'jury Could Have Ended My Nightmare'

The Sunday Age

Sunday March 16, 2008

Liz Porter

Ex-policewoman tells of dismay over bullying case ruling

A FORMER Victorian policewoman believes she might have won a bullying case against the State Government and four ex-colleagues if the judge had not dismissed the jury part-way through the case.

Now a pensioner and living in the Northern Territory, Pauline Findlay, 45, wept as she told The Sunday Age of her sheer bewilderment at a Victorian County Court judge's wholesale rejection of her civil action against two former Swan Hill colleagues, Senior Constables Ashley Cook and John Lyons.

The former star recruit and police prosecutor, who graduated top of her squad at the Police Academy, had accused the men of conducting a two-year campaign of bullying and harassment against her. She claimed they regularly called her "loopy" and labelled her a "dyke", a "slut", "frigid" and "a bike" who needed a "good f---".

She claimed Mr Cook had once warned her that "someone might get a .38 and blow you away" and said she had been stalked, prank-called and made the subject of false rumours, including that she had smoked marijuana and slept with a speed-camera operator to pass a course.

"I never expected a complete victory," Ms Findlay told The Sunday Age. "But I expected some vindication that these things had happened to me."

Instead, in his ruling on Friday, Judge Ian Robertson described many of Ms Findlay's claims as "fanciful", and said that Mr Cook and Mr Lyons were victims of her behaviour, rather than the other way around. The judge also dismissed Ms Findlay's claims against two senior officers for allegedly failing to protect her.

He described the one police officer who backed her claims in court as the "weak link" in the chain of command. He said Ms Findlay's former boss at the unit, Sergeant Roger Busiko, who gave evidence in support of her, had formed an alliance with her.

Ms Findlay, who began her proceedings seven years ago, yesterday said she felt the system had let her down again. "The police force betrayed me by promising to sort out the situation at Swan Hill - and then not doing anything," she said.

"I thought the judgement would bring an end to this trial and this nightmare," she said. Instead she is still dealing with the demons unleashed by the process. "At the trial I had to open up that box and let it all out. And now, I'm afraid I won't be able to get it back in again."

Now she will have to live with the case for at least another year pending an appeal. Her lawyer, Julian Burnside, QC, is considering the judgement.

Ms Findlay's case opened last August, with a six-member jury. But a third of the way through the 11-week hearing Judge Robertson dismissed the jury after a member of Ms Findlay's legal team made a comment that, in the judge's view, might have prejudiced them.

For Ms Findlay, the departure of the jury was a devastating blow. Their eyes had remain fixed on her during the 11 days she spent in the witness box, reliving her time at Swan Hill and hearing intimate details of her medical and psychiatric history.

"I felt that this case was a job for a jury of everyday people, because they bring to it their own life experiences at work," she said.

"Some of them would have understood what it was like to be a woman in a senior position and have some upstart male back them up against a wall."

She claimed in her case that the antagonism she experienced when she arrived at Swan Hill in 1995 appeared to stem from the fact that she had laid criminal charges against a former de facto, a fellow police officer who had allegedly assaulted her.

In his ruling, Judge Robertson described Ms Findlay as "not a particularly reliable witness", and "someone of a rather controlling and shrewd disposition". He said she "looked older than her stated age" and on some days "appeared to be reasonably well-presented, whilst on other days appeared as being a little dishevelled".

In comparison, he wrote, the court was "impressed" by Mr Cook and Mr Lyons - both "mature-aged, married men".

He found that Ms Findlay withheld from her superiors when she arrived at Swan Hill the fact that she already had a "significant underlying mental health condition ... caused ... by the assault". He said the problems there were caused by the fact that "at all relevant times the plaintiff was significantly mentally unwell".

Ms Findlay is particularly upset by these comments. She agrees she was affected by the alleged assault. "But except for the three weeks I had off to recover from the injuries, I kept working," she said.

What Judge Ian Robertson said:

? "This is a particularly sad case ... that evokes strong feelings of sympathy towards the plaintiff."

?"The plaintiff presented as a woman who looked older than her stated age ... On some court days the plaintiff appeared to be reasonably well presented, whilst on other days she appeared as being a little dishevelled."

?"The court was impressed by both Cook and Lyons as witnesses. Both were mature-aged married men."

?"For the plaintiff to suggest ... that Cook and Lyons victimised and harassed her because she was a female, or because she had been upgraded to acting sergeant ... or because she had (laid) charges against another police officer is ... fanciful to say the least."

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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