Blind Justice - My Story

How an Australian Government department – HealthCareComplaintsCommission - and the legal system conspired to destroy my name and business.
 
I am a 33 years experienced Relationships and General Counsellor with not a single formal complaint about my services until the story below.  Instead, see here for the Testimonials I have received over my years  of service.

If you do a search for my name on the internet,  you are likely to come up with a legal document from the Australian government-funded Health Care Complaints Commission - HCCC.

In their 6 page document of endless imagined claims, they falsely allege that in early January 2020, I caused harm to an ex-client of mine. Apparently I told her to slit her wrists,  and was forcing her to come to see me etc!!
 
 I contacted them numerous times - both email and phone - asking for proof of the allegations. But rather than follow due process, they ignored all my requests, and treated me as if I was guilty... and barrelled on with their apparent goal to destroy my name and my 32 year Counselling business.

When I found out who the ex-client was, I was incredibly surprised, as this particular female client came to see me on and off for 2-3 years - and she was THE most complimentary client in my whole life as a Counsellor!  She told me pretty much every session how much I was helping her ... and it was so full on, that I had to regularly ask her to focus on the great work she was doing to help herself. And we also never had the slightest upset or misunderstandings that I was aware of. Hence, my incredible surprise when I found out it was she who made the complaint.  Also most of the complaints seemed to have nothing to do with her and what mattered to her - she appeared to have been 'coached'.  Obviously, I tried to contact her, (once)  but she wouldn't respond.

Despite my many letters and phone calls, all my requests for the HCCC to provide evidence were duly ignored. Early on, I was given interim orders that banned me from working... (surely this is illegal to do before someone has been found guilty?) ...and then eventually, they requested I turn up to court. 

As it was during the Covid era... I lived 7 hours away from Sydney,...and I had no funds for a lawyer... and I had completely lost any faith that I would be treated fairly... I did not turn up to the 4 times they called me to court.  To be honest, it was hard for me to treat the whole thing seriously, because there was no way I would ever harm a client. And they had no evidence, because how could they, if their allegations had no basis in truth?? 
 
Interestingly, I am in good company. Similar has happened to many medical practitioners in Australia. Including the incredible Naturopath, Barbara O'Neill. She turned up to court with a good lawyer, but ended up with a similar outcome - banned from working for life and a huge fine.

So despite having NO EVIDENCE, they found me guilty of not turning up to court, and somehow magically produced a rabbit out of their magicians hat with the resultant outcome.
OUTCOME
1.    Banned from working for life in my area of expertise - including voluntary.
2.    Fined $40,000 
3.    Fine was unpaid – resulting in loss of driver’s licence -  suspended for life.
4.    Car was de-registered
5.    Defamed throughout all the major mainstream media and newspaper outlets.

Obviously this has had a huge impact upon my life
– as not only is my business destroyed at a very delicate time of life
ie entering towards retirement with no savings
(my life’s savings were stolen around the same time),
but also the desecration of my good name after a lifetime of service.

So for those of you who are not naïve enough to believe everything that government departments or legal systems say is true, let’s explore things a bit more deeply.

HCCC LIES

1.  They said I told my client to slit her wrists and was forcing her to come and see me. NOT TRUE
2. During all this media defamation, they kept saying I was an “unregistered Counsellor… NOT TRUE . I had been registered with the Australian Counsellors Association for years. And also with ASSERT (the Australian Sex Therapists Association).

          And in actually, there is no legal requirement for Counsellors to be registered               with anyone. And then, during this process, these 2 Australian memberships                  were stripped from me - with no discussion.
 
      3. The case against me was proven. NOT TRUE
See gif below.
It says, “…the Magistrate found the charges proven.” Actually no, they didn’t. The 4 x $10k fines were due to not turning up to court. At no time have any of the charges been proven, because you can’t prove something that is a lie. This is called perjury.
 
      4. I was fined for “failing to respond”. What happened to “the Magistrate found the charges proven.”??  Which one was it folks? Or are you just making it up as you go?   NOT TRUE.
Prior to the court cases, I contacted the HCCC with numerous letters and phone calls, but in every interaction, they treated me as if I was guilty and not worth speaking to. They never answered any of my questions. All of which means, they broke the law by not following any due process. They consistently pretended that I didn’t respond to their letters. I did. I just didn’t respond in the way they wanted.

       5. They alleged that I was masquerading as a Psychologist. NOT TRUE
Amongst my many other qualifications, I have a 1991 BA majoring in Psychology ie BAPsych, which yes, does not make me a Psychologist. But mentioning that I have that degree in my marketing etc, does not mean I am pretending to be a Psychologist. It just means I have a degree that I earned. They can allege all they like, but it doesn’t make it true.
                                            ---------------------
So imagine a murderer or rapist or a white collar criminal who was put in jail for some offences that they actually did do. They do their time, and get out of jail and start working again.  That’s right, there’s an end to the sentence.  With my ruling, there is no end.  
 
Obviously, this is a total travesty of justice – a kangaroo court - both unlawful and unethical. And if we actually lived in a Democracy, this could never happen. Which does make one think - do we live in the opposite??

​So there we go. That’s my story.
Similar to many, many other Health Professionals that we never hear about. A potent indicator that our judicial systems are rotten to the core and have lost all pretence at upholding decency and lawfulness.
 
So please, if you see someone denigrating me in the public realm, (which does happen)… please send them the link to this story. So at least they can know the truth and not besmirch their soul by causing harm to another.
​https://www.francesamaroux.com/blog/blind-justice-my-story

If you prefer to listen, rather than read...
https://audio.com/frances-a/audio/blind-justice-my-story
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