A Blatant Obstruction of Justice

At a recent Supreme Court hearing of 'W' vs The State of New South Wales, based on improper consent taking, the court handed down a negative judgement regarding whether the claimant could overturn the statute of limitations after 25 years had passed.

This judgement was determined by a Master, a subsequent Justice in the case for appeal, and a panel of two judges in the following argument for a second appeal to try again. This was based entirely on the judicial systems decision to deny justice, based on the lack of the two witnesses directly involved in the adoption, with one having committed suicide in 1989.

The other witness, an American woman who had been been in Australia on a working holiday for four years, and having taken 800 consents during her employment at the Womens Hospital Crown Street, could not recall the witness personally, (a questionable consent taker given that she was not an Australian citizen or resident but could legally authorise legal documents).

The Master in his wisdom chose to misrepresent entirely the documented evidence presented to the Court by misjudging the date the claimant signed the consent, assuming the date of signing to have been on day five where evidence could not show that she signed before or after being administered the psychotropic drug Pentobarbitone, whereas she had signed on day six, not day five as assumed, and the drug had still been in her system upon signing, explaining very clearly that stilboestrol was NOT a sedative, although the Plaintif had never declared that it was either, avoiding any reference to the use of any actual hypnotic sedatives used, in his written judgement.

Ignoring entirely that, according to her social reports of the time, the mother had intended to keep her baby throughout her pregnancy, looking `confident and elated' by it, and had not seen the social worker at all during the two months period prior to confinement. Avoiding entirely that it was illegal to transfer a heavily sedated patient from one hospital to another without her consent or her baby. Avoiding entirely that the adoption practice of forbidding the mother to ever see her own child PRIOR TO ANY DOCUMENT BEING SIGNED, and while she was the sole legal guardian of her baby until a consent had been signed was in law illegal, and constitutes abduction.

Accepting the written statement of the witness for the defence as being accurate and lawful - when it was not. Accepting entirely the witness's explanation that the entire practice of adoption as described was simply societal mores of the time - which it was not. Although acknowledging that such practices were routine in The Womens Hospital, the witness decided in her wisdom to declare in her statement that such practices were stopped in 1969 - when they were not. And that health authorities had been fully aware of the potential for psychological harm in forcing a mother to part with her own child.

The witness went on to explain that sometime after the birth, after being transferred to another hospital (heavily sedated and her baby hidden from her back at Crown Street) the mother would be visited by a social worker and if it was indicated that the child (she had been forbidden to see of to bond with as per adoption practice) was to be adopted, a district officer would then be called upon to take the consent. All fully acceptable as okay by the judge.

The witness then went on to explain how the unmarried mother's medical chart would be marked with the codes:

1. Firstly, policy dictated that eye contact between mother and child was forbidden to prevent bonding.

2. The second was the location of mother and baby postnatally.

3. The third point pertained to the type of medication to be administered to the unmarried mother.

Irrespective of all the evidence presented, and irrespective of the fact that the Plaintif's accusations about her treatment had been verified as routine practice, and that the Plaintif had been a minor and her consent was therefore not legally binding until she turned 21, and that until two years previously, the Plaintif was forbidden under adoption law to obtain her own documented evidence and did not know she had been sedated nor that she had been transferred to another hospital until she obtained her records, and that not even the Courts knew that unmarried mothers had any rights, or that past practices had been breaking the law, but that the then 16 year old mother should have known her rights at the time and should have taken action by 1976, the Judges in their wisdom decided to prevent the course of justice being applied by refusing to overturn of the statute of limitations and allow the case to be heard.

Nevertheless, many answers to the purpose behind the adoption process were gleaned from the witnesses submitted written statements.