Operation Noetic — AFP Arrests Patrick O’Dea and Dr Pridgeon for “Child-stealing.” Really?
AFP arrests, Pat O’Dea is in the red shirt
by Dee McLachlan
My introduction to the Family Court was in Adelaide in mid-September. I met “Darlene” (a protective parent) and was horrified by her story.
After we published a few articles detailing some of the failings in the Family Court system — I was inundated with calls from desperate parents, grandparents and a few legal people. The accounts only got worse.
One of these calls was from a South African/Australian, Patrick O’Dea. He seems to have dedicated his life to helping keep children safe, so we chatted for some 30 minutes — and I offered to write, in the future, about any miscarriages of justice (understanding the restrictions of section 121). That’s what we do at Gumshoe: write about the wrongs being done to the people of Australia — or anywhere else for that matter.
Then yesterday, in Grafton, NSW, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers arrested Patrick O’Dea, and William Russell Massingham Pridgeon, a physician.
As far as I can tell, these arrests are timed to stop the growing support of the many organisations exposing improper conduct in the Family Court system.
Operation Noetic
I’m sure my conversation with the activist Patrick O’Dea was listened to by the investigators of Operation Noetic. (Well I’ve considered that all my conversations are being monitored. I just hope I’m educating the listeners in the process.) But back to Operation Noetic. It is, or was, a complex, two-year investigation into people that were allegedly “stealing” children.
Before I go on, the word noetic relates to mental activity or the intellect, and is defined as:
“the noetic quality of a mystical experience refers to the sense of revelation.”
South Africa
Interestingly, Patrick O’Dea, Dr Pridgeon, and I are all originally from South Africa. In fact the doctor was at the University of Cape Town doing his medical degree when I was at the same university studying Ecology. At that time, if I remember correctly, a “gathering” of more than four people on campus could be labelled by police as a protest group, and they could thus be arrested.
One thing many people learned when growing up in South Africa — in the Apartheid Regime — was that even if something is lawful, is not necessarily moral or right. It was lawful to jail a black person for climbing onto a white bus.
So I find some “sense of revelation” that these two South African / Australians have been arrested. I am sure as they sit in their cells today, they must be reflecting on how they were brought up in one police state, only to immigrate to another, that, to them, has become like the regime they so despised.
And as Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
So what is right, and wrong in this instance?
The Charges
The AFP put out a media release this morning:
“The AFP has arrested three men… plus they served a Court Attendance Notice on a 78-year-old Perth woman… also executed 10 search warrants…
“AFP Assistant Commissioner Debbie Platz, Assistant Commissioner Crime Operations, said investigators had disrupted an organised and well-resourced group of people demonstrating a complete disregard for the rule of law and decisions of the courts. ‘The actions of this group do not protect children. What it does is potentially endanger the safety and wellbeing of them,‘ she said.”
Were they endangering or protecting? To continue:
“We believe this group has sought assistance from other people – some who may be unaware of their involvement in criminal activity – so we are urging anyone with any knowledge about these activities to come forward to the AFP.”
Who are these two South African / Australians? The founders of the Australian Antipaedophile Party. And they are now being charged with a range of offences, including:
Conspiracy to defeat justice (punishable by imprisonment for 10 years).
Dealing in the proceeds of crime (15 years).
Using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, and publishing an account of proceedings, contrary to section 121 of the Family Law Act 1975.
Section 121 (FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 No. 53 of 1975) essentially gags any parent disclosing details of their case — and says that a person shall not print or publish any statement or report that proceedings have been instituted in the Family Court or in another court… or any account of evidence in proceedings.
Is this contrary to the implied freedoms granted in the Constitution? Who speaks for the child?
The Publicity Over the Arrests
What I find most disturbing is the publicity over these arrests. Let’s see how the media has framed this story.
The Courier-Mail (Renee Viellaris), October 18, 2018 has the title:
“GP, friends allegedly helped women steal children and hide from police”
With the copy:
“An alleged criminal syndicate with links to the 2016 federal election was swooped on in raids across the country yesterday…
“The Australian Federal Police charged three people in Queensland and NSW, while a West Australian woman is expected to be charged under Operation Noetic, a complex, two-year investigation that included raiding a yacht allegedly being refitted to spirit children and mothers overseas.
“The children were stolen by their mothers after marriage breakdowns or custody disputes with fathers.”
Now why would mothers risk all and decide to escape overseas? To continue:
“Some of the children and mothers – who had made unfounded allegations that their partners sexually abused their children – had been off the grid and missing for years.”
Were they unfounded? If they were unfounded would they bother with abandoning their country, their friends, and risk jail over a custody dispute? Possibly. But is there another possibility?
What if the sexual injury accusations were true?
I repeat. What if the sexual injury accusations were true, and the authorities failed to listen to, and protect those children? What if there was emotional and sexual injury to the child and the accusations and evidence was ignored by those authorities charged with protecting these children?
I apply simple logic. People react to danger in different ways, and typically it is “fight or flight”. But if there is no danger, what are the odds of flight? Low, I’d say.
But back to my hypothetical examples (I don’t know any details of any of the alleged cases related to Operation Noetic,). But what if the child has reported one or more of these?
· graphic sex acts being done to them,
· being filmed, or talking of camera flashes,
· reports of pain, rashes in the wrong place,
· blood in the toilet (“from my bum”), or bloody panties,
· running away from the police and the (alleged) abusive parent
· sexually transmitted diseases in very young children,
· talking about “doodle in my mouth and doodle vomit”, and
· a fear of being killed.
What IF these were part of the equation, part of the evidence — but that these accounts of the child had BEEN IGNORED by the police and the FAMILY COURT. What then?
Has Operation Noetic investigated thoroughly WHY the alleged “criminals” did what they did?
Are they investigating the claims of the children caught up in this debacle?
Several people face serious criminal charges, but have the authorities — the original investigating officers, those social workers, and the legal professionals in the Family Court — possibly ALSO broken the law in the first instance?
Having listened to “Darlene’s” story, and now heard many other accounts in detail, I have to ask: who is actually stealing and abducting children?
All the publicity is about the alleged “criminal syndicate”. An ABC report has the headline:
“AFP bust alleged child-stealing ring in NSW, Queensland and WA”
I can only weep at that headline coming from the so-called people’s media.
The media are allowed to report the alleged criminal activities of O’Dea, Dr Pridgeon and the 83-year-old gent with abandon. But are these three men allowed to defend themselves? Their defence is gagged under Section 121, and I therefore cannot report the details of why they did what they did.
It feels like we are living in an upside down world.
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