All law clerks, people thinking of clerking, judges, and those who work with judges should read this thread and the report itself.
Tweets below by Dr Emma Cunliffe@emmajcunliffe. Law assoc. professor UBC. Keen observer of courts & law reform. Criminal, evidence, facts, wrongful convictions. Proud feminist. She/her. *Academic account.
This story confirms that a former justice of the High Court of Australia sexually harassed multiple judicial clerks and women lawyers. I read it with sadness and anger, but sadly without much surprise.
What I see is the courage of women who protected themselves against a powerful predator in a thousand direct and indirect ways, which generally didn’t include reporting him.
Some of these women were lost to the legal profession as a consequence of their experiences.
It would be remiss to overlook that there were reports – at Oxford and at the University of Canberra, at the very least. A pattern emerges: these institutions do at least appear to have acted on the immediate report, but nothing further with respect to Heydon J’s employment.
One young woman asked Heydon J to think of his wife and children, how much his behaviour would hurt them, and how much he had to lose if his behaviour became public. Her kindness and empathy – in impossible circumstances – floors me.
Another hand delivered a letter to him, to ask him to stop. Hand delivered, presumably, so that it would not be at risk of being intercepted. Imagine the lengths these women went to, to find mature and compassionate ways to tell Heydon J that his behaviour was way out of line.
Some of this behaviour was observed by others, and it is said to have been an ‘open secret’.
I am reflecting on how the legal profession and academy create idols out of the judges on our top courts.
On the pressures we thereby impose on brilliant young law grads … who are told they’ve won the lottery when they are offered a clerkship. And how that sets them up to believe that they must accept misbehaviour or that they must handle it, alone, or that their only good option is to leave the profession – when things go wrong.
And how that discourse also concentrates power in the hands of a judge who acts in a predatory – even criminal – manner.
Oh yes, Heydon J denies any wrongdoing and his lawyer has stated that the HCA investigation was not conducted by a judge, lawyer or tribunal. 
Creepy! How infuriating and digusting that lawyer infer the only authorities able to *see* a predator judge abusing his position of power are other lawyer types. In my view and experiences, that lawyer’s arrogance and attitude are precisely what’s wrong with legal and judicial industries everywhere – they think they’re holier than the rest of us non lawyers, and are the only ones with brains and sexist class enough to “judge” dirty judges (which is the best way to keep the vicious cycle of abuse going, forever). I bet if the investigation was conducted by lawyers, then, the abuser’s lawyer would have pushed for male lawyers only. With misogyny, rape, racism, etc enablers, as with AER and other oil patch crime enablers (aka “regulators”), it’s never enough to rape us, our loved ones and our environment, they stack ‘n play the patriarchal judicial industry to ensure they can rape for decades however they please and get away with it, sans consequence, no matter how terribly they hurt others or the public interest. In my experience, judges don’t give a damn about the public that pays their wages and big pensions, they just care about themselves. (It was conducted by the former Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security …)
For young women – and men – who are hoping to clerk, I hope you follow your dream. Know your worth: you don’t need to accept behaviour in this workplace that you wouldn’t accept elsewhere.
And know your allies: many of those law profs who write your reference letters do so because they think the world of you, they know your character, and they will be on your side if you need support and advice. Find people who’ll have your back, and hang onto them.
Sonia “back to mere eyerolling” Lawrence @sonialawprof Replying to @emmajcunliffe
Great thread. So telling how it’s coming out post retirement. …the power has to fade a bit. Also whisper networks, open secrets, which people feel responsibility and what “preeminent legal mind” can mean.
Rainbow flagBecky Batagol @BeckyBatagol Replying to @emmajcunliffe
Beautiful words, Emma
High Court inquiry finds former justice Dyson Heydon sexually harassed associates by Kate McClymont and Jacqueline Maley, June 22, 2020, The Sydney Morning Herald
Former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon, one of the nation’s pre-eminent legal minds, sexually harassed six young female associates, an independent inquiry by the court has found.
A Herald investigation has also uncovered further allegations from senior legal figures of predatory behaviour by Mr Heydon, including a judge who claims that he indecently assaulted her. The women claim that Mr Heydon’s status as one of the most powerful men in the country protected him from being held to account for his actions.
The High Court inquiry was prompted by two of the judge’s former associates notifying the Chief Justice Susan Kiefel in March 2019 that they had been sexually harassed by Mr Heydon.
“We are ashamed that this could have happened at the High Court of Australia,” said Chief Justice Kiefel in a statement. She confirmed that the lengthy investigation found that “the Honourable !!!!! Continuing to call a judicial predator “honourable” condones such shit behaviours and tells the world it’s OK. Stop it! Predators have enormous nasty egos. Why further enable them with fancy titles they long ago forfeited? His “QC” needs to go too. Dyson Heydon, AC, QC” harassed six former staff members.
“The findings are of extreme concern to me, my fellow justices, our chief executive and the staff of the court,” said the Chief Justice.
Chief Justice Kiefel has personally apologised to the six women, five of them Mr Heydon’s associates, saying “their accounts of their experiences at the time have been believed”.
Dyson Heydon was on the High Court bench from 2003-13 and in 2014 was appointed by then Prime Minister Tony Abbott to run the royal commission into trade union governance and corruption. Well, no wonder! From one powerful slime bucket to another! Too funny, the corrupt running trade corruption! What a judicial farce.
Mr Heydon denied the claims via his lawyers Speed and Stracey who issued a statement.
“In respect of the confidential inquiry and its subsequent confidential report, any allegation of predatory behaviour or breaches of the law is categorically denied by our client,” the statement said. OOOO! Seems bad buddy boy and his lawyers are not happy the conclusion of the inquiry/report was reported on publicly!
“Our client says that if any conduct of his has caused offence, that result was inadvertent and unintended, and he apologises for any offence caused.
“We have asked the High Court to convey that directly to the associate complainants.
”The inquiry was an internal administrative inquiry and was conducted by a public servant and not by a lawyer, judge or a tribunal member. It was conducted without having statutory powers of investigation and of administering affirmations or oaths.”
One of his former associates, Rachael Patterson Collins, told the Herald that Mr Heydon’s “actions had real and terrible consequences” which led her to abandon her plans to become a barrister.
Chelsea Tabart, another former associate, said she too left the law because “the culture was broken from the top down”. She felt she would not be safe “from powerful men like Mr Heydon even if I reported them”.
“Dyson Heydon was one of the most powerful men in the country,” said Josh Bornstein, the women’s lawyer and a principal with law firm Maurice Blackburn in Melbourne. “As the independent investigation makes clear, he is also a sex pest. At the same time he was dispensing justice in the highest court in Australia’s legal system, he was [engaged in] sexual harassment.”
Vivienne Thom, the former Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, interviewed a dozen witnesses, including five former associates. Dr Thom’s report found that the evidence “demonstrates a tendency by Mr Heydon to engage in a pattern of conduct of sexual harassment” which included unwelcome touching, attempting to kiss the women and taking them into his bedroom.
A Herald investigation can reveal that Mr Heydon’s predatory behaviour was an “open secret” in legal and judicial circles. Not only did he prey on his young associates during his decade on the High Court until his mandatory retirement at 70 in 2013, other females in the profession suffered at his hands. What’s vile and unforgivable to me, are the many “lawyers” and “judges” who knew, and did not speak up, did not stop the abuse, did not work to remove “Sex Pest” from his judicial position of power.
Mr Heydon, via his lawyers, denied “emphatically any allegation of sexual harassment or
any offence”.
A current judge told the Herald that Mr Heydon slid his hand between her thighs at a professional law dinner not long after he joined the High Court bench.
“He indecently assaulted me. I have no doubt it was a crime and he knew I was not consenting,” said the judge.
Indecent assault, which involves the unwanted touching of another person in a sexual manner without that person’s consent, can attract a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. So, when is “Sex Pest” ex High Judge going to be charged and fingerprinted? Or will no charges be forthcoming because he’s white, male and was a judge?
Despite telling him to “Get your f–king hands off me” the judge, a barrister at the time, said Justice Heydon was too powerful to complain about. “The power imbalance is such that he is so senior … He was a giant of the profession.”
She said any such complaint could have killed the career of a female practitioner. “He was also notoriously unkind about people … If you fell foul of him you know he wouldn’t think twice about telling other people how dreadful you were.”
Mr Heydon is also alleged to have indecently assaulted the then president of the ACT Law Society, Noor Blumer, at the University of Canberra Law Ball in April, 2013.
According to a statement from the university, Mr Heydon was “removed from the event and returned to his accommodation”, following a complaint of “inappropriate behaviour” from a student the same night.
Ms Blumer said while she sat next to Mr Heydon at the dinner, he started “feeling up the side of my leg”. Then, on the pretext of discussing adoption law with her, he took her to an empty room where he attempted to forcibly kiss her.
Ms Blumer, who is the director of a Canberra law firm, was “upset and disgusted”. She left the ball immediately. The next day she made a lengthy contemporaneous file note of the evening, which the Herald has seen, and also notified the university.
In a statement to the Herald, Professor Murray Raff from the University of Canberra confirmed that Ms Blumer complained to him the next day “of inappropriate and unwelcome behaviour towards her at the Ball, by the retired Justice of the High Court of Australia, Dyson Heydon”.
A female student, who also attended the ball, also reported an unpleasant encounter with the judge when he commented on her breasts, she said.
Another lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described an incident following a private dinner she had with Mr Heydon when he was a High Court judge.
She said the judge had “put his hands down my pants and kissed me on the mouth” when she was in a car with him following the dinner.
A leading female member of the NSW Bar said that when the 2017 stories about the #MeToo movement broke, her first thought was, “Boy, Dyson Heydon should be really worried.” The senior counsel recounted Mr Heydon inviting her to his chambers after she appeared before him during a special leave application to the High Court.
The woman described being greeted at the door by the judge who was “padding around in his socks”. All the available seats had books on them leaving only a “love seat – a little old-fashioned two seater” empty. Champagne on ice and two glasses were laid out.
She was acutely aware of “what he had in mind”. After she politely listened to him “spilling the dirt on everyone, judges and barristers alike,” she made good her escape.
The top silk wasn’t so lucky at a later encounter. Mr Heydon, who had retired from the bench and returned to the Sydney bar, invited her to his chambers to discuss a legal matter. This time he blocked her from leaving. “He was very intimidating. He is a very big guy. He was in his early 70s …but he was still a very imposing person.”
The barrister said Mr Heydon “planted himself in the doorway” and then kissed her.
Subsequently, the judge called her repeatedly. “I thought his behaviour was bordering on stalking,” she recounted. He only stopped after the barrister had a letter hand-delivered to him in which she asked Mr Heydon not to contact her.
The predatory behaviour of Mr Heydon, a pre-eminent black-letter-law jurist and a Companion of the Order of Australia, has led to complaints from women as far afield as Oxford University.
A 2015 complaint by a student that the judge had groped her in the library, brought to an end his Visiting Professorship at the prestigious UK university, where he had originally studied as a Rhodes Scholar in 1964.
In 2012, 22 year-old Chelsea Tabart was a brilliant student with a first class honours degree in Law from Sydney University, thrilled to have won a prized associateship with Justice Heydon.
An associate is a personal assistant to the judge who conducts legal research and helps review judgments. High Court associateships are granted to the most illustrious of graduates and are considered the gateway to a brilliant legal career.
On her very first day, after the office staff went out for dinner, the judge offered her a lift home, Ms Tabart told the Herald.
He suggested they stop for a drink. Ms Tabart said she was expecting they would go to a bar but instead the judge took her to his room at The Commonwealth Club, the prestigious private club in Yarralumla where the judge stayed while court was in session.
Ms Tabart’s 68-year-old boss poured them a glass of wine and sat down next to her on the couch. She told Dr Thom that when the judge asked her about a deformity of her finger, he responded by stroking her hand and saying: “I don’t think it’s weird, I think it’s beautiful”.
Mr Heydon then dropped her hand, moved closer to her on the couch and put his right hand on her left thigh.
Ms Tabart attempted to excuse herself and said she would get a cab home, at which point Justice Heydon offered to go with her. “You don’t know what kind of creeps are out there,” he said.
She immediately called her boyfriend and then her father, she said. She also noticed she had missed a phone call from her predecessor, Alex Eggerking, who had also been at the dinner that night.
The next day Ms Eggerking was upset with herself. She hadn’t thought she would need to warn her so quickly that the judge had a history of harassing his female associates.
She had been intending to advise Ms Tabart not to be alone with him, but she was concerned it would be too overwhelming to caution her on her first day.
When contacted by the investigators, Ms Eggerking disclosed that she too had been sexually harassed by Justice Heydon.
Rachael Patterson Collins started as an associate with the judge in 2005, when she was 26.
Ms Collins told Dr Thom that as a working class, conservative Catholic, she felt lonely and isolated in Canberra, excluded from the clique of the other judges’ associates. The investigation found her to be an “honest and credible witness with a clear recollection of events”.
Some time around May 2005, she confided in the judge that she was suffering from depression. That same evening there was a “chambers dinner” during which the judge typically drank heavily, she told the investigation.
After dinner, Ms Collins drove Justice Heydon home. She confided in him that she was being bullied by some of the other associates and was having a difficult time in Canberra.
He reached over and began “caressing” her hand, she said.
“Ms Collins felt alarmed and confused by Justice Heydon’s conduct,” which she saw as a sexual advance, Dr Thom reported.
“Instead of helping me, he tried to take advantage of my vulnerability and I had to leave my position early,” Ms Collins told the Herald.
It was considered unthinkable and possibly damaging to your career to quit an associateship, but Ms Collins did just that having been offered a full scholarship at an American university.
She refused Mr Heydon’s persistent invitations to have dinner with him alone to mark her departure but finally agreed to have a drink in his chambers.
He had the champagne ready, she took it and moved to the other side of his room. After commenting on her hair colour, he asked her to stand up. “Justice Heydon then stood close to her and, looking down at her, said: ‘Can I kiss you?’” the report states.
Ms Collins rebuffed him. “Maybe just on the cheek then?” he pleaded. She replied: “No! You’re married, you’re my boss. I am a practising Catholic. No.”
Justice Michael McHugh’s associate Sharona Coutts was still in the office. Ms Collins was crying as she told her what happened.
Later, when the court was sitting in Adelaide, Ms Collins told the judge she wanted to speak to him about his conduct. He said he was giving a talk and to meet him at the hotel afterwards.
Instead of going to a bar, he took her to his room. Ms Collins said how disappointed she was in his behaviour as he was a married man, a judge, a Christian and a conservative. Asked why he did this, he replied, “Because you’re beautiful”.
Ms Collins told him he couldn’t keep doing this. “Do you have any idea how upset your wife and kids would be if they found out?” She warned him that if he kept doing it, it would eventually leak to the press and that he would look like a hypocrite.
Ms Collins thought her warning would have some impact on the judge. It didn’t, he went on to harass more women.
Ms Collins praised the actions of the High Court. “Not only did the current court treat us with fairness and kindness, they’ve also taken some concrete steps to ensure this never happens again,” she said.
“The legal profession’s dirtiest and darkest secret is no more,” said Mr Bornstein. “His repeated sexual harassment of young women who were starting out their legal careers was and is known to many people.”
Chief Justice Kiefel said there was no place for sexual harassment in the workplace.
‘‘We have moved to do all we can to make sure the experiences of these women will not be repeated. We have strengthened our policies and training to make clear the importance of a respectful workplace at the Court and we have made sure there is both support and confidential avenues for complaint if anything like this were to happen again.’’
Dyson Heydon: Inquiry finds top Australian ex-judge harassed women by Reuters in BBC News, June 22, 2020
Dyson Heydon’s lawyers deny “any allegation of predatory behaviour or breaches of the law”
An independent inquiry commissioned by Australia’s High Court has found that one of its former judges, Dyson Heydon, sexually harassed six staff members.
The country’s top court apologised to the six women, saying it had been told of the allegations in 2019.
High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel said recommendations from the inquiry had been adopted.
Lawyers for Mr Heydon, who retired in 2013, have “categorically” denied the allegations to Australian media.
They stressed that the investigation was an “internal administrative inquiry… conducted without having statutory powers of investigation”.
Mr Heydon joined the High Court as a judge in 2003.
What did the court say?
Its investigation was carried out by Dr Vivienne Thom, a former inspector-general of intelligence and security for Australia’s federal government.
Commenting on its findings, Chief Justice Kiefel said: “We are ashamed that this could have happened at the High Court of Australia.”
The findings were of “extreme concern” to all current members of the bench and their staff, she said.
The High Court said it was “ashamed” of what the investigation had found
“We have made a sincere apology to the six women whose complaints were borne out,” she added. “We know it would have been difficult to come forward. Their accounts of their experiences at the time have been believed.”
Lawyers representing the six women welcomed the High Court’s statement on the findings, Australian broadcaster ABC reports.
“Its response to this situation since we wrote to the court last year has been exemplary,” lawyer Josh Bornstein said.
“The court has also implemented a range of reforms to improve the policies and procedures of the court to ensure young associates are not exposed.”
What were the allegations?
Details of the report’s findings were not released by the High Court but, according to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the investigation found evidence which “demonstrates a tendency by Mr Heydon to engage in a pattern of conduct of sexual harassment”.
One of Mr Heydon’s former associates, Rachael Patterson Collins, told the paper his “actions had real and terrible consequences” which had led her to abandon her plans to become a barrister.
Chelsea Tabart, another former associate, said she too had left the law because “the culture was broken from the top down”. She felt, the paper said, that she would not be safe “from powerful men like Mr Heydon even if I reported them”.
The Herald conducted its own investigation into the judge and published detailed allegations of sexual harassment.
One unnamed current judge is quoted as saying Mr Heydon “slid his hand between her thighs at a professional law dinner”. That’s the best summation of the Rule of Law I’ve ever heard or read! Sums up my view of how “law” operates in Canada.
“He indecently assaulted me,” she told the paper. “I have no doubt it was a crime and he knew I was not consenting.”
Through his lawyers, Mr Heydon denied “emphatically any allegation of sexual harassment or any offence”.
Who is Dyson Heydon?
Now aged 77, he was appointed to the High Court bench in 2003 and served until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2013.
In 2014, he was appointed to run the federal government’s royal commission into alleged corruption in the trade union movement.
His lawyers said: “In respect of the confidential inquiry and its subsequent confidential report, any allegation of predatory behaviour or breaches of the law is categorically denied by our client.”
“Our client,” they added, “says that if any conduct of his has caused offence, that result was inadvertent and unintended, and he apologises for any offence caused.” What a piss poor, quarter ass apology. IRK! Typical, coming from a legal professional! How many rape / assault cases did this man rule on?
Refer also to:
Megan Brown: “This is how abuse of power works.”
Addicted to Gag: What gives with these abusive judges?
“It’s the judges!” enabling rape and murder of women. No kidding. In Canada too.
‘This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ Sketch: “Judges: a danger to Canadian women”
Non-Disclosure Agreements “are, indeed, an ugly instrument.”
And hide sexual predators, often enabled by lawyers, prosecutors and or judges, so that the predators can rape/abuse/terrify/harass again and again and again. Power of Patriarchy.
How fracking’s catch-22 shields the natural gas industry and throws citizens under the bus
The Hagys’ water contamination lawsuit demonstrates how the natural gas industry has built a near-perfect “federal legal exemption’s framework” that when combined with lax or absent state regulations and the legal system’s high costs, inherently approves of citizen collateral damage with no restitution. The consequence of this framework is that the burden of proof is placed on plaintiffs who, at best, are forced to settle with natural gas companies, thereby sealing the case from public scrutiny, scientific examination and legal precedence.