DAN ANDREWS: 5 MARCH 2018

Dear Premier

I should like to predicate the following observations by saying I have tried extremely hard to be courteous and respectful to politicians, sports officials, public servants and the media, the vast majority of whom have treated me and 12,000 hours of my work with absolute contempt. 

Enough is enough. The euphemisms are out. It’s time to call a spade a bloody shovel, the very instrument with which you are digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole from which you and your reputation might never recover.

In the Wild West, when the wagons were encircled by the attacking forces, the settlers knew they were in trouble.  In the Mild East, which in Australian terms includes your State of Victoria, the increasingly unsettled and encircled are slowly realising they are in trouble, real trouble, and that their dollars, their agit prop, the influence in the corridors of power won’t be enough to save them.  

The encirclement of the liars, the corrupt and those who have covered up their wrong-doing is happening now daily – in the courts/tribunals, in the media (see today’s Herald Sun), and most tellingly of all now, among the public. Those of us who smelled the rat on day one, are being joined by an ever-growing band of citizens (many of whom are becoming as good at leaking the confidential stuff as ASADA and the AFL was) who have realised the great con perpetrated on them by the AFL, ASADA, WADA, CAS, VWA, the Senate and Victoria Police, all this compounded by the lack of action by the Turnbull Government – and by you and your “bloody shovel”.

I am a fanatical Swans supporter and didn’t know a single Essendon supporter when I started following the AFL and ASADA corruption journey. The only skin I have in the game is my family’s life-long obsession with justice and helping the little guy who can’t fight for himself. 

Our family motto was lines from James Russell Lowell poem ‘Stanzas of Freedom’

They are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak

They are slaves who will not choose

They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three

Ironically, those who have ignored my cries for help have far more skin in the game than I. The AFL executive members and commissioners have an obligation to look after its employees but they have thrown their Essendon employees under the bus to protect themselves and to ingratiate themselves with the politicians so they can rip off billions from the public purse. The politicians, almost without exception, have condoned unprecedented corruption. The public servants have covered it up. The media has prostituted itself for a couple of pieces of silver or a ticket to the footy. 

My understanding is the most important people in Victoria are:

1. The Chairman of the AFL
   
   
2. The CEO of the AFL
   
   
3. The Governor
   
   
4. The Premier
   
   
5. The Police Commissioner
   
   
6. The AFL Commissioners
   
   
7. Managing director of News Limited’s mastheads in Victoria
   
   
8. The CEO of the Victorian WorkSafe Authority

I am comfortably satisfied that Mike Fitzpatrick not only failed to fulfil his responsibilities under the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act (2004), but he presided over an organisation that possibly committed a minimum of 14 criminal offences. And those offences don’t include possibly one of the greatest conflicts of interest in our legal history. Stay tuned.

1. The AFL conspired with ASADA, the Essendon board (represented by Chairman David Evans and Chief Executive Ian Robson) and the Federal government, on 9 February 2013 to fix the result of the investigation before the first witness was interviewed.
   
   (A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
   
   
2. The Essendon board endorsed the agreement reached by the AFL, ASADA and the Gillard government.
   
   (A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
   
   
3. The action of AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou continually implying in the media that Essendon and Hird were guilty.
   
   (A POSSIBLE BREACH OF THEIR RIGHT TO PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS)
   
   
4. The AFL executive briefed the proposed jury (the AFL Commissioners) on the evidence before the investigation was completed.
   
   (A POSSIBLE SUBORNING OF DECISION MAKERS AND INTERFERING WITH THE PROCESS OF JUSTICE)
   
   
5. The AFL informed the jury before the investigation was completed that the Essendon Football Club, James Hird, Danny Corcoran and Mark Thompson were guilty.
   
   (A POSSIBLE SUBORNING OF DECISION MAKERS, INTERFERING WITH THE PROCESS OF JUSTICE AND PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
   
   
6. The AFL executive informed the jury before the investigation was completed what some of the penalties would be.
   
   (A POSSIBLE PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
   
   
7. AFL staff bullied and blackmailed the Essendon Football Club, James Hird, Danny Corcoran and Mark Thompson to accept the penalties before charges were laid.
   
   (A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL DURESS TO PERVERT THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
   
   
8. The Essendon board agreed to the fraud in order to mitigate the threat of more severe penalties.
   
   (A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
   
   
9. ASADA changed evidence; omitted evidence; and fabricated evidence to help the AFL create a case against Essendon, Hird, Corcoran and Thompson.
   
   (A POSSIBLE PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AND PERJURY)
   
   
10. The AFL denied Hird procedural fairness by wanting him stood aside as coach before he was even interviewed.
    
    (A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
    
    
11. At the AFL’s behest, on 25 June 2013, David Evans asked James Hird if he would agree to be suspended and Essendon be banned from playing in the finals series.
    
    (A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
    
    
12. On separate occasions, deputy AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan (26 June 2013) and Andrew Demetriou (24 July 2013) asked Ms Andruska to omit information from the interim report. Those omissions may have contributed to the AFL being able to defraud Essendon of $2 million.
    
    (A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AND CONSPIRACY TO PERVERT THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
    
    
13. The AFL asked ASADA to include things in the interim report in order to prove guilt. This contributed to the AFL defrauding Essendon of $2 million.
    
    (A POSSIBLE CONSPIRACY AND PERJURY)
    
    
14. ASADA chief investigator John Nolan tried to doctor the injection figures on 15 July 2013, in order to build the case against Essendon.
    
    (A POSSIBLE ATTEMPTED FORGERY AND CONSPIRACY)

Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan: Both are liars. Both failed to fulfil their responsibilities as directors. Both called the shots in the possible defrauding of the Essendon Football Club of $2 million. Both should be suspended from being directors for a reasonable period.

The Hon Linda Dessau AC – Governor of Victoria. I am comfortably satisfied that It’s hard to imagine that a less deserving person has ever been appointed governor. Ms Dessau was a commissioner of the AFL during the time the alleged possible offences occurred. She was a judge. She should have pulled Demetriou, McLachlan and her fellow commissioners into line. Doing nothing was the same as pulling the trigger.

Sir, I have sent you numerous documents containing irrefutable proof of corruption during all stages of the saga and you have done nothing. Sydney radio broadcaster Alan Jones pleaded with you to intervene and you also ignored him. And recently I made you aware that Police Commissioner Graham Ashton lied to me and has refused to investigate the above allegations, despite being told that a QC vetted every word in my allegation document. You had a reputation for caring for the little man, for helping those who couldn’t help themselves. Surely, your good name and what your family thinks of you is more important than joining the long line of grubs protecting the AFL!

Police Commissioner Graham Ashton: Lied to me and refused to investigate my allegations. Surely, he needs to be stood aside pending an investigation into his unjustified decision.

The 2012-2013 AFL Commissioners, which included current AFL chairman Richard Goyder and Victorian Governor Linda Dessau. They breached the Victorian OH&S Act by not providing a safe work place for their employees at Essendon. I am comfortably satisfied that they breached their obligations as company directors. They allowed Demetriou and McLachlan to run amok. Their right to be directors anywhere should be investigated.

Peter Blunden – managing director of News Limited’s mastheads in Victoria: I have sent the Herald Sun and Mr Blunden over one hundred substantiated stories and the paper has never used any of them.

Clare Amies – chief executive of Victorian WorkSafe Authority: Ms Amies did the impossible. Although Demetriou, Fitzpatrick and McLachlan implied in public statements that they failed to fulfil their obligations under the OH&S Act and were guilty of failing to provide a safe work place for the Essendon players, Ms Amies miraculously found the AFL not guilty.

Despite the lies by the Police Commissioner Graham Ashton, Health Minister Greg Hunt, ASADA lawyers and the Pravda unit at Docklands, Justice Middleton was not asked to adjudicate on any of the matters that I have outlined above and he did not do so. 

To my knowledge, there has never been an investigation into these matters that I raise.

These matters alleged are of a criminal nature and should have been properly investigated but were not because of what appears to be a “rush to judgement” and a “preconceived outcome”.

It is disgraceful that lives and reputations have been so egregiously ruined in such a fraudulent and unjust way.

I have spent over 12,000 hours and distributed over one million words to tens of thousands of people in seeking to bring the truth to the light of day. The evidence that I have obtained could have been obtained by honest and fair-minded investigators but it was not.

Res ipsa loquitur, if necessary, I shall spend another 12,000 hours on the matter to ensure the relevant participants are brought to justice and those involved in the cover-up are exposed and shamed.

Everything in this whole shameful disgraceful saga speaks of conspiracy, duplicity, lies, interference with the truth in order to arrive at a preconceived outcome with the setting up of “sacrificial lambs”.

If I am right in this regard then this whole Essendon doping saga’s conduct is unbecoming of a civilised society under the rule of law.

Such conduct should be investigated thoroughly given the importance of this matter and if found to be so it should be exposed and the relevant participants be brought to justice. 

Premier, until you order an investigation into my allegations and the Police Commissioner you a slave who dares not be in the right with two or three.

Bruce Francis