrepancies involving three or four items as a result of loans or de-acquistions, or lists not being updated, but these issues have always been resolved”.

He also rejected Mr Abbott’s assertion that credible museums undertake “random collection reviews”.

“The Western Australian Museum does not conduct random collection reviews,” Mr Coles said.

“As a State Government agency, the Western Australian Museum is required to conduct regular audits of its collection for government reporting and accounting purposes and these are required to be approved by the office of the Auditor-General.

“The most recent of these was conducted last year.”

When asked where Mr Abbott may have found the information to make such a claim, Mr Coles said that was for Mr Abbott to explain.

“A thorough check of the WA records and with senior staff can’t find any source of the information that might have given rise to the claim,” he said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] M [/dropcap]r Cole’s comments come on the back of confirmation that Flagstaff Hill is under formal investigation by Heritage Victoria over the missing items from its collection and damage to relics from the wreck of the Loch Ard.

As recently reported in Bluestone Magazine, two of the 10 copper sheets from the Loch Ard (1878) that were loaned to Flagstaff Hill by the Federal Government have been cut.

The rejection of Mr Abbott’s claims also comes in light of a separate scandal, in which Mr Abbott was named by the local newspaper as the author of a string of anonymous comments made to its online forums. He often used the forums to make personal attacks against Warrnambool City councillors Cr Brian Kelson and Cr Peter Hulin.

Cr Hulin will move a motion of no confidence against CEO Bruce Anson at the first council meeting of the year on Monday (Feb 2), citing his handling of Mr Abbott’s behaviour as an example of why the Local Government Minister should be asked to intervene.

The same meeting will also discuss a proposed $3 million upgrade to Flagstaff Hill, which has suffered from a steady downturn in visitors in recent years.