September 21, 2025 • 45 mins
When a simple arrest spiralled into years of harassment, retired detective Peter Kos found himself battling more than just the lawbreakers — he was battling the legal system itself. In this episode of Real Crime, Peter shares how he became the target of a relentless group of so-called “sovereign citizens” who flooded him with threats, false accusations and legal stunts designed to intimidate and exhaust. From stalking charges to private prosecutions and civil suits, Peter reveals the toll this six-year ordeal took on him, and why he believes the system needs urgent reform to stop these vexatious agitators from weaponising the courts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apoche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shanner.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Adam shann If you like the show,
please heit the like and subscribe, buttons and share it.
Barren White to support more independent crime journalism. After the
alleged murder of two police officers of Victoria's High Country
in August, the concept of the sovereign citizen has been
in the news.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Desi Freeman is a fugitive hiding in the hills surrounding
poor Punker, a man wanted by the full force over
the cold blooded murders of their colleagues.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Alleged killer Desi Freeman has based his worldview on the
so called alternative legal theory.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
A sovereign citizen is someone who wrongly believes they are
not subject to Australian federal, state, or local law because
they think the laws are incorrect and therefore invalid.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
It's been discussed as if it has some basis in
the law, it most certainly does not. At its core
is a selfish refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of governments,
the courts, police and the entire legal system. Even now
to civil concepts like vehicle registration and drivers licensing. These
(01:23):
individuals don't work, and if they do, they don't pay taxes.
They use and abuse the legal system to harass police
officers and to delay hearings. An ABC investigation has revealed
how a Sovereign citizen group she co founded has been
using FA Court to harass government and court officials across
the country. They'll always take matters to trial and appeal
(01:47):
all outcomes. They abuse and intimidate government officials, will call
the police and expect action if they're victims of crime themselves.
We've seen individual police targeted and demonized.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
As they go about their lawful duties.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
The legal system doesn't know what to do with these
recalcitrant and vexatious litigants.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
My guest today, former Victoria detective Peter cost knows what
it's like to tangle with them.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
For six years he was harassed and pursued by a
group of these individuals.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Has agreed to share his experiences.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
Can I be no way, adam?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Good mate? How did this all begin for you? So?
Speaker 7 (02:29):
It all started when knuckle had One attended Matthew Guy's office.
Matthew Guy, then being the leader of the opposition of
the Liberal Party in Victoria Intendity's office in Doncaster and
he abused the people there and smashed a glass window
in Matthew Guy's office because he wasn't getting answers from
(02:51):
Matthew that he wanted. Regardless of what that was about,
he did cause criminal damage. He was subsequently charged by
someone in my office and at one stage he failed
to turn up and appear in court, so a bench
warrant was issued by the magistrates at Ringwood that ended
up in our office and myself and two other detectives
(03:14):
went down to Danyong to arrest him and take him
back before the courts for failing to appear at court.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Stuff you do all the time as a police officer.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah, So we get warrants for fail to appear all
the time. It's usually a very simple task of going
to the person's house. Sometimes they forget to go to court.
More often than not they just don't want to go
to court face reality, which I think was probably the
case in this instance. So we took him to the magistrates' court.
We backed up the warrant and the matter was listed
(03:44):
for hearing before the magistrate and Knucklehead One was duly
remanded in custody because he had no place of abode
to go to. That's essentially what happened on that one day,
and I didn't hear again from him for about two years.
So what happened was two years later, when we're rested
(04:05):
Knucklehead one Knucklehead two. It was also at the premises
where we arrested number one, so he took it upon
himself to follow us in his car back to Ringwood.
He demanded to know where we were taking Knucklehead one,
and I told him we're going to the Ringwood police
station so we could then have him hold pending his
hearing at the court. Knucklehead two then followed me in
(04:28):
his car, and what he did was he didn't just
follow me. He followed me up the Eastern Freeway where
we're doing one hundred klometers an hour, probably within two
meters of the rear of my car, so he was
tailgating me the whole way, which was a dangerous sort
of thing to do. So what I did was I
(04:49):
overtook a truck, moved in front of the truck so
he couldn't follow directly behind me, and then at the
appropriate place, I turned off the freeway and went to Ringwood.
In order to do that, I had to stop at
a red light and do a U turn on white
Horse Road. I did the turn, Knucklehead two followed through
against a red light to keep up with me, and
(05:11):
he then disappeared and then turned up at court a
bit later on. So when I go back to the
office after the remand I looked up the police database
and I found that knuckle had two actually was unlicensed
and had of course gone through red light. So I
then summonsed him for a couple of traffic matters basically
because of his actions and his aggressive driving. He then
(05:35):
has to from the magistrate's court. There's a number of
hearings for his traffic matters, and he consistently fails to
turn up to court, and if he does and we
have to find him summons him again. He fails to
a turn up at court again. He then claims he's
not ready for his hearings, and it goes on for
(05:57):
two years with him failing to turn up and we
have to go and get a warrant, arrest him and
take him back before the court. So he's just using
delaying tactics to frustrate us. So two years go past,
and then one day I'm sitting at my desk and
Knucklehead one apparently has run and wants to speak to me.
(06:17):
So what I do is I quickly get my phone
out because I know he's going to be abusive, because
not because he was abusive to me the first time,
but he's known in the area to be abusive towards
all police. So I get my phone out and I
finally take the call, and I put my office phone
(06:38):
on speaker and I then record a ten minute verbal
abuse from this bloke. Because he's claiming that I kidnapped him.
I have really no idea what it was on about.
Speaker 8 (06:50):
And he doesn't recognize your legal authority, he says, because
he's a sovereign citizen, he doesn't have to recognize the police.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
You're illegal, or your actions are illegal. You're a terrorist.
You've kidnapped him.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
That's what he's claiming. So what's actually happened is we
executed the warrant on the day he fronted before magistrate.
You can't front anyone before magistrate unless they've been duly
presented and there are charges before the court. So what
is claiming is just ridiculous. What happened in actual fact,
was the detective who actually charged him with the initial offenses.
(07:29):
He has completed what we call leap reports, which update
the police database, and he's just written down the wrong
date on that form. So when Knucklehead one has decided
to contest the matter, he's requested all the documents that
police have in relation to him for his case because
(07:51):
he wants to fight the charges. He's looked at the
documents he's received and it shows that he was actually
not arrested on the day, but he was arrested one
month or two months later. So he's claiming that because
it says that on the database, he must have been
illegally arrested and detained. So therefore he's when he's rung
(08:12):
me up, he's claiming that I actually kidnapped him and
had him locked up without charge, which is just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah. Legal term for it's called pollis Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 7 (08:24):
Absolutely. So I decide what I'm going to do is
I'm going to charge Diplake with using a telecommunications device
to menace and harass. So I take out a summons
or I apply for a summons for that, and that
shows up on the police database. Unbeknownst to me, Knucklehead
(08:46):
One has being looked at by the counter Terrorism group
in vic Pole. I was totally unaware of this, but
I get a call from them and they say, listen,
the police Minister has been looking at knucklehead one because
he has been arrasing members of Parliament and they want
something done about it. But of course the politicians don't
want to make the complaint. They just want the police
(09:08):
to do something without actually getting themselves involved. So they
see that I have summoned this bloke and they ring
out and say listen, don't go ahead with your summons.
We're going to charge you with stalking you. I said, well,
it was just the one phone call, and they said,
oh no, no, he's been sending out emails about you
for the last six months.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Never told me what is alleging in those emails.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Well, he was alleging that I'd kidnapped him, that I
was a terrorist, that I was a pedophile, all baseless
sort of stuff. It was just disgusting things that you
there was no substance to it, but he was just
venting on these emails. The problem for me was these
emails were being sent unberknownst to me to the Chief
(09:53):
Commissioner of Police, other high ranking police officers, magistrates, lawyers
and other people who I've come across in my professional career.
And I'm pretty much out because I should have been
told that this was happening, because when he rang me.
If I had known about these emails when he rang me,
(10:13):
I would have dealt with the phone call, probably in
a much different manner than what I did, because I
was just taken by surprise after two years, So had
I known, there might have been a different outcome.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
I've heard the phone call and he's just vending at you,
and there's plenty of veiled or even direct threats. He's
talking about the fact that you're a.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Coward and if it was one on one without your
magic blues, soon things a bit different, and it's very
very unpleasant.
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Yeah, it is unpleasant. And I did try and flesh
that out on the phone with him as to what
he was actually trying to say, but he was too
cunning to really come out and say exactly what he meant.
But it should be noted that when he damaged a
few guy's office, he actually told them at that office,
he threatened them that he had the constitutional right to
(11:05):
go on a shooting spree if he basically didn't get answers.
So that's the sort of mindset these people have, making
threats and demeaning people. And what happened next, well, what
happened next was the counter terrorism detectives charge knucklehead one
with stalking me and would actually go on to charge
(11:28):
him with stalking two other police officers who I won't name,
and that would later on some years later because of
all the delay, it would end up in a contested
matter at the county court. But as soon as they
charged him, he was charged, and he was reminded he
was unable to continue to send me these emails because
(11:50):
he would be in breach of his bail if and
when he got bail. So what happens His knucklehead number two,
who I charged with the traffic offenses, takes up the
cause and he starts sending out the same emails about me,
and I say, well, up counter terrorism, I pointed out
to them and I said, this bike's just another knuckle
ed knuckle lad too, and he's now stalking me, so
(12:14):
I think he's a co offender. You need to charge him,
and they go, well, it's not really matter for us.
Obviously he's not on their list of targets because they're
dealing with these other people. But he is actually a
co offender, so they should have charged him straight away,
but they didn't, and they said the detectives in my
(12:35):
region would have to deal with him. And I'm saying, well,
the evidence is all the same, it's all identical, but anyway,
so that matter is then referred to my inspector and
in Eastern region, and they appoint a couple of detectives
that are neighboring CIB who are independent to then investigate
(12:58):
this spike stalking me. What happens next, he wouldn't believe
is that because of the reputation of them these people,
those two detectives promptly went off on sick leave, which
was the only way they could get out of investigating
this matter and becoming the next victims.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And they feed that was going to happen.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Yeah, they were in fear that they were going to
be the next victims and cop all this abuse, so
they went off sick and then their officer in charge said, well,
this is really their counter terrorism matter. So they've told
me that it's got to go back to counter terrorism.
I'm going, well, I'm the victim here. They're stalking me.
(13:41):
I'm the victim. It's not up to me to investigate
these bikes and run the charges, run the case. So
between counter terrorism in Eastern Region, they're about to stand off,
they're both refusing to do it, and I'm just sitting there, going,
this is ridiculous. I'm the victim. And there's other people
who have gone off six so they don't have to
(14:02):
become involved. I'm still sitting here running around investigating local crime.
So it got to the point where I was getting
fairly upset about this, and I said, well, I'm not
going to come to work tomorrow until you can work
out who's looking after me. I'm not coming back to work.
And I was off for about fifteen weeks on sick leave,
(14:27):
stressed out because I was continuing to be harassed, and
the Victorian Police Department just let me down. Eventually, their
job was taken up by counterterrorism, as it should have
been in the first place. And what's that was done? Yes, sorry,
turned back to work.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
For these guys.
Speaker 9 (14:47):
Just really so your employers should say Victoria Police really
didn't know how to handle these vexatious litigants who were
just doing everything to harass and intimidate you with bogus
legal action.
Speaker 8 (15:00):
They've also tried private prosecutions of you at the same time,
which is one of the hallmarks of the IS individuals.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
They triw these private prosecutions. What's that all about?
Speaker 7 (15:09):
So Knucklehead number, so he then took out an intervention
order or tried to take out an indivention order against
me and one of his cohorts, which is let's call
hi Knucklehead three, who I had to run in with
at court. He also took out an indivention order against me,
or tried to. The reason was that Knucklehead three was
(15:32):
giving advice to Knucklehead two at his court hearing and
he was evicted from the court for harassing people within
the court by the magistrate. When we came out of court,
he come up to me and was yelling at me
in my face in the court precinct that he wanted
to know what my name was. And he had his
(15:53):
pen and paper held up in front of my face,
yelling at me, what's your name? What's your name? And
I said, well, I don't actually have to give you
my name. And you can ask me all you like,
but I'm not going to give you my name. So
he then followed me out of court. He followed me
down Lonsdale Street and I said to him, well, I'm
(16:14):
going to catch the bus, doncast. You're free to join
me if you like, and then he walked off. The
next thing, both him and Knucklehead too take out intervention
orders against me, claiming that I had harassed them. It
was all lies. Everything they said was just lies, that
I'd arrested them and threatened them and that sort of thing.
Because in Victoria, when you want to report harassment or
(16:39):
take out an intervention order, you can tell the clerk
of Courts anything you like and you're not held to
account as to the veracity of what you claim, so
the claim goes through. And the first thing I knew
about this was I was called up into my local
inspector's office and said, sorry to do this to you,
(16:59):
but I have to serve these two intervention orders on you,
which was the first i'd heard of it. Victimized here
by these boats and then I'm being served intervention orders
against me, which I have to answer. How do you
answer deny something which is just totally false. It's difficult.
(17:20):
So I'm then represented by the Victorian Government Solicitor's Office
in relation to these two intervention orders, and they want
me to come to court and deny everything. They said, well,
I am I going to do that because it's just
all made up, so it should just be summarily dismissed.
There's no truth to any of what they are alleging.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
You feel like you're almost dignifying these accusations by having
to go to court to deny them. And it's all
about using the process to manipulate and intimidate.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
You absolutely, And what they want to do is they
want to get me. The VTSO is asking me to
get into the witness box and give evidence against them.
But what that then does is that allows them to
cross execs and me and just make up more rubbish.
And that's what they're doing. They're trying to harass me,
using the court to harass me. So I said to
the VGs so I'm not going to court just simply
(18:16):
so they can harass me further. This went on for
two years. The VGSA kept calling me up wanting me
to attend court. I refused to go, and I pointed
out to them, what's to stop me from making a
false claim about the chief Commissioner of Police or the
Premier of Victoria. And what you're going to insist that
(18:37):
they go to court and give evidence. I don't think so,
he said, I want to be treated the same as
what they would be. And it took them two years,
but they finally had the matters dismissed out of hand.
But that wasn't it Knucklehead number three. He then decides
to take out a private prosecution of me for harassment
(18:57):
or whatever it was he made up. I can't recall. Again.
The first thing I find out about that is a prosecutor.
She finds this charge appearing and she thinks it's interesting
that I've been charged with this alleged harassment defense or
whatever it was. So once again they're trying to attack me.
(19:20):
So knucklehead number three is setting it up so he
can make false accusations against me in court, get me
in as an offender, get me into the witness box,
and he wants to harass me again. That's his aim.
No one looks after me. I have to do all
the running around, all right. So I'm the one who's
(19:40):
been charged by this bloke, and I'm sort of wondering, well,
if I've been charged by him, where's the internal investigation,
if I've allegedly been harassing him? You know, where's that
all happening? But that comes up a bit later. So
what happens is I get onto the Vgso the VGSO
told me, well, all public prosecutions, if they're mate brought
(20:03):
by the public, you will have to go through the
Office of Public Prosecutions. So they refer me to them.
See victim. I'm here the victim having to do all this.
No one in the Victoria Police is looking after me.
So I ring the officer the OPP and they advise
me that all public prosecutions, even if they're bought by
(20:25):
private individuals, have to go through the OPP for scrutiny.
They've had a look at what this bike has done.
They know it's all false. So on the day where
I'm meant to turn up to court, I don't turn up,
like I said to the VGs. So I said the
same to the OPP. I'm not turning up to court
to justify this bloke and giving breath. So what happened
(20:46):
on the day was he goes to court expecting to
find me there. He's ready to hammer me in the
witness box, but the opp turn up and the app
when the matters called address the magistrate and say, being
the public prosecutor, we're now taking over the prosecution of
this case. And they take it off Knucklehead number three
(21:09):
and they then say we're withdrawing the matter. And that
was the end of that. That's how it was dealt with.
So he goes to court expecting a big day and
he leave's with his tail between his legs. So not
satisfied with that, he then makes a complaint to the
Ethical Standards Department about me being rude to him in court.
(21:32):
And rather than make a few simple inquiries with my
office and ask like, I'm being rude to him in court,
that's it? What sort of offense is that? There is
no offense. It's not like I've assaulted him or harassed
him in he says I was rude to him. So
rather than ring my office and find out what's going
(21:52):
on with this, doing a little bit of initial action themselves, no,
they just send the file out and get someone to
actually physically interview me. So I'm subjected to an internally
investigation based on a lie where they haven't even checked
the veracity of the information, or they haven't done any
(22:14):
sort of leap checks, because it would have found that
I'm being harassed by these people because there are charges
pinning against the victim of stalking, so you would think
they could at least have done that, but they didn't,
So once again I'm let down by Victoria Police.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
The tone of all this is that you and Victoria
Police and the opp all have to abide by the rules,
do you process and so forth, whereas these individuals who
don't believe in the system can just make up whatever
they like, come in there, use every single angle and
you've got your hand tied behind your back and they're
(22:53):
free to attack you, which seems incredibly oppressive.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And I can imagine the stress and anxiety that it
brought to you.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Well, because it's consonant. It was over six year period,
I was having to afi Davids for the OPP I
was having to write statements and things for the stalking matters,
and eventually knucklehead number two, as I said, he's stalking
of me, eventually went to the counter terrorism So Knucklehead
(23:21):
number two, who was eventually charged by counter terrorism team
with stalking me. So I now had Knucklehead one and
Knucklehead two charged with these charges by counter terrorism. So
in the meantime, Knucklehead number two, who I charged with
the traffic offenses, after about four years, we finally got
him into court. He represented himself and started referring to
(23:46):
me as a pedophile in the court, and like you
were just indicating, he didn't have to abide by the
norms of the court, because the magistrates and the judges
wanted to give these people leeway so they can say, well,
I gave him every opportunity, and we gave him a
lot of lee with his mannerism and all the rest
(24:07):
of it in order to get the job done, so
they're not held to account. So when that matter did
go before the magistrate, which he was found guilty of,
he started referring to me as a pedophile and a
terrorist in the court. And I'm sitting there listening to
all this, and the magistrate is allowing him to say it.
(24:28):
He's not holding him to account. So I stood up, pointedly,
showed my disgust to the magistrate and walked out. I
was told by my colleagues as soon as I walked
out and did my best to slam a door, which
is almost impossible to slam. He finally stopped him and
found him guilty and sentenced him with a fine and
(24:51):
whatever for these minor traffic offenses. So it was finally finished,
but it actually wasn't because he then appealed that conviction
into the county court. So we then go to the
county court some god no six months later for an appeal,
and the appeal is heard by judge only, so the
(25:12):
matter's appeal there, and I turn up to court because
I have to give evidence. We basically retry the same thing.
So knucklehead number two is there, but also knucklehead number
one's turned up. Now Knucklehead number one he's on bail
and part of his bowel conditions is not to be
within one hundred meters of me or harass me. Knucklehead
(25:33):
number two, of course, he's also in the same bait.
But we have to be in caught together because he's
appealing his traffic matters. So I bring it to the
attention of the prosecuting barrister and say, listen when we're
going to court, because I'm going to be the first
witness when we're going to court. I want knucklehead number
(25:54):
one kicked out of court because he's in breach of
his bail. He's not allowed to be within one hundred
meters of me. So we're going to court, and sure enough,
knucklehead number one is in there, and he's advising knuckle
at number two, who's representing himself. They always represent themselves.
So I indicate to the prosecuting barriers so that knucklehead
(26:16):
number one is there, but he ignores me. Once again.
I'm being let down by these prosecutors. So he ignores
me and he just starts asking me questions to introduce
my evidence in chief, and I didn't answer his questions.
I turned to the judge and I said, excuse me,
but this person over here he shouldn't be in court
(26:39):
because he's on bail and part of his bowel conditions
is he can't be within one hundred meters of me.
So the judge wants to know the ins and outs
of all that. So we go through that and she
makes a very wise decision. Her decision is not to
tell him to leave the court. No, she tells me
to leave the court and to give my evidence from
(27:01):
another room in the county court via video link. So
I'm the one who gets punished for him breaching his bail.
I get kicked out of court, so I go to
another court room. You're basically talking into a video camera
to give your evidence. So I start going through my
(27:21):
evidence in chief, pretty disgusted as to my treatment so far.
And then once that's done, knuckle that number two decides
he gope to cross examine me. So he starts cross
examining me, and he refers to me as a terrorist,
and he's not stopped by the county court judge. He
(27:42):
makes other derogatory remarks to me, constantly refers to me
as a defective rather than as a detective. It's just
a niggerly, little stupid thing, but it's an abuse of
the standards of what they should be complying with. No
barrister or solicitor or police officer for that matter, will
(28:03):
get away in a courtroom saying words like that without
being rebuked by the magistrate. He then asks me some
questions which have no relevance at all, and again this
is going unchallenged. So he starts asking me about knucklehead
number one and how I kidnapped him. No relevance at
(28:26):
all to the traffic matters. I I'm talking into the camera.
I say, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think any
of these questions are relevant. I get rebuked by the
judge saying it's not up to me to determine what
relevance is. Well, apparently in her court, relevance is whatever
you like to say, because there's got nothing to do
with the appeal. Then finally he does it again and
(28:49):
refers to me as a terrorist, and by this time
I've had an af so I point direct ly end
of the camera like this and I said, don't you
fucking call me a terrorist? With that, my screen went blank,
and I was sitting there for about ten minutes wondering
what the hell's going on. That's true, As it turns out,
(29:12):
I get a call from the clerk from that courtroom
and I've been asked, in a very polite term, to
come back to court six. I think it was when
we were having the hearing. So I go down there
and I find the court is totally empty, but my barrister,
my prosecuting barristers sitting out the front of the court
(29:33):
and I said, well, what happened there? Am I in
trouble for what I said, and he said no, he said,
what happened was after you made those comments, knuckle Had
one and two just went absolutely berserk. They started abusing everybody.
They wanted me to be arrested, et cetera, etc. And
(29:55):
it was just complete mayhem in the court. The judge
had lost control of the court and Nuchael had one
and two stormed out. The judge gave them about inns
in which to return, which they didn't, so she decided
that Michael had too had on his own accord abandoned
his appeal and the appeal was struck out. But it's
(30:17):
just a circus, you know. It's a complete circus.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
It really is. And all you've done is your duty.
You've got a duly issued warrant.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
This is where this all begins, and it's now just
an abusive process where you're the one who was running
the risk of a contempt of court, whereas these guys
have complete contempt for the whole process which was this
s followed you into retirement better and other police officers
have basis as well. And I think it probably is
time that particularly is this. Recent events in the High
(30:50):
Country demonstrate these people do exist, and they're in numbers,
and I wonder what can be done to safeguard the
system to make sure these individuals can't abuse that system.
While I guess the system wants to give equal access
to people in court to make their matters, what can
be done to safeguard the integrity of the system.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
Yeah, you know, there's a total lack of justice for
victims of these people. You know, in my case, I
was left down by Victoria Police with the kicking the
footy to each other as to who's going to take
the whot potato to investigate. I've been let down by
the judges and the magistrates for alan these people to
run circuses and run rings around them in their court.
(31:35):
And there is no consequences for these people. And because
of that, they're given breath to continue to flow out
the law and attack police using the legal system, which
of course they ain't believe in. But look, there's a
number of things that can be done. I think first
of all is people need to be held to account.
(31:57):
They need to be identified, and I think Victoria police
need a standing sort of task force that identify as
sovereign citizens and similar to the Sex Offenders Register, we
need a register of these people. So when police are
dealing with and they know the sort of person they're
(32:18):
dealing with, and they know that they have to deal
with them in a certain way, and it would at
least a learn them to who these sovereign citizens are
and what the outcomes could be and that they need
to be dealt with very carefully. As I said earlier,
knucklehead number one he thinks it's his constitutional right to
go on a shooting spree. That's the sort of thing
(32:40):
that the police need to know that that's the person
they're dealing with. Secondly, judges and magistrates, they need to
be educated. People always say, oh, police need to be
educated about how to deal with people who have mental health.
Police need to be educated about people who have diabetes.
It's all about educating the police. I think it's time
(33:02):
that the education was given to other people, such as
magistrates and judges, so they know that dealing with people
who are used delaying tactics to engage in when they
face court, they need to know that things like the
way they do. They need to know what their delaying
tactics are, such as they claim they haven't got a
(33:23):
copy of the brief which they have. I've charge nucklehead
number two with three briefs over a period of two
years because he claimed and repeated to claim that he'd
never got a copy. It's just a way to delay things.
The fact is that they bring in and they go
sick at the last minute. They then need a long
adjournment because they need to read up about the brief
(33:44):
they're going to represent themselves. Another one is they turn
up to court and they go, oh, I've got no
documents here to refer to, so I needing the German.
They'll sabotage their own prosecutions by yelling out expletives, calling
witnesses by names, asking irrelevant questions, going on monologues, all
that sort of thing. These magistrates and judges need to
(34:07):
be aware that these are the tactics they use and
they need to stop it from happening in their court.
The opp the legal system they also let us down.
They need to prosecute these people, regardless of cost. They
send frivolous minor charges. They always a tactic of theirs
(34:28):
is always to appeal and if they can have the
matter heard before judging jury, regardless of it being easier
to be heard in the lower courts, in the magistrates' court,
they will always opt to go for trial before judging
jury because they know on minor charges the OPP aren't
interested in prosecuting them and they will withdraw charges, and
(34:52):
that's what they're hoping for. The indiventional orders taken out
by sovereign citizens should be checked. If we had a
register of sovereign citizens and when they take our intervention
orders theyre identified as such, then they should not be
actioned until the information that they provide is verified. That
would stop these ridiculous, frivolous and false intervention orders being
(35:17):
taken out and any complaints being made to investigative police
oversight bodies such as PSC and IBAC. They should be
properly triaged. So again, the information that they're providing to
these bodies are properly looked at and properly determined as
to whether there's any legitimacy to them or not. So
(35:39):
there are a number of things that can be done.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
They are the OPP is probable in this as well.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
That's exactly right. The OPP are very culpable with this
because in the end, Knucklehead one and two were charged
with stalking me and knucklehead at number one was also
charged talking to other police officers who copped a lot
of abuse as much as what I got. So Knucklehead
number one his trial came up first, so you had
(36:06):
three victims, myself and two other police officers. He again
defended himself. If this went to trial before judge and
jury could have been heard in the magistrates court, but
that's what he wanted to He wanted to get it
into the higher courts. We went through a trial at
lasted pretty close to a couple of weeks because every
(36:28):
time the judge made a ruling he would appeal the
judge's ruling to the appeals court. So we had to
wait a few days while I went there on appeal
and it would come back and of course they'd find
the judge's decision was proper, but every time he made
a decision he would stop and go, I'm going to
appeal that. In the end, the judge said, you can
(36:51):
appeal all my decisions after we're finished. But by this
stage we've been going for a couple of weeks. When
I gave my evidence to the court, of course he
was cross examining me in front of a jury. He
would refer to them as a liar, as a defective,
and the judge just didn't pick him up on any
(37:11):
of that. So all that's going to the jury. And
one stage I did answer a question that I answered
all these questions, but I did answer one question where
I said, oh, yes, and because of people like you,
such and such. Right, I can't exactly remember what the
answer was, but because I said the words people like you,
(37:32):
the judge decided I was casting expersions on him and
I was held to account and I was not allowed
to refer to him. I had to refer to him
as the accused or the defendant.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Right.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
I wasn't allowed to suggest that he was a particular
type of person, yet he was free to refer to
me as a liar and a defective. So the double standards.
So with that trial, the three of us, the three victims,
we gave our evidence and what have you. And before
that trial finished, the prosecuting barrister came over to me
(38:08):
and said that the prosecution of the trial for Knucklehead
number two that was going to be withdrawn by the
opp I said why. They said, well, regardless of the
outcome of this trial, they're not going to go ahead
with it because it's such a minor matter and it's
not in the public interest. So he gets off. He
(38:30):
gets off with stalking me, sending out harassing emails and
disgusting emails at that, So then that one's gone. In
the trial of Knucklehead number one, you wouldn't believe it,
but we had a hung jury, so they couldn't decide
whether this blake was stalking us or not. So the
(38:50):
jury was hunt so there was no verdict. The prosecuting barrister,
who is a freelance person, he's not with the APP.
He recommended the matter be retried. The judge who heard
the matter he also recommended, and that it be retried.
The opp said it's not in the public interest. So
(39:13):
we went through four years of being stalked and all
the rest of it, and getting these bikes to trial
for the opp to pull the rug out from under
our feet. And it is just an absolute disgrace.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It really is.
Speaker 8 (39:28):
And this has sort of followed you all these years
into your retirement and all you've done is just work
in the public interest. It seems like they say it's
not worth prosecuting these matters because there are trivial nature
not in the public interest. But it seems like the
upholding the integrity and dignity of the police officers involved
is also not in the public interest.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
So you left iron dry.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Yeah, well, we're not a priority for the OPP. We're
just people there to be pushed and shoved around. But
you're right. It did follow me into retirement, and because
of the opp's decision not to retry all head number one,
what he then did was he took out a civil
(40:09):
lawsuit against me. So he wanted to sue me in
that I had falsely imprisoned him back in twenty sixteen,
now we're now talking twenty twenty two, and he named
me and some other police officers as defendants, which was
a mistake because you can't sue individual police officers. So
he then had to redo it, redo his writ and
(40:33):
he nominated Victoria Place, but then of course names us
within the writ. So the VGSO then took over that
on our behalf and had to defend us in the
county court with civil writ. They then wanted me, Now
remember I've been retired for probably six twelve months. They
(40:57):
then wanted me to prepare an affidavit for them and
provide them with all my documentation in relation to these people.
And I said, well, why don't you go and visit
the people at the opp They've got everything, They had everything,
and I said, I'm retired. I don't have those documents anymore.
Yet they were still trying to get me to do that.
(41:20):
It took them a year, and that it was finally
in July twenty twenty three, was finally knocked on the
head by the Candy Court. But it took them a year.
So this is the problem. You know, these people get
away with the minor things. If they keep getting away
with the little things, they're going to take another step forward.
(41:42):
It's a bit like the old Give them an inch
and they'll take a mile. Every time you put a
line in the sand and they cross it and you
don't hold them to account, they will just continue to
attack because that's what they do.
Speaker 8 (41:55):
Unbelievable, Sorry, Peter, and I think it's going to raise
a lot of questions. And I think, as this recent
matter has as well, that we have these individuals in
our society who want all the benefits of our civilized,
fair legal system without having any accountability themselves. And police
officers such as yourself, are having a.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
A front court at massive public cost for these vexatious,
silly actions.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
What all you've been doing is your lawful duty, and
I thank you for that.
Speaker 10 (42:27):
I'm sorry that you have to go through this, and
I think it's a very good point about a review
has to happen now because unfortunately the publicity these sovereign
citizens have gotten during this latest outrage may embolden.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Others to thumb their those at the system.
Speaker 8 (42:44):
And I think it's quite hilarious that on the one
hand they don't believe in the system, but I don't
believe in government or the courts or the police.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
But they believe in social welfare. I believe in being
on the dole or you know, disability to support pensions.
You can't have it always, can you?
Speaker 7 (43:01):
No, you can't have it both ways, but that's what
they want. A little anecdote for you. Prior to knucklehead
number one may becoming involved with knucklehead number one, he
had been to court for other matters in the past,
and for one of his misdemeanors he was given a
penalty of doing I think it was one hundred hours
(43:22):
community work. I did speak to the Justice Department in
relation to what he did. And what he did was
he would turn up and abuse everybody. So rather than
going out on his work detail or doing what he
was told to do, he would refuse to do it
(43:44):
and he would just abuse people to the point where
people in the Justice Department didn't turn up to work
because they were being abused. So what they did is
they referred the matter back to the court and said,
this is not an appropriate penalty for him because he
just refuses to comply with our direction. So rather than
(44:07):
hold him to account, they changed I think they changed
his penalty to be of good behavior for a year
or of two years or something like that, which of
course he gets off scott free.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Really, so this is unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
It's a sobering story, and I think it really provides
an impetus for the system to review this and to
make sure these individuals can no longer harass and intimidate
and manipulate the legal system.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Thanks for your time today, mate, Thank you, and.
Speaker 7 (44:37):
Thanks for the opportunity to tell you my story.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
That's retired Detective Peter Coss.
Speaker 6 (44:46):
On these so called sovereign citizens, they want it every way,
they want to have legal protections while not giving any
respect to the system that looks after them. They're on
social welfare, they reserve the right to tie the courts up.
And the Cost of the story we've just heard to
the public Purse is absolutely unbelieved and I certainly think
(45:06):
this is a case for a big review and as
Peter cost has suggested, some sort of register so we
know who these people are, these pseudo lawyers who want
to use the system to their own benefit while not
respecting it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Have you had dealings with these people? I'd love to know.
Speaker 11 (45:22):
I think there should be a lot more discussion about this,
So give me an email if you like on Adam Shann.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Writer at gmail dot com.
Speaker 11 (45:29):
You can also always contact us with stories at by
email or if it's more serious, call crime Stoppers, one
of another Triple three Triple zero.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
This has been having shampoo real crime. Thanks for listening.
Apoche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shanner.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Adam shann If you like the show,
please heit the like and subscribe, buttons and share it.
Barren White to support more independent crime journalism. After the
alleged murder of two police officers of Victoria's High Country
in August, the concept of the sovereign citizen has been
in the news.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Desi Freeman is a fugitive hiding in the hills surrounding
poor Punker, a man wanted by the full force over
the cold blooded murders of their colleagues.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Alleged killer Desi Freeman has based his worldview on the
so called alternative legal theory.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
A sovereign citizen is someone who wrongly believes they are
not subject to Australian federal, state, or local law because
they think the laws are incorrect and therefore invalid.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
It's been discussed as if it has some basis in
the law, it most certainly does not. At its core
is a selfish refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of governments,
the courts, police and the entire legal system. Even now
to civil concepts like vehicle registration and drivers licensing. These
(01:23):
individuals don't work, and if they do, they don't pay taxes.
They use and abuse the legal system to harass police
officers and to delay hearings. An ABC investigation has revealed
how a Sovereign citizen group she co founded has been
using FA Court to harass government and court officials across
the country. They'll always take matters to trial and appeal
(01:47):
all outcomes. They abuse and intimidate government officials, will call
the police and expect action if they're victims of crime themselves.
We've seen individual police targeted and demonized.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
As they go about their lawful duties.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
The legal system doesn't know what to do with these
recalcitrant and vexatious litigants.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
My guest today, former Victoria detective Peter cost knows what
it's like to tangle with them.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
For six years he was harassed and pursued by a
group of these individuals.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Has agreed to share his experiences.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
Can I be no way, adam?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Good mate? How did this all begin for you? So?
Speaker 7 (02:29):
It all started when knuckle had One attended Matthew Guy's office.
Matthew Guy, then being the leader of the opposition of
the Liberal Party in Victoria Intendity's office in Doncaster and
he abused the people there and smashed a glass window
in Matthew Guy's office because he wasn't getting answers from
(02:51):
Matthew that he wanted. Regardless of what that was about,
he did cause criminal damage. He was subsequently charged by
someone in my office and at one stage he failed
to turn up and appear in court, so a bench
warrant was issued by the magistrates at Ringwood that ended
up in our office and myself and two other detectives
(03:14):
went down to Danyong to arrest him and take him
back before the courts for failing to appear at court.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Stuff you do all the time as a police officer.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah, So we get warrants for fail to appear all
the time. It's usually a very simple task of going
to the person's house. Sometimes they forget to go to court.
More often than not they just don't want to go
to court face reality, which I think was probably the
case in this instance. So we took him to the magistrates' court.
We backed up the warrant and the matter was listed
(03:44):
for hearing before the magistrate and Knucklehead One was duly
remanded in custody because he had no place of abode
to go to. That's essentially what happened on that one day,
and I didn't hear again from him for about two years.
So what happened was two years later, when we're rested
(04:05):
Knucklehead one Knucklehead two. It was also at the premises
where we arrested number one, so he took it upon
himself to follow us in his car back to Ringwood.
He demanded to know where we were taking Knucklehead one,
and I told him we're going to the Ringwood police
station so we could then have him hold pending his
hearing at the court. Knucklehead two then followed me in
(04:28):
his car, and what he did was he didn't just
follow me. He followed me up the Eastern Freeway where
we're doing one hundred klometers an hour, probably within two
meters of the rear of my car, so he was
tailgating me the whole way, which was a dangerous sort
of thing to do. So what I did was I
(04:49):
overtook a truck, moved in front of the truck so
he couldn't follow directly behind me, and then at the
appropriate place, I turned off the freeway and went to Ringwood.
In order to do that, I had to stop at
a red light and do a U turn on white
Horse Road. I did the turn, Knucklehead two followed through
against a red light to keep up with me, and
(05:11):
he then disappeared and then turned up at court a
bit later on. So when I go back to the
office after the remand I looked up the police database
and I found that knuckle had two actually was unlicensed
and had of course gone through red light. So I
then summonsed him for a couple of traffic matters basically
because of his actions and his aggressive driving. He then
(05:35):
has to from the magistrate's court. There's a number of
hearings for his traffic matters, and he consistently fails to
turn up to court, and if he does and we
have to find him summons him again. He fails to
a turn up at court again. He then claims he's
not ready for his hearings, and it goes on for
(05:57):
two years with him failing to turn up and we
have to go and get a warrant, arrest him and
take him back before the court. So he's just using
delaying tactics to frustrate us. So two years go past,
and then one day I'm sitting at my desk and
Knucklehead one apparently has run and wants to speak to me.
(06:17):
So what I do is I quickly get my phone
out because I know he's going to be abusive, because
not because he was abusive to me the first time,
but he's known in the area to be abusive towards
all police. So I get my phone out and I
finally take the call, and I put my office phone
(06:38):
on speaker and I then record a ten minute verbal
abuse from this bloke. Because he's claiming that I kidnapped him.
I have really no idea what it was on about.
Speaker 8 (06:50):
And he doesn't recognize your legal authority, he says, because
he's a sovereign citizen, he doesn't have to recognize the police.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
You're illegal, or your actions are illegal. You're a terrorist.
You've kidnapped him.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
That's what he's claiming. So what's actually happened is we
executed the warrant on the day he fronted before magistrate.
You can't front anyone before magistrate unless they've been duly
presented and there are charges before the court. So what
is claiming is just ridiculous. What happened in actual fact,
was the detective who actually charged him with the initial offenses.
(07:29):
He has completed what we call leap reports, which update
the police database, and he's just written down the wrong
date on that form. So when Knucklehead one has decided
to contest the matter, he's requested all the documents that
police have in relation to him for his case because
(07:51):
he wants to fight the charges. He's looked at the
documents he's received and it shows that he was actually
not arrested on the day, but he was arrested one
month or two months later. So he's claiming that because
it says that on the database, he must have been
illegally arrested and detained. So therefore he's when he's rung
(08:12):
me up, he's claiming that I actually kidnapped him and
had him locked up without charge, which is just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah. Legal term for it's called pollis Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 7 (08:24):
Absolutely. So I decide what I'm going to do is
I'm going to charge Diplake with using a telecommunications device
to menace and harass. So I take out a summons
or I apply for a summons for that, and that
shows up on the police database. Unbeknownst to me, Knucklehead
(08:46):
One has being looked at by the counter Terrorism group
in vic Pole. I was totally unaware of this, but
I get a call from them and they say, listen,
the police Minister has been looking at knucklehead one because
he has been arrasing members of Parliament and they want
something done about it. But of course the politicians don't
want to make the complaint. They just want the police
(09:08):
to do something without actually getting themselves involved. So they
see that I have summoned this bloke and they ring
out and say listen, don't go ahead with your summons.
We're going to charge you with stalking you. I said, well,
it was just the one phone call, and they said,
oh no, no, he's been sending out emails about you
for the last six months.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Never told me what is alleging in those emails.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Well, he was alleging that I'd kidnapped him, that I
was a terrorist, that I was a pedophile, all baseless
sort of stuff. It was just disgusting things that you
there was no substance to it, but he was just
venting on these emails. The problem for me was these
emails were being sent unberknownst to me to the Chief
(09:53):
Commissioner of Police, other high ranking police officers, magistrates, lawyers
and other people who I've come across in my professional career.
And I'm pretty much out because I should have been
told that this was happening, because when he rang me.
If I had known about these emails when he rang me,
(10:13):
I would have dealt with the phone call, probably in
a much different manner than what I did, because I
was just taken by surprise after two years, So had
I known, there might have been a different outcome.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
I've heard the phone call and he's just vending at you,
and there's plenty of veiled or even direct threats. He's
talking about the fact that you're a.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Coward and if it was one on one without your
magic blues, soon things a bit different, and it's very
very unpleasant.
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Yeah, it is unpleasant. And I did try and flesh
that out on the phone with him as to what
he was actually trying to say, but he was too
cunning to really come out and say exactly what he meant.
But it should be noted that when he damaged a
few guy's office, he actually told them at that office,
he threatened them that he had the constitutional right to
(11:05):
go on a shooting spree if he basically didn't get answers.
So that's the sort of mindset these people have, making
threats and demeaning people. And what happened next, well, what
happened next was the counter terrorism detectives charge knucklehead one
with stalking me and would actually go on to charge
(11:28):
him with stalking two other police officers who I won't name,
and that would later on some years later because of
all the delay, it would end up in a contested
matter at the county court. But as soon as they
charged him, he was charged, and he was reminded he
was unable to continue to send me these emails because
(11:50):
he would be in breach of his bail if and
when he got bail. So what happens His knucklehead number two,
who I charged with the traffic offenses, takes up the
cause and he starts sending out the same emails about me,
and I say, well, up counter terrorism, I pointed out
to them and I said, this bike's just another knuckle
ed knuckle lad too, and he's now stalking me, so
(12:14):
I think he's a co offender. You need to charge him,
and they go, well, it's not really matter for us.
Obviously he's not on their list of targets because they're
dealing with these other people. But he is actually a
co offender, so they should have charged him straight away,
but they didn't, and they said the detectives in my
(12:35):
region would have to deal with him. And I'm saying, well,
the evidence is all the same, it's all identical, but anyway,
so that matter is then referred to my inspector and
in Eastern region, and they appoint a couple of detectives
that are neighboring CIB who are independent to then investigate
(12:58):
this spike stalking me. What happens next, he wouldn't believe
is that because of the reputation of them these people,
those two detectives promptly went off on sick leave, which
was the only way they could get out of investigating
this matter and becoming the next victims.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And they feed that was going to happen.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Yeah, they were in fear that they were going to
be the next victims and cop all this abuse, so
they went off sick and then their officer in charge said, well,
this is really their counter terrorism matter. So they've told
me that it's got to go back to counter terrorism.
I'm going, well, I'm the victim here. They're stalking me.
(13:41):
I'm the victim. It's not up to me to investigate
these bikes and run the charges, run the case. So
between counter terrorism in Eastern Region, they're about to stand off,
they're both refusing to do it, and I'm just sitting there, going,
this is ridiculous. I'm the victim. And there's other people
who have gone off six so they don't have to
(14:02):
become involved. I'm still sitting here running around investigating local crime.
So it got to the point where I was getting
fairly upset about this, and I said, well, I'm not
going to come to work tomorrow until you can work
out who's looking after me. I'm not coming back to work.
And I was off for about fifteen weeks on sick leave,
(14:27):
stressed out because I was continuing to be harassed, and
the Victorian Police Department just let me down. Eventually, their
job was taken up by counterterrorism, as it should have
been in the first place. And what's that was done? Yes, sorry,
turned back to work.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
For these guys.
Speaker 9 (14:47):
Just really so your employers should say Victoria Police really
didn't know how to handle these vexatious litigants who were
just doing everything to harass and intimidate you with bogus
legal action.
Speaker 8 (15:00):
They've also tried private prosecutions of you at the same time,
which is one of the hallmarks of the IS individuals.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
They triw these private prosecutions. What's that all about?
Speaker 7 (15:09):
So Knucklehead number, so he then took out an intervention
order or tried to take out an indivention order against
me and one of his cohorts, which is let's call
hi Knucklehead three, who I had to run in with
at court. He also took out an indivention order against me,
or tried to. The reason was that Knucklehead three was
(15:32):
giving advice to Knucklehead two at his court hearing and
he was evicted from the court for harassing people within
the court by the magistrate. When we came out of court,
he come up to me and was yelling at me
in my face in the court precinct that he wanted
to know what my name was. And he had his
(15:53):
pen and paper held up in front of my face,
yelling at me, what's your name? What's your name? And
I said, well, I don't actually have to give you
my name. And you can ask me all you like,
but I'm not going to give you my name. So
he then followed me out of court. He followed me
down Lonsdale Street and I said to him, well, I'm
(16:14):
going to catch the bus, doncast. You're free to join
me if you like, and then he walked off. The
next thing, both him and Knucklehead too take out intervention
orders against me, claiming that I had harassed them. It
was all lies. Everything they said was just lies, that
I'd arrested them and threatened them and that sort of thing.
Because in Victoria, when you want to report harassment or
(16:39):
take out an intervention order, you can tell the clerk
of Courts anything you like and you're not held to
account as to the veracity of what you claim, so
the claim goes through. And the first thing I knew
about this was I was called up into my local
inspector's office and said, sorry to do this to you,
(16:59):
but I have to serve these two intervention orders on you,
which was the first i'd heard of it. Victimized here
by these boats and then I'm being served intervention orders
against me, which I have to answer. How do you
answer deny something which is just totally false. It's difficult.
(17:20):
So I'm then represented by the Victorian Government Solicitor's Office
in relation to these two intervention orders, and they want
me to come to court and deny everything. They said, well,
I am I going to do that because it's just
all made up, so it should just be summarily dismissed.
There's no truth to any of what they are alleging.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
You feel like you're almost dignifying these accusations by having
to go to court to deny them. And it's all
about using the process to manipulate and intimidate.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
You absolutely, And what they want to do is they
want to get me. The VTSO is asking me to
get into the witness box and give evidence against them.
But what that then does is that allows them to
cross execs and me and just make up more rubbish.
And that's what they're doing. They're trying to harass me,
using the court to harass me. So I said to
the VGs so I'm not going to court just simply
(18:16):
so they can harass me further. This went on for
two years. The VGSA kept calling me up wanting me
to attend court. I refused to go, and I pointed
out to them, what's to stop me from making a
false claim about the chief Commissioner of Police or the
Premier of Victoria. And what you're going to insist that
(18:37):
they go to court and give evidence. I don't think so,
he said, I want to be treated the same as
what they would be. And it took them two years,
but they finally had the matters dismissed out of hand.
But that wasn't it Knucklehead number three. He then decides
to take out a private prosecution of me for harassment
(18:57):
or whatever it was he made up. I can't recall. Again.
The first thing I find out about that is a prosecutor.
She finds this charge appearing and she thinks it's interesting
that I've been charged with this alleged harassment defense or
whatever it was. So once again they're trying to attack me.
(19:20):
So knucklehead number three is setting it up so he
can make false accusations against me in court, get me
in as an offender, get me into the witness box,
and he wants to harass me again. That's his aim.
No one looks after me. I have to do all
the running around, all right. So I'm the one who's
(19:40):
been charged by this bloke, and I'm sort of wondering, well,
if I've been charged by him, where's the internal investigation,
if I've allegedly been harassing him? You know, where's that
all happening? But that comes up a bit later. So
what happens is I get onto the Vgso the VGSO
told me, well, all public prosecutions, if they're mate brought
(20:03):
by the public, you will have to go through the
Office of Public Prosecutions. So they refer me to them.
See victim. I'm here the victim having to do all this.
No one in the Victoria Police is looking after me.
So I ring the officer the OPP and they advise
me that all public prosecutions, even if they're bought by
(20:25):
private individuals, have to go through the OPP for scrutiny.
They've had a look at what this bike has done.
They know it's all false. So on the day where
I'm meant to turn up to court, I don't turn up,
like I said to the VGs. So I said the
same to the OPP. I'm not turning up to court
to justify this bloke and giving breath. So what happened
(20:46):
on the day was he goes to court expecting to
find me there. He's ready to hammer me in the
witness box, but the opp turn up and the app
when the matters called address the magistrate and say, being
the public prosecutor, we're now taking over the prosecution of
this case. And they take it off Knucklehead number three
(21:09):
and they then say we're withdrawing the matter. And that
was the end of that. That's how it was dealt with.
So he goes to court expecting a big day and
he leave's with his tail between his legs. So not
satisfied with that, he then makes a complaint to the
Ethical Standards Department about me being rude to him in court.
(21:32):
And rather than make a few simple inquiries with my
office and ask like, I'm being rude to him in court,
that's it? What sort of offense is that? There is
no offense. It's not like I've assaulted him or harassed
him in he says I was rude to him. So
rather than ring my office and find out what's going
(21:52):
on with this, doing a little bit of initial action themselves, no,
they just send the file out and get someone to
actually physically interview me. So I'm subjected to an internally
investigation based on a lie where they haven't even checked
the veracity of the information, or they haven't done any
(22:14):
sort of leap checks, because it would have found that
I'm being harassed by these people because there are charges
pinning against the victim of stalking, so you would think
they could at least have done that, but they didn't,
So once again I'm let down by Victoria Police.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
The tone of all this is that you and Victoria
Police and the opp all have to abide by the rules,
do you process and so forth, whereas these individuals who
don't believe in the system can just make up whatever
they like, come in there, use every single angle and
you've got your hand tied behind your back and they're
(22:53):
free to attack you, which seems incredibly oppressive.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And I can imagine the stress and anxiety that it
brought to you.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Well, because it's consonant. It was over six year period,
I was having to afi Davids for the OPP I
was having to write statements and things for the stalking matters,
and eventually knucklehead number two, as I said, he's stalking
of me, eventually went to the counter terrorism So Knucklehead
(23:21):
number two, who was eventually charged by counter terrorism team
with stalking me. So I now had Knucklehead one and
Knucklehead two charged with these charges by counter terrorism. So
in the meantime, Knucklehead number two, who I charged with
the traffic offenses, after about four years, we finally got
him into court. He represented himself and started referring to
(23:46):
me as a pedophile in the court, and like you
were just indicating, he didn't have to abide by the
norms of the court, because the magistrates and the judges
wanted to give these people leeway so they can say, well,
I gave him every opportunity, and we gave him a
lot of lee with his mannerism and all the rest
(24:07):
of it in order to get the job done, so
they're not held to account. So when that matter did
go before the magistrate, which he was found guilty of,
he started referring to me as a pedophile and a
terrorist in the court. And I'm sitting there listening to
all this, and the magistrate is allowing him to say it.
(24:28):
He's not holding him to account. So I stood up, pointedly,
showed my disgust to the magistrate and walked out. I
was told by my colleagues as soon as I walked
out and did my best to slam a door, which
is almost impossible to slam. He finally stopped him and
found him guilty and sentenced him with a fine and
(24:51):
whatever for these minor traffic offenses. So it was finally finished,
but it actually wasn't because he then appealed that conviction
into the county court. So we then go to the
county court some god no six months later for an appeal,
and the appeal is heard by judge only, so the
(25:12):
matter's appeal there, and I turn up to court because
I have to give evidence. We basically retry the same thing.
So knucklehead number two is there, but also knucklehead number
one's turned up. Now Knucklehead number one he's on bail
and part of his bowel conditions is not to be
within one hundred meters of me or harass me. Knucklehead
(25:33):
number two, of course, he's also in the same bait.
But we have to be in caught together because he's
appealing his traffic matters. So I bring it to the
attention of the prosecuting barrister and say, listen when we're
going to court, because I'm going to be the first
witness when we're going to court. I want knucklehead number
(25:54):
one kicked out of court because he's in breach of
his bail. He's not allowed to be within one hundred
meters of me. So we're going to court, and sure enough,
knucklehead number one is in there, and he's advising knuckle
at number two, who's representing himself. They always represent themselves.
So I indicate to the prosecuting barriers so that knucklehead
(26:16):
number one is there, but he ignores me. Once again.
I'm being let down by these prosecutors. So he ignores
me and he just starts asking me questions to introduce
my evidence in chief, and I didn't answer his questions.
I turned to the judge and I said, excuse me,
but this person over here he shouldn't be in court
(26:39):
because he's on bail and part of his bowel conditions
is he can't be within one hundred meters of me.
So the judge wants to know the ins and outs
of all that. So we go through that and she
makes a very wise decision. Her decision is not to
tell him to leave the court. No, she tells me
to leave the court and to give my evidence from
(27:01):
another room in the county court via video link. So
I'm the one who gets punished for him breaching his bail.
I get kicked out of court, so I go to
another court room. You're basically talking into a video camera
to give your evidence. So I start going through my
(27:21):
evidence in chief, pretty disgusted as to my treatment so far.
And then once that's done, knuckle that number two decides
he gope to cross examine me. So he starts cross
examining me, and he refers to me as a terrorist,
and he's not stopped by the county court judge. He
(27:42):
makes other derogatory remarks to me, constantly refers to me
as a defective rather than as a detective. It's just
a niggerly, little stupid thing, but it's an abuse of
the standards of what they should be complying with. No
barrister or solicitor or police officer for that matter, will
(28:03):
get away in a courtroom saying words like that without
being rebuked by the magistrate. He then asks me some
questions which have no relevance at all, and again this
is going unchallenged. So he starts asking me about knucklehead
number one and how I kidnapped him. No relevance at
(28:26):
all to the traffic matters. I I'm talking into the camera.
I say, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think any
of these questions are relevant. I get rebuked by the
judge saying it's not up to me to determine what
relevance is. Well, apparently in her court, relevance is whatever
you like to say, because there's got nothing to do
with the appeal. Then finally he does it again and
(28:49):
refers to me as a terrorist, and by this time
I've had an af so I point direct ly end
of the camera like this and I said, don't you
fucking call me a terrorist? With that, my screen went blank,
and I was sitting there for about ten minutes wondering
what the hell's going on. That's true, As it turns out,
(29:12):
I get a call from the clerk from that courtroom
and I've been asked, in a very polite term, to
come back to court six. I think it was when
we were having the hearing. So I go down there
and I find the court is totally empty, but my barrister,
my prosecuting barristers sitting out the front of the court
(29:33):
and I said, well, what happened there? Am I in
trouble for what I said, and he said no, he said,
what happened was after you made those comments, knuckle Had
one and two just went absolutely berserk. They started abusing everybody.
They wanted me to be arrested, et cetera, etc. And
(29:55):
it was just complete mayhem in the court. The judge
had lost control of the court and Nuchael had one
and two stormed out. The judge gave them about inns
in which to return, which they didn't, so she decided
that Michael had too had on his own accord abandoned
his appeal and the appeal was struck out. But it's
(30:17):
just a circus, you know. It's a complete circus.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
It really is. And all you've done is your duty.
You've got a duly issued warrant.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
This is where this all begins, and it's now just
an abusive process where you're the one who was running
the risk of a contempt of court, whereas these guys
have complete contempt for the whole process which was this
s followed you into retirement better and other police officers
have basis as well. And I think it probably is
time that particularly is this. Recent events in the High
(30:50):
Country demonstrate these people do exist, and they're in numbers,
and I wonder what can be done to safeguard the
system to make sure these individuals can't abuse that system.
While I guess the system wants to give equal access
to people in court to make their matters, what can
be done to safeguard the integrity of the system.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
Yeah, you know, there's a total lack of justice for
victims of these people. You know, in my case, I
was left down by Victoria Police with the kicking the
footy to each other as to who's going to take
the whot potato to investigate. I've been let down by
the judges and the magistrates for alan these people to
run circuses and run rings around them in their court.
(31:35):
And there is no consequences for these people. And because
of that, they're given breath to continue to flow out
the law and attack police using the legal system, which
of course they ain't believe in. But look, there's a
number of things that can be done. I think first
of all is people need to be held to account.
(31:57):
They need to be identified, and I think Victoria police
need a standing sort of task force that identify as
sovereign citizens and similar to the Sex Offenders Register, we
need a register of these people. So when police are
dealing with and they know the sort of person they're
(32:18):
dealing with, and they know that they have to deal
with them in a certain way, and it would at
least a learn them to who these sovereign citizens are
and what the outcomes could be and that they need
to be dealt with very carefully. As I said earlier,
knucklehead number one he thinks it's his constitutional right to
go on a shooting spree. That's the sort of thing
(32:40):
that the police need to know that that's the person
they're dealing with. Secondly, judges and magistrates, they need to
be educated. People always say, oh, police need to be
educated about how to deal with people who have mental health.
Police need to be educated about people who have diabetes.
It's all about educating the police. I think it's time
(33:02):
that the education was given to other people, such as
magistrates and judges, so they know that dealing with people
who are used delaying tactics to engage in when they
face court, they need to know that things like the
way they do. They need to know what their delaying
tactics are, such as they claim they haven't got a
(33:23):
copy of the brief which they have. I've charge nucklehead
number two with three briefs over a period of two
years because he claimed and repeated to claim that he'd
never got a copy. It's just a way to delay things.
The fact is that they bring in and they go
sick at the last minute. They then need a long
adjournment because they need to read up about the brief
(33:44):
they're going to represent themselves. Another one is they turn
up to court and they go, oh, I've got no
documents here to refer to, so I needing the German.
They'll sabotage their own prosecutions by yelling out expletives, calling
witnesses by names, asking irrelevant questions, going on monologues, all
that sort of thing. These magistrates and judges need to
(34:07):
be aware that these are the tactics they use and
they need to stop it from happening in their court.
The opp the legal system they also let us down.
They need to prosecute these people, regardless of cost. They
send frivolous minor charges. They always a tactic of theirs
(34:28):
is always to appeal and if they can have the
matter heard before judging jury, regardless of it being easier
to be heard in the lower courts, in the magistrates' court,
they will always opt to go for trial before judging
jury because they know on minor charges the OPP aren't
interested in prosecuting them and they will withdraw charges, and
(34:52):
that's what they're hoping for. The indiventional orders taken out
by sovereign citizens should be checked. If we had a
register of sovereign citizens and when they take our intervention
orders theyre identified as such, then they should not be
actioned until the information that they provide is verified. That
would stop these ridiculous, frivolous and false intervention orders being
(35:17):
taken out and any complaints being made to investigative police
oversight bodies such as PSC and IBAC. They should be
properly triaged. So again, the information that they're providing to
these bodies are properly looked at and properly determined as
to whether there's any legitimacy to them or not. So
(35:39):
there are a number of things that can be done.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
They are the OPP is probable in this as well.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
That's exactly right. The OPP are very culpable with this
because in the end, Knucklehead one and two were charged
with stalking me and knucklehead at number one was also
charged talking to other police officers who copped a lot
of abuse as much as what I got. So Knucklehead
number one his trial came up first, so you had
(36:06):
three victims, myself and two other police officers. He again
defended himself. If this went to trial before judge and
jury could have been heard in the magistrates court, but
that's what he wanted to He wanted to get it
into the higher courts. We went through a trial at
lasted pretty close to a couple of weeks because every
(36:28):
time the judge made a ruling he would appeal the
judge's ruling to the appeals court. So we had to
wait a few days while I went there on appeal
and it would come back and of course they'd find
the judge's decision was proper, but every time he made
a decision he would stop and go, I'm going to
appeal that. In the end, the judge said, you can
(36:51):
appeal all my decisions after we're finished. But by this
stage we've been going for a couple of weeks. When
I gave my evidence to the court, of course he
was cross examining me in front of a jury. He
would refer to them as a liar, as a defective,
and the judge just didn't pick him up on any
(37:11):
of that. So all that's going to the jury. And
one stage I did answer a question that I answered
all these questions, but I did answer one question where
I said, oh, yes, and because of people like you,
such and such. Right, I can't exactly remember what the
answer was, but because I said the words people like you,
(37:32):
the judge decided I was casting expersions on him and
I was held to account and I was not allowed
to refer to him. I had to refer to him
as the accused or the defendant.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Right.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
I wasn't allowed to suggest that he was a particular
type of person, yet he was free to refer to
me as a liar and a defective. So the double standards.
So with that trial, the three of us, the three victims,
we gave our evidence and what have you. And before
that trial finished, the prosecuting barrister came over to me
(38:08):
and said that the prosecution of the trial for Knucklehead
number two that was going to be withdrawn by the
opp I said why. They said, well, regardless of the
outcome of this trial, they're not going to go ahead
with it because it's such a minor matter and it's
not in the public interest. So he gets off. He
(38:30):
gets off with stalking me, sending out harassing emails and
disgusting emails at that, So then that one's gone. In
the trial of Knucklehead number one, you wouldn't believe it,
but we had a hung jury, so they couldn't decide
whether this blake was stalking us or not. So the
(38:50):
jury was hunt so there was no verdict. The prosecuting barrister,
who is a freelance person, he's not with the APP.
He recommended the matter be retried. The judge who heard
the matter he also recommended, and that it be retried.
The opp said it's not in the public interest. So
(39:13):
we went through four years of being stalked and all
the rest of it, and getting these bikes to trial
for the opp to pull the rug out from under
our feet. And it is just an absolute disgrace.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It really is.
Speaker 8 (39:28):
And this has sort of followed you all these years
into your retirement and all you've done is just work
in the public interest. It seems like they say it's
not worth prosecuting these matters because there are trivial nature
not in the public interest. But it seems like the
upholding the integrity and dignity of the police officers involved
is also not in the public interest.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
So you left iron dry.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Yeah, well, we're not a priority for the OPP. We're
just people there to be pushed and shoved around. But
you're right. It did follow me into retirement, and because
of the opp's decision not to retry all head number one,
what he then did was he took out a civil
(40:09):
lawsuit against me. So he wanted to sue me in
that I had falsely imprisoned him back in twenty sixteen,
now we're now talking twenty twenty two, and he named
me and some other police officers as defendants, which was
a mistake because you can't sue individual police officers. So
he then had to redo it, redo his writ and
(40:33):
he nominated Victoria Place, but then of course names us
within the writ. So the VGSO then took over that
on our behalf and had to defend us in the
county court with civil writ. They then wanted me, Now
remember I've been retired for probably six twelve months. They
(40:57):
then wanted me to prepare an affidavit for them and
provide them with all my documentation in relation to these people.
And I said, well, why don't you go and visit
the people at the opp They've got everything, They had everything,
and I said, I'm retired. I don't have those documents anymore.
Yet they were still trying to get me to do that.
(41:20):
It took them a year, and that it was finally
in July twenty twenty three, was finally knocked on the
head by the Candy Court. But it took them a year.
So this is the problem. You know, these people get
away with the minor things. If they keep getting away
with the little things, they're going to take another step forward.
(41:42):
It's a bit like the old Give them an inch
and they'll take a mile. Every time you put a
line in the sand and they cross it and you
don't hold them to account, they will just continue to
attack because that's what they do.
Speaker 8 (41:55):
Unbelievable, Sorry, Peter, and I think it's going to raise
a lot of questions. And I think, as this recent
matter has as well, that we have these individuals in
our society who want all the benefits of our civilized,
fair legal system without having any accountability themselves. And police
officers such as yourself, are having a.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
A front court at massive public cost for these vexatious,
silly actions.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
What all you've been doing is your lawful duty, and
I thank you for that.
Speaker 10 (42:27):
I'm sorry that you have to go through this, and
I think it's a very good point about a review
has to happen now because unfortunately the publicity these sovereign
citizens have gotten during this latest outrage may embolden.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Others to thumb their those at the system.
Speaker 8 (42:44):
And I think it's quite hilarious that on the one
hand they don't believe in the system, but I don't
believe in government or the courts or the police.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
But they believe in social welfare. I believe in being
on the dole or you know, disability to support pensions.
You can't have it always, can you?
Speaker 7 (43:01):
No, you can't have it both ways, but that's what
they want. A little anecdote for you. Prior to knucklehead
number one may becoming involved with knucklehead number one, he
had been to court for other matters in the past,
and for one of his misdemeanors he was given a
penalty of doing I think it was one hundred hours
(43:22):
community work. I did speak to the Justice Department in
relation to what he did. And what he did was
he would turn up and abuse everybody. So rather than
going out on his work detail or doing what he
was told to do, he would refuse to do it
(43:44):
and he would just abuse people to the point where
people in the Justice Department didn't turn up to work
because they were being abused. So what they did is
they referred the matter back to the court and said,
this is not an appropriate penalty for him because he
just refuses to comply with our direction. So rather than
(44:07):
hold him to account, they changed I think they changed
his penalty to be of good behavior for a year
or of two years or something like that, which of
course he gets off scott free.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Really, so this is unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
It's a sobering story, and I think it really provides
an impetus for the system to review this and to
make sure these individuals can no longer harass and intimidate
and manipulate the legal system.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Thanks for your time today, mate, Thank you, and.
Speaker 7 (44:37):
Thanks for the opportunity to tell you my story.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
That's retired Detective Peter Coss.
Speaker 6 (44:46):
On these so called sovereign citizens, they want it every way,
they want to have legal protections while not giving any
respect to the system that looks after them. They're on
social welfare, they reserve the right to tie the courts up.
And the Cost of the story we've just heard to
the public Purse is absolutely unbelieved and I certainly think
(45:06):
this is a case for a big review and as
Peter cost has suggested, some sort of register so we
know who these people are, these pseudo lawyers who want
to use the system to their own benefit while not
respecting it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Have you had dealings with these people? I'd love to know.
Speaker 11 (45:22):
I think there should be a lot more discussion about this,
So give me an email if you like on Adam Shann.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Writer at gmail dot com.
Speaker 11 (45:29):
You can also always contact us with stories at by
email or if it's more serious, call crime Stoppers, one
of another Triple three Triple zero.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
This has been having shampoo real crime. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.