I have read documents lodged in the High Court by the respondent, Peter Carne – formerly the Public Trustee of Qld, and the appellant, the Crime and Corruption commission (CCC). This court case is about whether a report alleging corruption by Peter Carne is to be made public. It is not about the corruption of the Office of the Public Trustee. At most, it is about the conduct of Peter Carne himself as a person, not about the corruption of the Office of the Public Trustee of Queensland. Surely it is this that is of concern to the many who have suffered hardship and loss at the hands the office of the public trustee?
As readers may recall the original case that ‘You can not trust the Public Trustee‘ was made by Bernie Neville in 2011. He demonstrated the corruption, lies and fraud of the perpetrators: Carne, Campbell, and Crofton – corrupt officers inside the office of the public trustee.
When Bernie Neville reported their corruption to the Crime and Corruption Commission, its officers claimed that the Crime and Corruption Act 2001 prevented them from investigating his allegations of corruption by the PTO and its officers. This was a lie. The CCC later used the very act they told Bernie they couldn’t against Peter Carne. They waited another 8 years before they acted on a fresh complaint against Carne’s “corrupt conduct”, as an individual. Bernie’s complaint fell within the published function of the CCC:
“… to continuously improve the integrity of, and to reduce the incidence of corruption in, the public sector.”
The CCC are now in the High Court appealing a decision of the Supreme Court of Queensland on a technical matter of law. The CCC want their report of corruption by the public trustee to be published.
Peter Carne, the individual, has staved off these latest attempts to expose his own corrupt behaviour, not that of the Office of the Public Trustee, which was the claim made originally by Bernie Neville and shunned by the CCC. It wasn’t only Bernie Neville who made the complaint to the CCC, so did the State Ombudsman (B.N. received a letter dated 25 Feb 2014 from the ombudsman acknowledging this, CMC Ref:2014/01582). You guessed it, nothing came of that either.
The article ‘Crime and Corruption Commission to appeal decision to keep report into former Queensland public trustee secret’ in the ABC misses the point. The High Court appeal by the CCC is trivial because their report is only about the personal conduct of Peter Carne (not about the political corruption of the office of the public trustee). Whether Carne misused resources for his own personal study and other personal behavioural matters is of secondaryimportance. In 2014, the CCC refused to take up allegations by Bernie Neville of misconduct by the office of the public trustee. The allegations were straightforward: the PT refused to investigate the fraud by Laver and Markus at AHIMSA house; the PT refused to stop unconsciable behaviour by Challenger bank against their client; the PTO refused the offer by Sam Watson for the purchase of 26 Horan street West End.
The CCC says it has found no evidence to support a criminal charge. This too is a lie. Bernie Neville pointed out to the CCC that criminal charges should be laid against the perpetrators of fraud that the Public Trustee was protecting! He pointed out the misconduct of its officers in some detail: Campbell, Carne and Crofton. The Supreme Court covered up for the PTO by ordering the sealing of the files of the matter Public Trustee of Queensland v Sabdia & ors [2012] QSC 358. But not before I had the benefit of reading those files in the Supreme Court registry office. It was the intervention by barrister D B Fraser QC for the Public Trustee that saved the PT on that day. The judge referred to it as ‘meticulously careful and sage memorandum of advice to the Court’ whereupon he ordered the sealing of the files and thus suppressing the misconduct of the office the public trustee. The PTO refused to act on the advice of counsel to recover Carl Ross Taylor’s family home from the corrupt accountant, Sabdia. The judge knew Sabdia was corrupt and had stolen Ross Taylor’s home by fraud but excused it by claiming that this would be a Pyrrhic victory because the bank would get the home. This too was a lie. Challenger bank had engaged in unconscionable behaviour should never have been permitted by Ian Campbell to foreclose on Carl Ross Taylor.
Bernie Neville complained to no fewer than three attorneys general: (Cameron Dick, Jarrod Bleijie*, and Yvette D’Ath) to ask that the corruption of the office of the public trustee to be reigned in. He personally made complaints to two Premiers and one deputy Premier: Anna Bligh, Campbell Newman and Jackie Trad). He presented a petition to Anna Bligh by 600 West Enders to save AHIMSA house.
Nearly all of the original protagonists of that action: Bernie Neville, Carl Ross Taylor and Sam Watson have passed away. I am the sole person who appeared in the Supreme Court against the Public Trustee in 2012 still alive. Carl Ross Taylor died in the custody of the Public Trustee, more than 100 kilometers from his family home and friends, kidnapped on a lie perpetrated by the PTO’s agent saying he was only going for a short drive.
He was driven to a secure facility and kept prisoner there for months. The subterfuge was admitted as a lie in QCAT by its perpetrator. Sam Watson never realised his dream of a community safe house run by aboriginal people for young first nations people at AHIMSA house at 26 Horan Street, West End. That community safe house still does not exist though desperately needed. Sam Watson’s application to purchase the property was hidden from all eyes by Ian Campbell, aided and abetted by Peter Carne and Mark Crofton. Bernie went to his grave without justice for his friend, Ross.
Even in a case as egregious as this, the Law and the Courts operated to protect the perpetrators. On this evidence alone, people would have to be utter fools to believe the current system can be relied upon to do justice for ordinary people like Ross, Sam, Bernie or the legion of others who suffered at the hands of the Public Trustee
People need to work to replace the current system by another where ordinary workers have power. How we do that is up to ordinary workers, and their organisations such as the Committee to Expose the Public Trustee and many others. I would begin by bringing the Public Trustee’s office back into the public service and by making its functions free to ordinary people, not the millionaires. The committee to expose the public trustee it’s not about whether Peter Carne misused public resources to further his own studies or whether he was drunk at work or harassed employees. These matters raised by the CCC do not go to the real crime committed by the office of the Public Trustee. Its crime was that the public trustee does not do the job it was originally set up to do: that is, to enable ordinary people to make a will and to have their financial affairs at the end of their life dealt with fairly and properly.
Here is just one tale of fraud perpetrated under the watch of the public trustee of Queensland:
| Property / money | Fraud | Beneficiaries of the fraud |
| Sam Watson (Link Up) offered $2.5 M for 26 Horan Street West End to set up a placed for young aboriginal as an alternative to them being locked up in the watchouse (a kind of juvenile Murri Watch to prevent deaths in custody). | Ian Campbell hid the offer by Sam Watson. Jackie Trad (local member and Minister) and Anastacia Palaszczuk (Premier) could then buy the 26 Horan Street property and use it to expand West End Primary School as an election promise. This saved the Palaszczuk the ‘inconvenience’ of having an aboriginal run community house next door to the West End Primary school. Laver is employed to teach tennis to its pupils on the school grounds. | Challenger Bank, the Public Trustee (who owned the building next door) , West End Primary that expanded onto the site originally owned by Carl Ross Taylor. |
| Loan from Challenger Bank to Carl Ross Taylor for $1.3M | Unconscionable behaviour by the bank because: 1) the bank knew Ross could not repay the loan; and, 2) Laver and Markus bullied Ross into signing the loan document in a solicitor’s office in Noosa. The solicitor was an old school friend of Lavers (at Churchie). Ross had just been released from Noosa hospital by another friend of Laver’s. | Brian Lennard Laver and Will Markus got the money and Challenger bank got the property at 26 Horan Street, West End subsequently sold to the Dept of Education to expand the school. |
| A fraudulent cheque for $168,032 was made out to Will Markus by Brian Lennard Laver. | Laver and Markus bullied Ross into signing blank cheques. Westpac Bank manager in West End admitted that the cheque was a fraud but did nothing about it. The payment was for the fraudulent transfer of 1/6 of the building over to Architect Will Markus. Markus should have paid the money to Carl Ross Taylor not the opposite. | Will Markus used the money to pay off his mortgage on his Mollison Street Property in West End. |
| $50K grant from the Commonwealth Department of the Environment for a water tank to provide sustainable rain water to the building at 26 Horan Street. | Investigation by two officers of the Commonwealth Environment Department. No action taken. The scheme was set up by Labor Minister, Peter Garrett. | Laver and Markus never built the water tank and kept the money to pay debts they had run up in lavish renovations of the building for an architects office, commercial kitchen and bar. |
| Fraudulent transfer of title deed on Mains Road House at Sunnybank to the Sabdia Family Trust. The house was owned by Carl Ross Taylor since 1978. | Sabdia Accountants defrauded Ross out of his home by having him sign the house into their family trust when Ross thought he was putting it into his own trust. | Sabdia and Sons. See Public Trustee of Queensland v Sabdia & ors [2012] QSC 358. |
| Properties at Coopers Plains and Southport | Sold by Markus and Laver to pay debts. | Challenger Bank, Markus and Laver. Laver had his house at Marley St West End renovated at Ross Taylor’s expense. |
Ian Curr
30 May 2023
*Bernie Neville (with Ian Curr) visited Jarrod Bleijie who advised him that the government were unable to sack Peter Carne due to large payout if his contract was terminated.