Brothel Gate Day 5 Full Day

1MR DEVRIES: Yes the matter's proceeding Your Honour.
2HIS HONOUR: Yes, thank you Mr Devries. A couple of brief
3 matters. Firstly I understand that the judgment in
4 Procopets will be delivered tomorrow morning by the Court
5 of Appeal and - - -
6MR DEVRIES: Well that's very handy Your Honour. Excellent
7 timing.
8HIS HONOUR: Would have been more excellent last Friday but
9 nonetheless we're grateful for what we get Mr Devries.
10MR DEVRIES: Particularly from the Court of Appeal Your Honour.
11HIS HONOUR: Anyway and the other matter Ms Sofroniou
12 (indistinct) I understand you're in some pain from a back
13 injury like Mr Johnson - - -
14MS SOFRONIOU: (Indistinct).
15HIS HONOUR: - - - so the same rule applies to any back
16 sufferers including myself, stand or sit as you need.
17 Now we're right to proceed. Mr Johnson you're in the
18 witness box.
19MR JOHNSON: Thank you Your Honour. Before I put my alter ego,
20 my client, in the witness box I just wish to clarify a
21 couple of things. Firstly Your Honour recognises that
22 I'm involved in these proceedings in two alter egos, as
23 defence counsel and also as the defendant. I just wanted
24 to clarify that each of my alter egos has a separate
25 distinct legal personality (indistinct) Solomon v.
26 Solomon. When I'm in the box I am of course Harold James
27 Johnson a legal practitioner. I was practicing law in my
28 - under the law firm name as a sole practitioner, Johnson
29 Legal. Before that under my own name, James Johnson and
30 years and years ago under the business name Sutton
31 Johnson. Your Honour but when I'm addressing you as I am
1.SB:ASC 08/12/08 FTR:1 211 DISCUSSION

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1 now I'm addressing you as the chief legal officer and
2 managing director of an incorporated - - -
3HIS HONOUR: No you're not Mr Johnson. When you address me now
4 you are representing yourself. You are Harold James
5 Johnson the defendant - - -
6MR JOHNSON: Your Honour the court documents - - -
7HIS HONOUR: Now that is the point.
8MR JOHNSON: - - - clearly show that - - -
9HIS HONOUR: Now Mr Johnson - - -
10MR JOHNSON: - - - by Sutton Lawyers Pty Ltd.
11HIS HONOUR: Mr Johnson this strikes me again as a number of -
12 as another of the speeches which you have made in this
13 case which is irrelevant and which is delaying the case.
14 Now you are the defendant, you are as you are entitled to
15 do, to be representing yourself. When you (indistinct)
16 to the issues you are doing it most capably. Now would
17 you please go to the witness box and we'll continue with
18 your evidence.
19MR JOHNSON: Before I do Your Honour, I raised on Friday my
20 concern about a witness I subpoenaed who was served - - -
21HIS HONOUR: Yes.
22MR JOHNSON: - - - and not here. He is a vital witness for the
23 defence Your Honour, a Mr Peter Cochran. I have here
24 materials (indistinct) service.
25HIS HONOUR: Yes.
26MR JOHNSON: I'll hand copies to my learned friends.
27MR DEVRIES: Your Honour's going to deal with this at the end
28 of the - Mr Johnson's - - -
29HIS HONOUR: Mr Johnson's evidence, is there any urgency to do
30 it now?
31MR JOHNSON: In terms of time if we (indistinct) of getting

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1 this man, Mr Peter Cochran in court to give his evidence
2 I suggest there's an urgency to deal with this
3 before - - -
4HIS HONOUR: Well what is your application from that?
5MR JOHNSON: I'm not sure of the exact technical language to
6 use but the language Your Honour used on Friday was to
7 have him called on a subpoena? I believe it's a contempt
8 of court his failure to show up on - - -
9HIS HONOUR: It may be a contempt of court, it has a potential
10 to be but a number of steps have to be established first,
11 and those steps established as a last resort, I have
12 power to order the warrant for his arrest which can be
13 issued under s.150 of the Evidence Act but I would want
14 to know first what steps have been taken to bring him to
15 court before I took any steps against Mr Cochran. I will
16 say I need to be persuaded that the evidence he is to
17 give is at all relevant. Now it seems to me rather than
18 delay those processes we ought to get on with your
19 evidence and we can deal with that matter then. I
20 suspect that there may be a small hiatus because one
21 thing I have been told about the judgment in Procopets is
22 that it is long so that the parties will need to observe
23 it and it may or may not affect questions as to the
24 evidence which has been called in the case. Now is there
25 any urgency in calling Mr Cochran?
26MR JOHNSON: As long as I'm not disadvantaged by running out of
27 time to have him brought (indistinct) to give evidence
28 before (indistinct) court Your Honour. That is my sole
29 ground for urgency.
30HIS HONOUR: Yes well I'd need to be persuaded firstly all the
31 proper steps have been taken to serve a subpoena, the

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1 subpoena's regular, I need proof of service of
2 Mr Cochran. I'd also need to have some indication as to
3 why - what evidence he's to give and how it's relevant
4 before I took the extreme step of ordering that a warrant
5 for his arrest be executed.
6MR JOHNSON: I - thank you Your Honour. I'm indebted for that
7 explanation, thank you.
8HIS HONOUR: So that may give you some preliminary indication.
9MR JOHNSON: Thank you Your Honour.
10HIS HONOUR: Now I think for the orderly management of the
11 matter apart from yourself and Mr Cochran, are there any
12 other witnesses you will be calling?
13MR JOHNSON: No Your Honour.
14HIS HONOUR: Right well I suspect you still have some distance
15 to go in your evidence and then there will be
16 cross-examination of you. It is better that we proceed
17 with that then we'll deal with issues relating to
18 Mr Cochran.
19MR JOHNSON: Yes Your Honour. I'm hopeful that I might be able
20 to complete my evidence-in-chief before the lunch break.
21HIS HONOUR: Excellent.
22MR JOHNSON: Thank you Your Honour. Forgive me Your Honour but
23 in my defence counsel alter ego I did have a question.
24 There is an affidavit that the 2nd defendant by counter
25 claim has sworn.
26 That contains substantial documentation which I
27 actually wish to introduce as part of my evidence in
28 chief. Is there any problem with me tabling that
29 affidavit and exhibits in its totality?
30HIS HONOUR: If you say that the affidavit contains admissions
31 on which you wish to rely, you are entitled to do that.

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1MR JOHNSON: Thank you, Your Honour. I would like to do that
2 please.
3HIS HONOUR: But that would not seem to be part of your
4 evidence, as distinct from part of your case.
5MR JOHNSON: It includes correspondence that I wrote to the 3rd
6 defendant by counterclaim, and it's relevant to my
7 evidence as to my relationship, my eight year plus
8 relationship with Harwood Andrews.
9HIS HONOUR: Your entitled to do that. Have you got the
10 documents on the bar table, have you?
11MR JOHNSON: I do indeed, thank you. Excuse me for a second.
12HIS HONOUR: Just a moment, you'll need to have the standard
13 caution applied to you first.
14MR JOHNSON: Thank you, Your Honour
15<HAROLD JAMES JOHNSON, recalled:
16WITNESS: Yes, thank you sir. Your Honour, this is a document
17 that my defence counsel, my alter ego, mentioned a couple
18 of moments ago, being an affidavit sworn by the 2nd
19 defendant by counterclaim. That contains documents
20 relevant to the evidence that I as client, as defendant
21 shall be giving in chief, including relating to my
22 ownership of several of the properties, and also my eight
23 year plus relationship with his law firm.
24HIS HONOUR: Just a moment. I think the better thing to do is
25 this. Do you want to tender – are you seeking to tender
26 the whole of the affidavit, or are you simply seeking to
27 put before me now some of the documents which also happen
28 to be exhibited to that affidavit?---All of the above,
29 Your Honour. I will be cross-examining extensively
30 Mr Hanlon on his affidavit to that effect.
31If he gives evidence?---If he gives evidence as I think he will

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1 have to.
2But do you say contains some admissions by him?---It makes a
3 number of the correspondences I want to put into evidence
4 noncontroversial I believe Your Honour.
5MS SOFRONIOU: I should say for the court's assistance, that's
6 an affidavit that's been served, but not filed in any
7 proceeding. We say that it doesn't contain admissions?
8 ---Yes.
9I gather from what the witness has just said, that he wants to
10 use the correspondence that it attaches, in which case my
11 submission would be that that would be his tender of
12 documents that he happens to have come across that way.
13HIS HONOUR: But that would be - - -
14MS SOFRONIOU: It's not 2nd and 3rd defendant's evidence as to
15 which none has been given yet in this proceeding.
16HIS HONOUR: I understand that, but if he wishes to also tender
17 the affidavit as identifying those documents - - -
18MS SOFRONIOU: Certainly, Your Honour, but once again that
19 would be his tender.
20HIS HONOUR: Of course, it's part of his exhibit, it's not part
21 of your case.
22MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you, Your Honour.
23HIS HONOUR: I fully understand that myself Rena.
24MS SOFRONIOU: It was for the witness' benefit too,
25 Your Honour.
26HIS HONOUR: Yes, I understand.
27MS SOFRONIOU: It's difficult.
28HIS HONOUR: You'll be seeking to effectively tender the
29 affidavit, and tendering any exhibits that are attached
30 to it?---Yes, Your Honour. I'm making no admissions as
31 to the contents of the affidavit, as I will be taking

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1 objection with, and strenuously cross-examinating –cross-
2 examining on most of the statements in the affidavit
3 itself.
4I don't know that you can do that. If you're tendering the
5 document, you're tendering it in case it contains
6 admissions, you will also tendering it – you're therefore
7 tendering it as to the truth of its contents. You take
8 the good with the bad, and the principles that apply are
9 that the other side are entitled to rely on any
10 explicatory materials, or any admission material?
11 ---Your Honour, my defence counsel, alter ego,
12 anticipated that might be the outcome of the rules. And
13 on that basis, what I would like to tender then is simply
14 the exhibits one to 15.
15Yes?---And I won't tender the affidavit, it depends on cross-
16 examination - - -
17Right?--- - - - of Mr Hanlon, Your Honour.
18MR DEVRIES: I should indicate, Your Honour, that I've – whilst
19 I've seen a copy of the affidavit itself which provided
20 to me as a courtesy by my learned friend, I haven't
21 copies of any of the exhibits, and that - - -
22HIS HONOUR: If you need time to look at them we'll get
23 instructions. We can cater with that - cater for that,
24 thanks Mr Devries.
25MR DEVRIES: I'd be opposing the tendering of all of the
26 exhibits as one tender, Your Honour. They should be
27 dealt with one by one.
28HIS HONOUR: That's what I understand Mr Johnson will be doing.
29 I think he's seeking simply to utilise those documents,
30 and we'll see what gives anyway. Right Mr Johnson?
31 ---I'll tender them on an individual basis.

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1Yes, well that's a better way to do it?---Thanks Your Honour.
2 I shall resume my evidence in chief from Friday
3 afternoon.
4Right?---Where I was primarily describing, giving arrangements.
5Yes, you were – at the end of it you were describing your
6 payment of Ms Cressy's fees at Stott's and Taylors. You
7 were, told me that you had paid child care for the
8 children in August 2003, and that you were also working
9 very long hours. That's a note that I finished at – that
10 you were finishing on?---Thank you, Your Honour. I
11 believe um, in doing so, because um I was giving evidence
12 about living arrangements um, some evidence was
13 introduced as to the ownership and funding of several of
14 the properties.
15Yes?---As a peripheral. I will come back to that as a separate
16 issue, um.
17Yes, are you also going to come back at some stage to the
18 evidence that Ms Cressy has given as to various
19 improvements she said she made at the properties?---Yes,
20 yes Your Honour.
21You'll need to address that in your evidence. You have in
22 part, but it's a matter which I've got noted to bring to
23 your attention at some stage?---Yes.
24But I'll leave you, you go in your order, and we'll proceed?
25 ---Excuse me Your Honour, I have some pages of notes.
26Yes?---I would like to have a look at, if I may be excused?
27Yes?---Thank you, Your Honour. I believe I covered in, in
28 general terms, a number of residents. Residents up in
29 the Dandenong, residents at Illouera Avenue, Grovedale,
30 Gheringhap Street, Geelong, Osborne Street, South Yarra,
31 Dorrington Street, Point Cook. I believe that there are

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1 three other properties that I need to - three other
2 residencies that I need to describe in terms of living
3 arrangements and there will be an introduction of
4 financing issues there but I will come back to financing
5 separately. The three I need to talk to firstly are
6 Gibson Street, Caulfield. I will do this at this stage
7 because chronologically that was the next property I
8 purchased. That was a property that I purchased - let me
9 see - shortly after meeting Mr Antonos Ioannou who gave
10 evidence on the last most recent day of the trial. I met
11 Mr Ioannou via an introduction from the manager of my
12 apartment at City Point, 668 Bourke Street. He was the
13 rental manager who was there prior to Ms Karen Briggs who
14 has also given evidence. Mr Troy said he had a number of
15 apartments for sale and I was looking at purchasing an
16 apartment rather than continuing to rent, and Mr Troy
17 said I will hear details through a mortgage broker, I
18 believe he can do 106 per cent loans, you should talk to
19 him, he's very good and I did. My first meeting with Mr
20 Ioannou was actually in my 909 apartment at City Point.
21 I have a strong recollection of that because he struck me
22 as very young to be in that position and I believe at the
23 time he was barely 20 years old. He could talk the talk
24 but I did not know if he could walk to walk, so my second
25 meeting was with him at his offices and he was kind of an
26 off shoot of Raine and Horne.
27Now, just remember to stay relevant?--- Thank you Your Honour.
28You are again straying into detail, only tell me about the
29 detail that are relevant to this case?--- The relevance
30 here is that my purchase of 92 Gibson Street, Altona, was
31 solely due to that relationship I formed, that

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1 introduction.
2So you met him through your occupation of the premises at
3 Bourke Street?---Yes, and initially we looked at some
4 scenarios where I could either buy an apartment in that
5 building, because it's a terrific place to live, or I
6 would purchase some acreage down the coast, Torquay,
7 Lorne way. We looked at the numbers, neither of them
8 worked. One of his projects that he was working on, his
9 business called Syndica was an investor club. I
10 subscribed to the club. I paid, I think it was a $500
11 membership fee, and what they were doing was they were
12 going out to developers and they were signing up a deal
13 with the developer to pre-sell developments of - in this
14 case it was their first deal, 13 units. They had a
15 couple of other projects that I didn't get involved in
16 later but this was the first one. So they would earn a
17 fee as marketing agent for the developer. The developer
18 would go you beaut, we now get construction finance
19 because we have a guaranteed take off once construction
20 is completed. Prices were locked in at I think $425,000
21 for Gibson Street. That was subject to a bulk rebate
22 because as members of the investor club we were pooling
23 our bargaining power, so it was about a $25,000 rebate
24 which brought the effective price down to just under
25 $400,000. Bank finance was organised through Mr Ioannou
26 at I believe it was 90 per cent finance. All of my
27 properties at all times were very highly leveraged and
28 every time there was an equity component I would
29 refinance again and I will explain that when I talk about
30 the money side of the situation. That property was
31 supposed to settle in June of that year which I believe

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1 was 2005 but it didn't, there were long delays, the final
2 fit out, the soft fit out took forever. I can explain
3 why, Your Honour, but it's verging on irrelevance.
4 Basically it took another year, so the units were
5 actually completed - - -
6Mr Ioannou told us there was a delay of some time, settlement
7 didn't take place until some time in 2006?---The units
8 were actually completed, Syndica were also at that stage
9 through their Raine and Horne association managing -
10 rental managers for the project, organising tenants to go
11 in and for my unit there were some overseas students to
12 go in and my unit has always been tenanted to overseas
13 students. The tenants went in in February of 2006,
14 settlement occurred in June 2006, a year later than it
15 was supposed to. The value increased at about 20 per
16 cent per annum, which means when we submitted finance
17 applications I ended up borrowing about 112 per cent of
18 what I needed, so it covered all the stamp duty which
19 wasn't substantial because of the off the plan savings.
20 I covered all of the outgoings and when settlement
21 occurred firstly I received about $11,000 cash back from
22 the lender, after all expenses, all statutory charges
23 were covered, it was about $11,000 left over, borrowed
24 more than I needed which went into my bank account. Now,
25 I would like to tender my documentation. It's actually
26 the full contents of what Your Honour received as
27 Exhibit A on one of the first or second days of the
28 hearing. I apologise, this is going to be detached
29 pages, which was a six page fax from myself to Mr Hanlon
30 and - it's actually half of an exhibit, Your Honour, to
31 that affidavit I mentioned previously.

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1Yes, well, you tender what you need to tender?---OK, at this
2 stage it is half of Exhibit DWH14.
3Just tender the documents from that exhibit you need to
4 tender?---Yes.
5And I'll receive them as Exhibit 15 in this proceeding?---Yes.
6What are you tendering?---That is the first two pages or
7 first - - -
8Yes?---First two pages are actually Exhibit A, Your Honour
9 received from Mr - - -
10
11#EXHIBIT 15 - Faxed letter from the defendant Mr David
12 Hanlon dated 29/10/2007 together with
13 four pages of attachments
14WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.
15HIS HONOUR: Do you wish to see that, Ms Sofroniou?
16MS SOFRONIOU: Yes, if I may, Your Honour.
17HIS HONOUR: Yes, I'll just put a yellow sticker on it so we
18 don't get too lost.
19MS SOFRONIOU: Your Honour, inasmuch as the document contains
20 any conclusions of law that is the matter for Your
21 Honour's decision - - -
22HIS HONOUR: Yes.
23MS SOFRONIOU: Obviously we'll get to that but on the basis of
24 the fact of - - -
25HIS HONOUR: On the fact of the letter, yes, I follow that. So
26 it's received for the fact of the letter, not for the
27 truth of its contents. Yes, Mr Johnson?---Thank you,
28 Your Honour. If I might channel my other alter ego
29 defence counsel, I'm just hoping for a ruling. I do not
30 understand whether it is possible or proper within the
31 rules of the court or the rules of advocacy that
32 Mr Devries did on Thursday afternoon hand up two pages of
33 that four page document which become Exhibit A. Is that

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1 a permissible or an appropriate thing to do, to hand up
2 two pages of a six page document?
3He tendered that as an exhibit. I recall at the time you
4 protested that it was incomplete. You have completed the
5 tender?---No, I wasn't on my - - -
6I'm not here to pass on the propriety of it. Mr Devries no
7 doubt had instructions that that was a document that was
8 to be tendered. Now, we will continue with your
9 evidence?---Your Honour, I have a lovely speech on our
10 Lady Portia's alter ego about - - -
11Well, we won't listen to speeches?---Australian mercy and
12 Australian justice, but I will move on, Your Honour.
13You will move on?---Thank you, sir.
14MR DEVRIES: Just while we are having our break in Mr Johnson's
15 evidence, I rise to make objection to him,
16 notwithstanding Your Honour's ruling before he stepped
17 into the witness box, adopting two different egos.
18HIS HONOUR: He is a witness at the moment but at the same time
19 he is representing himself, and the matter he raised was
20 not necessary to be raised at that time, but I can't shut
21 him out in case there are matters that pertain to his
22 evidence. Mr Devries, can we please press on?
23MR DEVRIES: Yes, sorry, Your Honour.
24HIS HONOUR: This case was given a four day estimate. It
25 behoves everyone to - a two day estimate, we're now
26 exactly double that, to move the case along. And that is
27 only done by sticking very rigidly to the relevant
28 issues. Now, you've just tendered that document, what's
29 the next part of your evidence?---Thank you, Your Honour.
30 Just - just on that estimate of trial, I did explain on
31 the morning of the trial last week - - -

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1I'm not interested in your explanation. I'm interested in your
2 evidence?---Thank you, Your Honour. That document
3 contains extracts of the contract by which I purchased
4 Gibson Street, that contains a letter from myself to my -
5 to one of the settlement parties, I believe the
6 settlement agents from my bank. Settlement calculations,
7 and I believe there's a page from my AMP bank statement
8 which shows the surplus borrowings of that $11,000
9 deposit into my bank account, all in the last week of
10 June 2006, Your Honour.
11Yes?---I had discovered at that point the holy grail of
12 investing because I had not only a cash flow neutral
13 investment but cash flow positive. What made it even
14 more attractive is that Syndica as the management agents
15 had of course the rent from the tenants collected up in
16 their trust account from February up to June of that
17 year, so the question for them was who got those monies.
18 The vendors who had delayed and were in breach of their
19 contract by not settling a year earlier, or the
20 purchasers. And as it happened, I received after
21 settlement about $7500 being the rent for that period
22 when I was a purchaser on the contract, not having
23 settled. So it was doubly cash flow positive. How did I
24 come to pick that particular apartment? I can say I've
25 never had keys in my possession. I've never been inside
26 the door. I've driven past and had a look. It's lovely
27 located to the university, the racecourse and sporting
28 fields. I've never been in the door. There were three
29 units left, eight, nine and 13. I, as a relationship
30 building decision, said to Mr Rianou, "You're doing
31 fantastic. You pick the one." He then told me that he'd

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1 picked nine for me and eight for him. My recollection is
2 that nine was maybe $5000 more expensive but they're
3 virtually - they're virtually Siamese twins with a
4 conjoined party wall, Your Honour. That's, I believe,
5 all I need to say perhaps in all of these proceedings
6 about that particular property, Your Honour.
7You still retain that unit, do you, Unit 9?---I am still the
8 registered proprietor and I submit the sole legal and
9 beneficial owner of all of these properties in all of
10 these proceedings, with the exception of 12 Lisa Court.
11Yes, well, I was asking you still own Unit 9, No.2 Gibson
12 Street. I think the answer is yes obviously?---It's a
13 question of what you mean by own, Your Honour, which is
14 different for lawyers and for accountants under the
15 accounting standards. Do I have effective use and
16 control of the property? That property I do.
17Mr Johnson, don't be evasive. Has it been sold?---That
18 property has not been sold, Your Honour.
19Thank you. Now, what is the amount of debt secured over it at
20 the moment?---Your Honour, I did wish to discuss the
21 financing separate from the living arrangements, but I'm
22 happy to do that.
23You're going to do that later, are you?---Yes, Your Honour.
24All right?---Yes.
25You do it in your order?---Thank you, Your Honour. In the
26 materials that were submitted on Friday was the
27 reconstruction of my financing records at the time that I
28 purchased Gibson Street. They were put in as an exhibit
29 and they were identified by Mr Ioannou that there will be
30 lots of bank statements, credit card statements that will
31 record the typical history that all of my income for the

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1 period, which was substantial, paid into my account by
2 way of cheques and/or direct debits from either a billion
3 dollar statutory corporation, Barwon Regional Water
4 Authority, where I worked as a hybrid legal counsel, or
5 the greater proportion of the money is actually from
6 Primelife Corporation where I also worked as a hybrid.
7So where were those - into what account was that income paid?
8 ---Into my personal - well, my business bank account, me
9 being - practising as a sole practitioner, at that stage
10 predominantly under my own name Your Honour. So lots of
11 bank records confirm sources of funding for that loan
12 application. I didn't not put in a dollar of finance, as
13 I've said earlier. I might point out at that point - I
14 am concerned if I don't give this evidence now I might
15 accidentally omit it later. At that point the
16 plaintiff's claim against me was not set in any legal
17 proceedings in Your Honour's court, it was recorded in
18 the jurisdiction of the Registrar of Titles by way of a
19 caveat lodged. On the - I believe it was 7 May 2007.
20 Now, that caveat claimed an interest in six of my
21 properties including Gibson Street because of
22 contributions that Ms Cressy Junior had made to my
23 construction acquisition and improvement of my
24 properties. Now, this was an easy one for me to explain
25 to Mr Hanlon and Harwood Andrews that she had not
26 contributed to the acquisition, construction or
27 improvement of any of my properties, simply because I
28 hadn't contributed anything, Your Honour, except entering
29 into mortgage obligations. During the life of my
30 property portfolio, of course it has only been my money
31 that has gone to service the mortgages for as long as I

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1 could, which was fine up until about the middle of 2007
2 and I managed to hang on, continuing to service by
3 borrowing moneys elsewhere and collecting unbilled whip,
4 I struggled through until late 2007 keeping most of the
5 mortgages up to date, even though as my income for that
6 tax year, I went backwards by about $158,000. So I write
7 the document that I have just exhibited - - -
8Do you have a copy of the caveat?---I do indeed.
9If you do you will need to tender that?---Thank you, Your
10 Honour. It's amongst the exhibits.
11Even if you don't do it now, if you just simply make a note to
12 tender it?---I am grateful to do it now, Your Honour,
13 because it is a lot of properties and there's a lot to
14 come back to. I'm hoping at this stage to talk basically
15 through this Your Honour, but if I do happen to overlook
16 describing some of the properties in my evidence I will
17 have given Your Honour enough general information perhaps
18 at this stage. This is the caveat, Your Honour, and I
19 can't off hand identify from property details which one
20 was Dixon Street - Court, Your Honour.
21I don't need the exhibit notes. You said that's over the six
22 properties?---Yes, one of those is Dixon Street, Your
23 Honour.
24
25#EXHIBIT 16 - Copy caveat, dated 8/05/07, caveat
26 no.AF058952B lodged on behalf of the
27 plaintiff in respect of six properties.
28HIS HONOUR: Does counsel wish to see that?
29MR DEVRIES: No, Your Honour.
30MS SOFRONIOU: No, Your Honour.
31HIS HONOUR: Thank you?---Thank you Your Honour. I protested,
32 I sent a number of letters to Mr Hanlon during October,
33 November, I was desperate for funding at that stage, I

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1 was trying to keep all of the properties. At that stage
2 Ms Cressy and her children were living at the Altona
3 property with my blessing. I regarded that at all times
4 as a generosity on my part. The last thing that anyone
5 could ever accuse me of being is a delinquent dad. I
6 have - and I will give further evidence detailing this -
7 a history of generous child support to Ms Cressy. I
8 think typically ten times what I have now as a result of
9 this conflagration found out to be my legal obligation,
10 and that included her and her three children, including
11 the youngest one, the littlest Miss Cressy, who is
12 reputedly to be my daughter and certainly on the
13 statutory records, the birthday certificate, she is shown
14 as such. But I was running out of funds. I looked to
15 refinance the Caulfield property and of course I was
16 blocked, so I thought well, how am I going to resolve
17 this with these people. This is a bit of a test, if they
18 can't see the logic in this, we're just not going to get
19 anywhere without requiring court involvement. As it
20 happened the caveat was removed from the property, the
21 title details from the caveat to the property - there
22 should be a reference to the title of that property in
23 the 29 October letter, my penultimate exhibit Your
24 Honour.
25Could I have a look at Exhibit 15 please. Thank you. Yes,
26 well I can't pick it up there but I don't think it really
27 matters?---Thank you, Your Honour. What transpired is
28 that caveat was removed, I received no communication from
29 Ms Cressy or from Harwood Andrews whatsoever. I just was
30 running weekly cheque searches through my title searching
31 agents and one morning I found that that caveat had been

2Cressy
1 removed.
2When was it removed?---Early November Your Honour. Just as,
3 just as I'd received no communication from Ms Cressy or
4 her lawyers regarding the caveats being put in, in May
5 07, I received no word at all, no explanation about them
6 being removed or that caveat being partially withdrawn to
7 the Caulfield property.
8So it was removed in relation to the Caulfield property?---Yes
9 Your Honour, yes. That allowed me to redo my financing.
10 There were a couple of hiccups because my financing had
11 been underway for too long. The bank had shelved it as
12 not proceeding and it all had to be reinitiated. That
13 refinancing finally occurred in the week or weeks, really
14 just the last week before Christmas 2007.
15Why were you refinancing at this stage?---I needed additional
16 funds to sustain the status quo. My earning capacity had
17 been decimated by the stress and the strain associated
18 with this process. There was also the process in the
19 Federal Magistrate O'Dwyer's jurisdiction. There was a
20 lot, a lot of things happening Your Honour.
21So anyway you - the caveat was lifted?---Yes.
22And you refinanced?---Yes I did Your Honour, Your Honour. I
23 think that's probably all I need to say about that point
24 because I will pick up the story on the caveats in the
25 financing. Two other properties I need to talk about are
26 Altona, 166 Queen Street - - -
27Yes?---- - - and I think Torquay completes my list.
28Yes?---I might speak about Torquay last Your Honour because
29 it's the easiest. This is a property which - - -
30Now which one are you talking about now?---Endeavour Avenue,
31 Torquay.

2Cressy
1Right?---All I wish at this stage Your Honour because I will -
2 this was my residence from about mid-September 2007.
3 It's brought into these proceedings because of the
4 amendment that, as defence counsel, I waived through to
5 the statement of claim on Friday morning. It's a copy of
6 the contract. I only had a copy that is signed by me.
7 It was dated 18 September 2007. I moved in the following
8 day under a standard residential tenancy lease and I just
9 wanted to draw the court's attention to the settlement
10 date which was set for 9 April 2008. So I was allowed
11 better than six months settlement and I was a tenant at
12 the property until settlement was achieved conjointly
13 with the refinancing of Gibson Street in that week before
14 Christmas 2007. And all I'd like to do at this stage
15 Your Honour is simply tender a copy of that contract of
16 sale. Thank you Your Honour.
17It shows the purchase price of $397,500 and you didn't pay a
18 deposit, you paid a 5 per cent deposit bond. You - - - ?
19 ---Your Honour thank you, you've just reminded me - - -
20Exhibit - I'll just note this exhibit.

21
22#EXHIBIT 17 - Contract of sale of 7A Endeavour Drive,
23 Torquay dated 18/09/07 between Louise
24 Toebone as the vendor and the defendant,
25 Harold James Johnson as purchaser.
26Do counsel wish to - - -
27MR DEVRIES: I was just anticipating questions that would
28 (indistinct) Your Honour, but whilst he's continuing his
29 evidence - - -
30HIS HONOUR: You wish to have a look at it?
31MR DEVRIES: Yes sir.
32HIS HONOUR: Yes?---Just one more detail which I wouldn't
33 otherwise mention here but to correct an inference that

2Cressy
1 Your Honour drew. I never paid a deposit bond.
2Yes?---There were delays with that which I was quite happy with
3 because as I settled pre-Christmas, I didn't have to pay
4 the $1000 for the deposit bond.
5Do I understand that you financed Torquay out of the
6 refinancing of Gibson Street? Is that part of that
7 package?---Yes, yes Your Honour. The 10 per cent deposit
8 I put in was part of about 30 per cent, 35 per cent of
9 the balance of funds from the refinancing of Gibson
10 Street. The balance of the funds went to living
11 expenses, child support for my estranged wife, Julie and
12 my three children in the magnitude of $2200 a month,
13 fixing up some arrears in some of the mortgages and I'm
14 trying to think of the word the child support agency
15 uses. Some of the money flowed and benefitted Ms Cressy
16 also. She was using telephones that - services that I
17 organised at Queen Street, Altona. There were a lot of -
18 those phone expenses during December, January skyrocketed
19 not astronomical - well astronomically and astrologically
20 because there were a lot of 900 phone calls to psychic
21 angel help lines and those sorts of things. So the
22 normal bills which I was paying to benefit Ms Cressy and
23 the children on top of allowing them to continue
24 occupancy of the Altona house went up from around about,
25 for the mobile phone she was using and the landline to
26 the house, maybe about $300 a month. They went up to
27 over $2000. Now I do have copies of those bank -
28 telephone statements which maybe I should tender in
29 evidence Your Honour?
30That's a matter for you?---Forgive me for standing down Your
31 Honour but I believe (indistinct) will. This is going to

2Cressy
1 be unsightly Your Honour but - and forgive me because as
2 a taxation lawyer, an indirect taxation lawyer my
3 familiarity with proceedings in this honourable court is
4 with the case dated process for (indistinct) objections.
5Well let's just stick to the point?---I, I had thought Your
6 Honour that all of these documents, all of the affidavits
7 and exhibits to date form part of the body of evidence as
8 part of the case stated and I realised that was my lack
9 of experience - - -
10I think that I told you - - - ?---You definitely - - -
11- - - I've lost track of time, how many times on last week that
12 is not so?---May I hand up Your Honour this is a table
13 showing during the period October 07 including up to end
14 of February 08, including that period with the phone
15 charges, some of which were paid out of the proceeds from
16 the Gibson Street refinancing.
17What are you actually handing to me then?---This, this is an
18 Exhibit HJJ005 from my affidavit in these proceedings as
19 7 March 2008.
20Yes but what is it? Is it a bill or something?---It's a table
21 summarising non financial benefits, I believe the child
22 support agency calls them, the moneys I spent to benefit
23 Ms Cressy and the three children.
24Just hand it up and you're seeking to tender it. I'll have a
25 look at it?---And may I hand it up with the exhibit note
26 to encourage Mr Devries or Ms Sofroniou to cross-examine
27 me on that affidavit.
28What this appears to be is a document headed, "Summary of non
29 agency payments from Harold James Johnson to/for Pippin
30 Cressy from 01/10/07 to 27/02/0 [sic] together with
31 attached", are these from Telstra or who are they from?

2Cressy
1
2 ---They're telephone invoices.
3Right, "Telephone charges for the period", looks like, "October
4 2007 to February 2008"?---Yes.

5
6#EXHIBIT 18 - Summary of non agency payment from Harold
7 James Johnson to/for Pippin Cressy from
8 01/10/07 to 27/02/08 together with
9 attached telephone charges for period
10 October 2007 to February 2008.
11MR DEVRIES: May I rise?
12HIS HONOUR: You may - yes you may.
13MR DEVRIES: To raise the question of the relevance of this I
14 was ruled out by Your Honour raising matters that were
15 post separation.
16HIS HONOUR: Well I'm not sure I ruled it out. I think you
17 keep saying that. I raised with you the relevance. You
18 told me that under the authorities they weren't relevant,
19 but - and you accepted that, therefore they would not be
20 admissible. I think so far as the ruling went, if
21 (indistinct) another party in this case has got a
22 (indistinct) but if that's - - -
23MR DEVRIES: Perhaps I - - -
24HIS HONOUR: Well do you wish to object to this?
25MR DEVRIES: Yes Your Honour. I object to it as to its
26 relevance to this proceeding.
27HIS HONOUR: Yes?---May, may I respond on it's relevance?
28MR DEVRIES: Potentially Your Honour, the calculation sheet,
29 that seems.
30HIS HONOUR: Yes.
31MR DEVRIES: I would submit that.
32HIS HONOUR: The calculation sheet seems I think to be nothing
33 more than a useful summary from the documents it
34 supported. But if you object, you object, and

2Cressy
1 we'll - - -
2MR DEVRIES: Yes, I do object, Your Honour. But Your Honour,
3 can we do it on, with respect Your Honour, can I suggest
4 we do it on this basis in order to save time.
5HIS HONOUR: Yes.
6MR DEVRIES: I've raise the objection, and I'll address
7 Your Honour at a later stage on - - -
8HIS HONOUR: Yes, on relevance - - -
9MR DEVRIES: And we'll wait to your given - - -
10HIS HONOUR: Yes. I accept it's subject to your objection, is
11 that right, as to relevance?
12MR DEVRIES: Yes, relevance and weight, Your Honour.
13HIS HONOUR: That document will be Exhibit 18, that is the
14 document entitled summary of non agency payments from
15 Harold James Johnson, 2/4 Pippin Cressy from 1 October
16 2007 to 27 February 2008 together with the attached
17 telephone summary of charges for that period. Do you
18 wish to see them?
19MR DEVRIES: Not at this stage.
20HIS HONOUR: I'll return the exhibit note, that's not part of
21 the document.
22MR DEVRIES: Thank you, Your Honour?---Your Honour, may I say
23 something on relevance?
24HIS HONOUR: Yes?---The relevance, now I, I don't know whether
25 Ms Cressy has presented enough cases to even bring it
26 within the field of um Part 9 of the Property Law Act.
27 It would be my submission in submission time,
28 Your Honour, that she, she simply failed to do that on
29 anything resembling Briginshaw standards. The relevance
30 is the suggestion that I used all of the monies from the
31 refinancing of Gibson Street solely for my own benefit.

2Cressy
1I follow you?---My - - -
2You say, "No, some of it went back to the plaintiff"?
3 ---Your Honour, I said - of course I did, because of
4 course I was holding title to do it.
5Yes?---And I say, "But even so out of generosity, out of caring
6 for Ms Cressy's children, particularly my, my little
7 girl. I did not leave them financially stranded. I had
8 a roof over their head, working out how to keep it".
9Your point simply is - - -?---Some of the monies flew back.
10I follow?---If there ever is a question of contribution, or not
11 that I submit there ever will be, there's relevance on
12 that point as well.
13There's it'll be relevant on – it'd seem to me to be relevant
14 on that point?---Yes.
15Because the argument that has been made is that you effectively
16 purchased, or were able to purchase Endeavour Drive out
17 of the refinance of Gibson Street. That is right, but
18 you also say that the refinance of Gibson has been used
19 also for the benefit of the plaintiff?---Yes, yes.
20I follow that?---Thank you, Your Honour. May I also say at
21 that point, that even though I was a purchaser of – under
22 contract for Endeavour Drive, I had no intention or
23 expectation of completing that contract. I was there
24 under a twelve month residential lease in any case. I
25 expected to um vacate my occupancy at the end of that
26 lease. What happened, is in the financing, the two got
27 joined up together, because the application to buy the
28 new property was the engine that pulled along the
29 refinancing. It's very hard to right – refinance with
30 the bank, Your Honour, where you're in financial
31 difficulty, but if you refinancing to buy property, they

2Cressy
1 love you. And what happened is, they got stapled, so I
2 had no choice but to settle um on the purchase. I had to
3 purchase. I'm disappointed because I could have put the
4 funds that went to the purchase of Endeavour Drive to
5 much better use Your Honour. I could have hired some
6 lawyers, for example, to represent me in this case,
7 Your Honour. So I was very disappointed with that. And
8 in support of that, and I know this is a week that
9 supported that, but that contract for 7 Endeavour Drive
10 refers to me purchasing and/or nominee. If I'd had a
11 freehand to purchase, and wanted to purchase, I most
12 definitely would not have purchased that in my own name.
13 That would have gone into a corporate, or a more asset
14 defensive structure, me having learnt a little bit during
15 the course of 2007 about the need to protect yourself.
16 Um, I've said more about Torquay than I intended. Um
17 Altona, now, Ms Cressy and I would spend time together
18 with the children um during 2005/2006, while Ms Cressy's
19 family was living at Dorrington Street, and I was living
20 in my apartment in the city. Now amongst other things,
21 we would regularly during the summer take the children to
22 the beach. For a brief period, I organised a um family
23 membership of the Altona Lifesaving Club. Altona has a
24 lovely community. The members were Ms Cressy, myself and
25 the three Cressy children. My other daughter Jessica
26 would sometimes, perhaps once a month, come and train for
27 little nippers along the beach as well. Um Ms Cressy was
28 very unhappy with the children's school at Point Cook,
29 even though it was literally across the road from the
30 house they were living in. Um grave misgivings about the
31 culture, but it sprung up out of nowhere. Five years

2Cressy
1 earlier there was sheep paddocks. In the second year of
2 the school, I think there were, this is at Point Cook,
3 there were 300 students, 200 of them were preps,
4 Your Honour. It had no class, no culture, it was very
5 perhaps I'm being a bit too honest. It was very battery
6 hen type. Um she also didn't like – she'd lost
7 enthusiasm about living in that house that I was making
8 available to her. She decided she wanted to move with
9 the kids to Altona. At that stage we had a number of
10 conversations, um, I told her that I had no predacity to
11 buy another house, Point Cook was it. Um it's at that
12 stage, I might have mentioned to her the Gibson Street
13 property, in the context of saying, "Well I'm waiting on
14 one to settle. That has taken up a lot of my cash flow
15 available for the time being". Um nevertheless because
16 um she was starting to get a little distressed again, and
17 that was impacting on the children. I said to her look,
18 go out, go out and look in Altona. Now, I too had been
19 looking because I identified it's coastal, it's the
20 equivalent - if you put the compass on Melbourne and you
21 run it around through Altona you come up way closer than
22 St Kilda, so it's a hidden gem, and at that point in 2006
23 the property market had been cooled. I had seen that
24 property up for sale for a very long time. I had looked
25 at other properties, there was a vacant block which was a
26 funny shape across the road about 600 metres south on
27 Queen Street which they wanted a ridiculous price from.
28 I had a talk to the estate agent whom I bought it through
29 from John Contact Real Estate. It had been advertised
30 for about a year at $560,000, hadn't sold. The estate
31 agent said to me, look, you'll probably get it for about

2Cressy
1 $520,000. I did some due diligence, basically looked up
2 the titles office records. I could see that the owners
3 had been there a long time, they had no mortgage, they
4 had purchased in I think 1986 and they'd paid $78,000.
5 Now, when you know you've got a very long term owner
6 there, they were elderly, they were looking to downsize
7 in comfort and have cash left over and there is no
8 mortgagee that needs discharged, you know that they've
9 got a lot of latitude when you are going to negotiate
10 with them. So I basically adopted the good cop, bad cop
11 role and I talked them down and then I said to Ms Cressy,
12 all right, you go and look at it independent from me, see
13 what you can do. I reckon we're looking at about 500.
14 Ms Cressy then went in, she was my agent, she was
15 actually my employee at that time Your Honour and that is
16 a whole detailed story I will come back to later. She
17 rang me, and this was Valentine's Day 2006, 14 February
18 2006, said James, guess what, they'll take $500,000. I
19 said you beaut, you drive in, come into the city, see me,
20 I'll give you $1000 cash, take it out, give it to the
21 agent, make sure the receipt is in my name, collect the
22 contracts for me. Now, at this stage in our relationship
23 the TV show the Apprentice. I'd done this a number of
24 times in a number of fields. I was trying to get her
25 interested in anything but prostitution. I believed that
26 she hadn't been working as prostitute for all of the time
27 that she had been living at Point Cook. She was getting
28 agitated, I was concerned she was going back to do it.
29 That's the explanation for me giving her on average $4000
30 a month in living benefits. My legal obligations
31 strictly assuming DNA testing confirmed that Illyana was

2Cressy
1 my biological daughter was about $400, a tenth of that.
2 What I was giving my estranged wife to whom I'm still
3 legally married, it's our 20th anniversary in six weeks
4 time. We have been estranged for a decade but still
5 married for nearly 20 years.
6That's not terribly relevant. What do you say you were paying
7 Ms Cressy at this point?---The benefits of at least $4000
8 a month, more than double the 2200 a month that I was
9 giving my wife for my three undisputed children. So much
10 resource to keep her from going back into prostitution
11 because that was not a good life for her and you can
12 imagine the flow on effects for the children. This is
13 why this witness Mr Peter Cochrane was so critical to the
14 case. He can give independent evidence of the flow on
15 and was himself part of the substantial harm that that
16 lifestyle brings to a family unit. Anyway, in the folder
17 that Mr Ioannou was kind enough to identify for Altona
18 there will be documentation showing again my tax returns,
19 my bank statements, my direct debited income, fees
20 collected from Barwon Water or Primelife. There is a
21 series of receipts for the $50,000 deposit. There's a
22 statutory declaration, this is concerned because I'm
23 self-employed, did I have any hidden borrowings. I had
24 to give a statutory declaration to the effect that it was
25 only my moneys and I did that in my very usual pedantic,
26 detailed way, explaining where those moneys came from.
27 Some of those moneys, about $7000 were rent that I
28 received from 12 Lisa Court, because at that stage
29 Ms Cressy Senior was actually paying her rent at it's
30 agreed half market value, and even $40 extra a week
31 because she was in about a two year bona fide domestic

2Cressy
1 relationship and some of those payments were actually
2 paid by her partner by direct debt into my bank account.
3 So I believe I have demonstrated funding. The purchase
4 was half a million dollars. 90 per cent borrowing.
5 Mr Ioannou organised the borrowing for me. I also had to
6 pay the stamp duty of the half million which in my
7 younger years I could calculate on the top of my head. I
8 think it was $26,164, I believe, on half a million
9 dollars. I was in a bit of stress because it looked at
10 one stage I had to pay the mortgage insurance which would
11 have exhausted my funding because I wasn't going to get
12 the positive cash inflow from the Caulfield settlement in
13 time of rit but Mr Ioannou was able to negotiate for that
14 to be calculated into the loan. What happened then was
15 that that purchase settled in mid-May, 14, 15 May 2006.
16 But the parcel had amazing redevelopment potential, two,
17 three, four two storey townhouses, maybe a garden
18 rooftop. Tricky to get through council and VCAT from
19 planning, but you could easily split it into two or
20 three, it was a multi-million dollar development, you
21 could easily put underground parking to each of them.
22 There were bay views from the rear kitchen window and -
23 not that I ever would do this but it was very popular
24 with the kite boarders because it's a very shallow beach
25 and when I was at the house if I'm visiting during the
26 day time you would see the kites from the kite boarders
27 zip along through the kitchen window. The reason is that
28 Queen Street runs parallel to the beach, there's the
29 houses. This one was one quarter off from - one block
30 off from a corner, Romawi Street. The Esplanade runs the
31 other side. So over the back fence was an esplanade

2Cressy
1 property, multi million dollar property. These ones, at
2 half a million dollars it was a total steal as - as
3 subsequently demonstrated. My intention was always to
4 develop it, but then my intention even as late as
5 November last year would be to develop it in such a way
6 that one of those units could have been made available
7 long term, not because of any legal obligation that I
8 have or - or - as generosity nine times exceeding, ten
9 times exceeding my legal obligation of $400 a month in
10 child support for my daughter Illyana. And all this was
11 predicated on creating a stable single mother home
12 environment for my daughter. I can't be a single full
13 time parent. The family laws system just won't allow it,
14 no matter what the disparity between the - - -
15Now, let's just stick to the relevant issues here?---Thank you,
16 Your Honour. OK. Story of Altona. OK. 15 May it
17 settled, Ms Cressy and the three children. I helped them
18 move about a month later. The house was - should have
19 been demolished. It wasn't fit for - for animal
20 habitation, let alone human habitation. It needed a lot
21 of work. Ms Cressy was - it was part of the deal that I
22 would let her in there, live there rent free, et cetera,
23 et cetera. She - she said she'd undertake the work. She
24 was also on my payroll. The only work that she had done
25 for me and ever did for me while she was on my payroll
26 was property related. She has not the training or the
27 disposition. She can do many things but she has no
28 office disposition. She has no computer skills. She's
29 not - she doesn't get along well with people in an office
30 environment. I did have her come in once or twice into
31 Bourke Street but the politics were just unbearable with

2Cressy
1 - with my other staff.
2Well, she says she did some work for you as an office
3 administrator?---No, Your Honour. No, Your Honour.
4 Basically this was part of the Donald Trump apprentice
5 with the junior learning about property. One of the
6 things I did, because she was on my payroll, for one, or
7 for a while there, two days a week. I had to give her
8 some work to do to justify it. One was I put her - I
9 gave her an authority to deal with the agent who managed
10 the Hawkhurst property during the period where I had a
11 trouble tenant. I hope I remember to come back to that,
12 but it's questions of relevance and detail, and we're
13 skipping down under two per cent relevance there, Your
14 Honour. With Altona it was the same old story. All of
15 my cash, I’m going to the bank every Monday drawing out
16 $9000, and I had done that for a number of years. I
17 didn't have time to write letters and - and set up direct
18 debits and that. And I don't like the idea of banks
19 operating without human control.
20That's irrelevant. You drew out $9000, what did you do with
21 it?---Yes, every Monday, every Monday I'd withdraw $9000
22 out of my ANZ bank accounts.
23Yes?---And I would deposit with AMP to cover mortgages. I
24 would deposit in my wife's bank account. I would give
25 some cash to Ms Cressy, 400 or 500 or 600 a week to cover
26 living expenses. At that particular time, the cash flow
27 need was quite intense. I had the extra source of income
28 being the $13,000 or so from the borrowings, from the
29 purchase of Gibson Street, and I had the $7000 in rent
30 money pre-settlement. So I had - I had about a 20 grand
31 cushion. Most of that money went to Ms Cressy to give

2Cressy
1 her the cash to do things like get the - the boards,
2 floorboards polished up at Altona, electrical. There was
3 a kitchen which, forgive me, but that cost more like
4 about $10,000 or $12,000.
5Who paid for the kitchen then?---Well, my cash handed to
6 Ms Cressy. I haven't got time to organise it. She wants
7 to live there. She has to organise it. She's my
8 employee on the payroll. That's the only work she's
9 doing for me. So she paid it. She paid it. But where
10 did the funds come from? It was all mine, Your Honour.
11 I think in her evidence that came through that she was
12 studying at that time, as indeed I agree she was, to the
13 best of my knowledge and belief. Now, I certainly wasn't
14 watching Ms Cressy 24 hours a day or even 12 hours a day.
15Her evidence was that she paid $30,000 of her own money to
16 Prestige Kitchens to purchase the kitchen. What do you
17 say about that?---The kitchen cost not even half that.
18Yes?---She had no source of money.
19And you say that was the monies that came from you?---Of
20 course, Your Honour.
21All right?---She - and I - she had no source of monies for it.
22She also says she got a plumber out to install a dishwasher and
23 the electric lights removed, and she paid the electrician
24 from her own funds?---The - the - the dishwasher was a
25 dishwasher that came from Dorrington Street, Point Cook.
26 It just needed to be plugged in, so it needed a $60
27 electrical power point basically. The plumbing, yes,
28 because when we moved in, there was no hot water service.
29Who paid for the plumber?---Again it's all my money, Your
30 Honour, so the cash comes from me to Ms Cressy.
31 Ms Cressy did the running around, did the legwork, yes,

2Cressy
1 but (a) because she was going to move in there on a rent
2 free basis, and (b) she was my employee. I'm paying her
3 money and putting aside monies and superannuation for
4 her, and she was not doing any other work for me.
5That's because she said that she physically ripped out the
6 carpets, pulled out timber which overlaid the
7 floorboards, and arranged for the floorboards to be
8 sanded?---I - I - I gave her a hand with pulling out all
9 that carpet.
10Sorry?---I - I gave her a hand with pulling out all the carpet,
11 Your Honour. It was an elderly couple who lived there
12 and their, you know, they were post - past retirement
13 age, and the mother-in-law was living with them,
14 well - - -
15That's not very relevant. You helped Ms Cressy pull out all
16 the carpet?---Yes, Your Honour, yes. I felt sorry for
17 them because they'd obviously lived a few years without a
18 hot water service. I didn't know how they did it.
19Let's just stay relevant. The issue is what work you and
20 Ms Cressy did. She said she did all of that work,
21 pulling out the carpets, that she also purchased and
22 installed new curtains?---There were no - there were just
23 tatty old pull down blinds that the vendor left, Your
24 Honour.
25Yes, so what happened?---She - she certainly cleaned - sugar
26 soaped the walls.
27Yes?---I wouldn't have time to do that and it wouldn’t make
28 economic sense, and she painted the walls as well, and
29 that was a big job because there were decades of frying
30 pan smoke and tobacco smoke stains. The vendors were
31 living in horrible circumstances for I don't know how

2Cressy
1 long.
2Let's just stick to the point. You say Ms Cressy did clean the
3 walls and the ceilings?---Yes, Your Honour. But I say
4 not - well, this is a submission point I guess, but not
5 by way of contributions to the value.
6No I understand that?---But as a resident - as an employee.
7Yes, well that's for me to assess under section 285, but she
8 also painted?---Yes, Your Honour.
9She said: "I removed all the old curtains, installed new
10 curtains and curtain rails," that she purchased the new
11 curtains and curtain rails?---I don't know if she did
12 that, I don't think she did because they were basically
13 just old pull down blinds.
14Were they replaced?---They were totally removed by the mortgage
15 as part of the sale process. The property was sold at
16 auction on 8 November this year by the mortgagee and
17 there were no blinds or curtains or anything left, they
18 were just bare windows Your Honour.
19Yes, but had Ms Cressy removed the old ones and put in new
20 ones?---My recollection is that she did not remove the
21 old ones Your Honour.
22I think I have covered all the matters that have been referred
23 to there?---The bathroom/toilet/laundry was a shocking
24 configuration, there was no baht. Horrible old shower
25 which was dangerous, rusted and dangerous to give the
26 children tetanus if they cut their feet. We talked about
27 getting that fixed for her. If this had been a normal,
28 commercial, residential tenancy lease I couldn't have
29 leased the property, it would have been illegal as an
30 owner to do it, but I didn't have the moneys to do that
31 so to this day it's still got that ratty bathroom, toilet

2Cressy
1 and laundry, hand basin configuration. Living
2 arrangements. Ms Cressy lived at Altona up until the
3 middle of this year with her three children. Her mother,
4 Ms Cressy Senior, and her two infant half sisters moved
5 into that property in October 2007 after me at my wits
6 end and against my wishes having to get them evicted
7 because Ms Cressy refused to pay her rent. She'd always
8 been only half market rent anyway and I simply couldn’t
9 afford with my cash flow problems to allow her to live
10 for free.
11So they moved out of Lisa Court in October and went to Altona?
12 ---Yes, that's right, that's right. The eviction - the
13 judgment was handed down in VCAT on 1 October and to this
14 day Ms Cressy Senior owes me, I think, $2800 by a
15 judgment registered in VCAT and the State Magistrates
16 Court. But of course I've never enforced it and I
17 wouldn't because the only - - -
18That's irrelevant, let's keep going?---Thank you Your Honour.
19 So from June 2006 through until October 2007 Ms Cressy
20 and the three children were the sole residents of the
21 property. I was a visitor. Visiting was easy because if
22 someone was in the house they would let me in. If
23 someone wasn't there I could let myself in because the
24 door simply wasn't lockable from the outside. The only
25 way of locking it was to push a bolt across inside the
26 door.
27How often did you visit there?---Look, it would depend - it
28 would depend because I'm working - I would leave home of
29 a morning in Bourke Street and I would either drive to
30 South Melbourne or I would drive down to Geelong. Now, I
31 would often call in - on a Geelong day I would come back

2Cressy
1 and visit the kids. Very little cooking was ever done in
2 that house, most of the food was takeaway. More often
3 than not I would call in, I would visit and we would
4 drive - although I would rather walk, the 600 metres down
5 Queen Street to the main restaurant precinct, Piers
6 Street, Altona. Irrelevant but because of those visits I
7 have a lot of friends within the cafes in that street,
8 friendships and acquaintanceships that I have built up
9 over that time and through the activities with the
10 lifesaving club as well. So most of the meals were
11 takeaway. Of course who paid for those? Of course I
12 did.
13Well, on average how often were you there from the time of the
14 purchase of Queen Street until say April 2007, once,
15 twice a week, every day or what?---One, possibly two
16 nights a week Your Honour.
17Did you stay overnight those nights?---Your Honour, I shall not
18 lie, I might stay over perhaps two nights a fortnight.
19 It tended to be on a weekend if I might be spending time
20 and certainly did take Ms Cressy and the children out on
21 excursions to the zoo, Werribee Zoo, Melbourne Zoo, to
22 the beach. I would drive them plus Ms Cressy's two half
23 sisters, who were about the same age as her own children,
24 take them down to the beach for the day in summer, that
25 sort of thing. Now, sometimes because I'm working long
26 hours and I sleep very short hours. I would have this
27 constant sleep deficit as indeed I have all of - since
28 this trial commenced. Some times I would be reading to
29 the kids in bed and I would just fall asleep. I had this
30 habit of nodding off before the children because the
31 moment I go still my body takes over and puts me into

2Cressy
1 sleep mode. So I would often fall asleep until three in
2 the morning or even sleep over. Now where might I sleep?
3 It would be in bed beside or on top of the bed, the
4 blankets besides one of the kids, either Illyana or Skye
5 depending on who I read to last. I might doze off on the
6 couch. There were occasions that I did sleep in
7 Ms Cressy's bed. They were not frequent. There were
8 occasions when sleeping in Ms Cressy's bed we would have
9 sexual activity. They were even less frequent Your
10 Honour. During the period that Ms Cressy was living in
11 Altona I was in a relationship with another lady,
12 Elizabeth Leesy and I've always regarded myself as being
13 a serial monogamist. I don't think there's anything
14 becoming or joyful or pleasurable in multiple sex
15 partners. I don't impose my views on other people but
16 that's my personal view. It strikes me as just too much
17 hard work and silly. I've described the Cressy family
18 living in Altona. Let me describe my life a little more
19 living in Bourke Street. I just realised the time Your
20 Honour. I really must move. Basically I, I had a very
21 full life with my business. My two big clients, each of
22 which was really a full time job, each of which I drove
23 to their premises to do the work and I mean that's borne
24 out in the financial statements, the tax invoices and
25 retainer letters that I handed up as an exhibit on Friday
26 and also in the bank records that debited payments into
27 my accounts and also in my tax returns which are all part
28 of the financing documents for each of the properties
29 which were part of Friday's exhibits. I had an estranged
30 wife who I had not lived with for, well as of today, a
31 decade, more than a decade, up in the Dandenongs with

2Cressy
1 three beautiful children who I spent time with
2 religiously every fortnight. If I may describe that
3 routine if it has more than 1 per cent relevance. I
4 would pick them up from the Harold Holt Pool, their mum
5 would drive them that far. The kids would go for a swim
6 after school on the Friday. All year round they became
7 really good swimmers as a result. I would then take them
8 with me, we'd go into the city. My partner - one of the
9 reasons I moved from a two story, two bedroom apartment
10 to the three bedroom apartment was it was too cramped.
11 In the three story I'd pitch little two man dome tents so
12 they'd be camping on the 23rd floor of a sub-penthouse
13 with total bay views, the gas (indistinct) from the
14 casino would light up - - -
15Don't give me that amount of detail but what you're putting to
16 me is that every fortnight you had what in old fashioned
17 terms would be referred to as access to your - the
18 children of your marriage is that right?---Yes and I'm
19 grateful for you - - -
20You'd pick them up on a Friday afternoon?---Yes.
21And how long would you have them for?---All of the weekend
22 until Sunday afternoon.
23Where would they stay? You say at the apartment of Bourke
24 Street?---The apartment at Bourke Street, yes.
25Right well that's probably all we need on that?---Thank you
26 Your Honour. I did on occasion because it was good to
27 have my three children and Ms Cressy's three children
28 together, I would try to do this and perhaps it would
29 work once a month, have them all together at the same
30 time. So it's me, Mr Brady if you like with the six
31 kids, and they would get along really well because my, my

2Cressy
1 two boys - the ages just mesh in Your Honour nicely. My
2 two boys are very quiet. Ms Cressy's two boys are just
3 bundles of energy so they, they kind of drew benefits
4 from each other's perspectives.
5You had all six children in your Bourke Street apartment?
6 ---Yes Your Honour. Hence the three bedrooms. Now if I
7 may explain the living arrangements. Mr Ioannou did meet
8 me and he did visit me at both apartments, but probably
9 only once so I'm not surprised he's got no recollection.
10 The three bedrooms, two of them were set up as studies,
11 offices. They look totally commercial. The third
12 bedroom, I didn't have a desk. I had a leftover kitchen
13 table. That was the one that had the nice sweeping
14 views. I could look down Kings Way and see Primelife, I
15 could see the Albert Park race track et cetera, et
16 cetera. I watched the roof go on the Southern Cross
17 station as it was being built. It was amazing. I could
18 look down into - - -
19I don't think that your panoramic views are relevant?---Thank
20 you Your Honour. I, I, I love my home and I can't wait
21 to move back to the building when I can afford it.
22Well good luck to you but let's just keep - - - ?---What I
23 would do is during working hours, daylight hours - - -
24You had the apartment with three bedrooms is that right?
25 ---Yes.
26Two were set up as studies?---Yes.
27What was the third one set up as?---A study effectively.
28So all three were set up as studies?---Yes, yes.
29Any bed in any of those bedrooms?---Beds are a waste of space
30 because - - -
31The answer's no?---No.

2Cressy
1So what did you have there to sleep on? I think Mr Ioannou's
2 quote was that it was a futon couch, is that right?
3 ---Your Honour I have a number of couches and they, they
4 fold out Japanese style. If you need to sleep, you fold
5 it out. You bring the bedding out. My front bedrooms
6 that I used, I had a full ensuite and a beautiful big
7 walk in robe where I kept all my clothes.
8Yes?---And the ensuite was purely from my use. So the
9 apartment would change character according to the
10 functional need that I had and I had them at 909 as well
11 and basically what I would do is I would - if you close
12 the three bedroom doors which are office space - I don't
13 think that's in dispute and basically you've got this
14 magnificent one bedroom studio apartment with two
15 bathrooms, two toilets, the laundry. I had my big
16 projector television. You could sit in the bath Your
17 Honour and watch TV on a grand scale. It was incredibly
18 large. The, the couches would fold out and that would
19 give a double size bed and a one and a half size bed.
20 The kids were quite comfy bivouacking in sleeping bags, I
21 had a fleet of eight sleeping bags and you would just
22 roll them out and they'd be happy. I'd set up my dome
23 tents and they'd be like camping in a sub-penthouse 23
24 floors up. They could play their Playstation games on
25 the consoles on a grand scale on the big projector
26 television, they absolutely loved it. My daughter
27 Jessica, my son Dylan, Illyana all learnt to swim in the
28 pool at my apartment, which was an amazing effort because
29 of the depth, it was only four foot deep, 25 metre lap
30 pool but they couldn’t touch the bottom with it so that
31 is a gauge of how frequently they would visit me. That

2Cressy
1 they actually learnt to swim in that pool. Family
2 memberships at the Aquarium, we could go to the Aquarium
3 365 days a year. I included Illyana, Skye and Treece in
4 there. Now, that made four Johnsons and three Cressys on
5 my family membership look at bit funny. I could have
6 added my wife as another adult for free and I like
7 getting my money's worth when I do spend. I didn't, I
8 added Ms Cressy on, so we had a family membership for the
9 Aquarium, the zoo, the Rialto level 55 observatory.
10So she was a member of your membership of the Aquarium, the
11 zoo?---Yes.
12And - - - ?---Werribee Zoo, Melbourne Zoo, Rialto level 55
13 observation deck, Melbourne Museum, National Gallery of
14 Victoria.
15All those matters Ms Cressy was a member of with you?---Yes,
16 Your Honour, because it cost me nothing to give her that
17 benefit. I ask that no negative inferences be drawn but
18 I believe under the authorities Your Honour is allowed to
19 in terms of a holding out, I say that there was no
20 holding out in doing that, I just say it made economic
21 sense. Thank you, Your Honour. If I may just skip a
22 little bit. On Father's Day last year, 2 September 2007,
23 to demonstrate this relationship arrangement with the
24 children, which we were still continuing on a voluntary
25 basis, Ms Cressy and I at that stage, I spent the
26 weekend, the Friday night, Saturday and the Sunday
27 morning with my three children David, Dylan and Jess. I
28 then took them back early to Harold Holt pool, delivered
29 them up to their mum. I then drove out to Altona where I
30 collected Illyana, Treece and Skye Cressy. Now, that day
31 we used our annual membership tickets to full advantage

2Cressy
1 or that afternoon, Father's Day, 2 September 2007. We go
2 into the apartment, park the car in the basement, we then
3 walk the block and a half down to the Aquarium. We don't
4 have to pay anything to go in. We then walked around all
5 the exhibits as we do. We then took the lift up in the
6 Rialto to level 55 and we had afternoon tea. Now, my
7 expense for that afternoon outing was just my fuel money
8 and afternoon tea, our cakes and pies and drinks up at
9 the café. What I would like to do to demonstrate that
10 Illyana and I were there, and because you have been
11 introduced to two Miss Cressy's, but not I believe the
12 most important - - -
13MR DEVRIES: I have been listening very patiently, Your Honour,
14 hoping that the account would be shorter than my
15 objection. I object to the relevance Your Honour.
16HIS HONOUR: Yes, I don't know why I need photographs of this.
17 You say, even after you separated from Ms Cressy, or
18 ceased your relationship with her or whatever continued
19 to take the Cressy children out?---Your Honour, I
20 struggle with the language to express myself because it's
21 a question of what do you mean by "relationship" and
22 "see, see". Now, I say that there has never been a bona
23 fide resolution - - -
24You say there is no - your point is there is no domestic
25 relationship within the meaning of the Property Law Act?
26 ---Yes, Your Honour. If you were to find that there was
27 a bona fide domestic relationship by virtue simply of
28 cohabitation, I believe on the evidence in Briggenshaw
29 standards you would be looking at perhaps the period from
30 the cohabitation at South Yarra.
31We will come to Briggenshaw later, I don't see what Briggenshaw

2Cressy
1 has got to do with that. It's got plenty to do with what
2 you have asserted in your counter-claim but I don't see
3 how Briggenshaw can apply to a claim under part 9 of the
4 Property Law Act, but that's really for address. But
5 coming back without getting lost in these arguments, I
6 don't see the relevance of you tendering a photograph of
7 your daughter with you in December 2007. I think we had
8 better stick - I see the time, you looked at it yourself,
9 I think we should stick to the issues which I have to
10 decide so that you do yourself justice in meeting those
11 issues?---Your Honour, I accept what Your Honour is
12 saying, I just feeling in my heart that of the three Miss
13 Cressy's involved in this proceedings, this young lady
14 here is the most important of the three that Your Honour
15 should meet and this is my sole basis for being able to
16 do so and this is my sole means of being able to do so.
17Well, I can see from here the photograph of your daughter?
18 ---And the date stamped that this portrait was taken
19 being - - -
20Right, but I don't see that as being relevant to the issues in
21 this case?---Okay. My living arrangements - sorry, I'll
22 talk about how I met some of the other witnesses for the
23 first time, if I may. Ms Karen Briggs who gave evidence,
24 well she became the rental manager at the Bourke Street
25 apartments about a year after I moved in. Now, she
26 worked out of an office at the front, she's involved in
27 both sales and looking after the tenants and dealing with
28 vacancies and - yes, yes Your Honour, she used to drive
29 into the apartment, and she – the most often times that
30 we would meet each other would be early in the morning,
31 because I'd be working to the car park to leave home to

2Cressy
1 drive to South Melbourne Primelife or to Geelong Barwon
2 Water, and she'd be walking in, starting her day in her
3 office in Bourke Street. So that was the most frequent
4 time we'd see each other, otherwise it'd be during the
5 lift lobby on those few occasions when I chose to, you
6 know to work from home, or to take a day off from either
7 of my two full-time jobs, and enjoyed the luxury of my
8 home on a, on a weekday. She did visit me in her
9 official role at 909, Pub 909 to conduct regular
10 inspections.
11She can't recall that. She doesn't deny she did it, but she
12 couldn't recall it?---I'm not surprised, I'm not
13 surprised.
14That's not relevant?---There was, there was nothing to raise in
15 her memory anything exception about - - -
16There's not adverse inference about her not being able to
17 recall it. She said she does so many inspections, she
18 can't remember that?---Thank you, Your Honour. She, um
19 she found that apartment for me, 2302. I had a look at
20 another one on the same time - - -
21She gave evidence to that effect?---Thank you, Your Honour.
22That was unchallenged?---And in her words, that was the best
23 side of the building for views, that's why she pointed me
24 in that apartment. Not the one in the other corner
25 further up the Bourke Street Hill. May I explain how I
26 met Ms Dek-Fabrikant. This was an incident that occurred
27 on the grand final weekend of 2007.
28MR DEVRIES: I object, Your Honour. I objected when he sought
29 to get this evidence in through Ms Dek-Fabrikant.
30HIS HONOUR: I think the detail of whatever incident's
31 irrelevant. The timing of the meeting is relevant. It

2Cressy
1 was relevant to Ms Dek-Fabrikant's evidence as to when
2 she actually first saw and became acquainted with
3 Mr Johnson.
4MR DEVRIES: This is one of the problems that Mr Johnson faces,
5 having called these witnesses before himself. I'm
6 concerned that he's tailoring his evidence to follow
7 their evidence, rather than having giving his evidence
8 first. But - - -
9HIS HONOUR: I follow that, but you can't object on that basis.
10 I understand what you're – I understand your point.
11 Whatever the incident was, the details of the day are
12 irrelevant, but the timing of your first meeting with
13 Ms Dek-Fabrikant is relevant?---Yes, Your Honour.
14All right?---Might we just put our - - -
15You say the first time you met her was in September 2007, is
16 that right?---Yes, yes mid to late September 2007.
17HIS HONOUR: Yes?---I'm very conscious of the sensitivity
18 around the detail of that incident on 27 September, and I
19 don't propose to discuss any of that detail at all.
20Right?---I'm also sensitive now to the fact that I'm speaking
21 after my witnesses, but I ask Your Honour to
22 consider - - -
23Just - - -?---rather than tailoring, most of my evidence
24 contradicts issues of how the other witnesses explained
25 the first meeting.
26You give your evidence as to?---Thank you, Your Honour. The
27 children spent – it was Tuesday, sorry Thursday, Friday,
28 Saturday morning of that week with me. And that was
29 pursuant to orders that were made in the Federal
30 Magistrates' Court under the - - -
31That doesn't matter?---Application that I brought.

2Cressy
1Just keep your mind on the job?---I returned them according to
2 those orders to Ms Cressy um on about midday on the
3 Saturday 29 September 2007. I returned them three hours
4 late at Ms Cressy's request, because she couldn't be
5 there at nine o'clock to collect them, 9 a.m. An
6 incident happened when I next returned - - -
7MR DEVRIES: If it speeds things up, if it assists the court,
8 I'm happy to concede that the first time that Mr Johnson
9 met this lady was on 29 September 2007.
10HIS HONOUR: There you are, that's no longer - - -?---That
11 would be totally false, Your Honour.
12Sorry?---That would be totally false.
13What date do you say you first met her?---I met her about a
14 fortnight after this date, which is 29 September.
15MR DEVRIES: I'm happy to concede that, Your Honour.
16HIS HONOUR: Mr Devries concedes that, the actual fine detail
17 doesn't count. But Mr Devries accepts that you didn't
18 meet her until mid October 2007, all right?---Yes, thank
19 you Your Honour. I had seen her a couple of times
20 visiting the house at Altona, and doing things in terms
21 of feeding and looking after Ms Cressy's pets while I was
22 there. But Ms Cressy never introduced me to Ms Dek-
23 Fabrikant, and I've not – never introduced myself either.
24 During the first week of October, the children had in the
25 old expression, 'access time' with me.
26Again, is this relevant? If this is not an issue then you
27 don't need to give any evidence. All you have to do is
28 say the first time I met Ms Dek-Fabrikant was in October
29 2007. That's not in issue, and that will be accepted as
30 evidence in the case. Do you follow?---Thank you,
31 Your Honour, I do indeed, I do indeed. I met her in mid

2Cressy
1 October, I think about 8 or 9 October, Your Honour, while
2 she was actually in hospital. I, with - - -
3MR DEVRIES: Your Honour, if he's going to go into detail, I'll
4 withdraw the concession, we may as well waste the time.
5 I'll withdraw the concession.
6HIS HONOUR: You say you met her in hospital?---Yes,
7 Your Honour.
8That's all I need?---Thank you, Your Honour. I asked her if
9 she would be willing to give a statement to my family
10 lawyer.
11MR DEVRIES: I withdraw the concession, Your Honour. It's not
12 achieving the end it was supposed to.
13HIS HONOUR: No it isn't?---I'm grateful the concession's
14 withdrawn, Your Honour. I asked her if I could pass on
15 her details, information to my family lawyer to take her
16 statement. She said, "Yes, but I'm not very well". I
17 then passed on those details. I had no more
18 communication with Ms Dek-Fabrikant in connection with
19 the preparation of that statement, parts of which were
20 read out in court on Friday morning, Your Honour.
21 Directly between her and my lawyer, Your Honour.
22Right?---That's all I wanted to say there. The only, the only
23 witness for the defence that I haven't explained my first
24 meeting with is principal Kevin Enright. I wasn't
25 involved in the registration of the children at that
26 school. I believe, well, it was because you told me that
27 happened at about April 2006, and the children started at
28 that school a couple of months before Ms Cressy and the
29 children moved into the Altona house. So she was driving
30 them from Point Cook to the school for a couple of
31 months. As I say, I wasn't involved in any of that

2Cressy
1 process, and I'm sure I've explained to Your Honour the
2 reason why I wasn't involved. I wasn't part of the
3 household, Your Honour. OK, Your Honour, I tendered in
4 evidence my daughter's birth certificate on Friday.
5 Mr Devries expressed his keen interest in looking at that
6 because Ms Cressy claims that her evidence was stolen
7 from her house in August or September 07, and amongst the
8 evidence stolen she - as she claims was stolen, she
9 claims was one or more birth certificates. Now, I just
10 want to draw Your Honour's attention, I did say I'd look
11 for a fax where I sent that to the school. I think that
12 was faulty memory. I think I just handed it to
13 Mr Enright at a later meeting. But on the birth
14 certificate it shows down the bottom that it was issued
15 on 22 September 2007. Now, I remember going to Registrar
16 of Births, Deaths and Marriages on a Friday in June, late
17 June, to get that certificate. I applied for a birth
18 certificate for Skye Cressy as well, but of course
19 because they check, and to my knowledge and belief I'm
20 not on that birth certificate, the little boy was five
21 months old when I met him, I wasn't able to get that
22 certificate. But I did get one for Illyana. Now, I put
23 into evidence what I claim to be, and I think Ms Cressy
24 accepted is a photocopy of her diary of those relevant
25 dates, and if I may just draw Your Honour's attention to
26 that.
27Is that Exhibit 3 that you put in when you were cross-examining
28 Ms Cressy, was it?---Yes, I can't say for sure the number
29 but yes, yes, it was one of the early exhibits, Your
30 Honour. The point I want to make is that I - that there
31 is no evidence to suggest that I wasn't in Australia on

2Cressy
1 22 June 2007, the date that somebody collected that birth
2 certificate. There is evidence to show that Ms Cressy
3 was actually in China on that day that that's - - -
4What's all this got to do with the case?---It has to go to the
5 suggestion by my learned friend, if he did make such a
6 suggestion that that might have been stolen goods, that
7 certificate that I stole from Ms Cressy.
8Well, you deny that?---I deny and I also say it's very
9 insulting for one officer of this court to another to
10 suggest that of another officer of this court of 18 and a
11 half years good standing, without any - any trace of
12 evidence, because there can be no evidence because - - -
13Well, let's not worry about the protestations. It has been, I
14 think, inferred. Certainly Ms Cressy states that in, I
15 think it's September of 2007 the premises at Altona were
16 broken into and a number of her records were then taken.
17 I take it you say you had nothing to do with that?---I
18 believe, Your Honour, that her evidence was that it
19 happened in August.
20Yes?---Although this photo is again useful because - - -
21Well, don't worry about that. I take it your simple evidence
22 is that you had nothing to do with that?---My - my
23 evidence isn't quite simple, Your Honour, but my evidence
24 is that I'm - I'm a barrister, not a solicitor. A
25 barrister or a solicitor is not a burglar, Your Honour,
26 and I would have thought that if anyone wants to make
27 accusations against their barrister or solicitor of 18
28 years good standing in Your Honour's court, they should
29 have some damn fine evidence to back up those
30 allegations.
31Just a moment. What I want to ask you is this then, while

2Cressy
1 we're on the subject of these documents. Did you go
2 while Ms Cressy and the children were away on a school
3 holiday, did you go to her premises and remove some
4 documents?---Your Honour, I did go to the premises but I
5 did not remove any documents that were at the premises.
6 I would like to explain it, but I just want to clarify
7 this point about the 22 June 2007. I don't have a copy
8 of that exhibit.
9It was Exhibit 9. You can be shown a copy of it?---Thank you,
10 Your Honour. No, that's not the one. It's Ms Cressy's
11 diary.
12Exhibit 3?---Thank you, Your Honour. I apologise for taking
13 Your Honour's copy. What - what this document shows is
14 references to the effect that Ms Cressy left for a trip
15 to China on 18 June 2007, four days before that birth
16 certificate was issued.
17MR DEVRIES: I object to this evidence. How can this witness
18 comment on a document that he's not - - -
19HIS HONOUR: He can't. It's irrelevant and it's hearsay. Now,
20 Mr Johnson, you're not helping your case addressing this
21 topic. You simply deny that you stole a birth
22 certificate and rebut an allegation or a suggestion that
23 was made. Is that right?---That is what I'm saying, Your
24 Honour, but it's not what I'm just saying. I'm saying
25 there's documentary evidence - - -
26Yes?---That this certificate that I purchased on Friday 22 June
27 2007 could never have been the property of Ms Cressy's
28 because she wasn't even in the country on that date to
29 purchase it.
30All right, well, I don't see the relevance of that. Would you
31 please get your mind back on to the job. You've done

2Cressy
1 reasonably well today so far with a bit of steering from
2 me. Put that document to one side and continue to
3 address the issues?---Thank you, Your Honour.
4All right?---What I wanted to do next, Your Honour, was talk
5 about the bundles of mysteriously missing documents.
6 Now, already there's the issue in evidence, and has been
7 raised in a number of the practice court hearings about
8 my four boxes of original purchase, funding and
9 construction documents. Ms Cressy admitted in cross-
10 examination that as at 14 March 2008 they were in her
11 possession. May I explain how they came to be in her
12 possession? They came to be - - -
13Sorry what documents are you talking about?---These are one of
14 the exhibits for Inverloch Drive explained - it was
15 explained to Your Honour in cross-examination that there
16 were four archive boxes, two whole shelves of such
17 records all of the original construction, finance, legal
18 contracts.
19Well no all Ms Cressy I think said was that there were a number
20 of boxes that she put onto the front nature strip or at
21 the front of the house which you collected after the
22 hearing before Justice Whelan. Some of the boxes fell
23 apart. She said she put them into other containers?
24 ---Thank you Your Honour. I need to give some direct
25 evidence on this point.
26MR DEVRIES: Your Honour I object. All the issues about what
27 was in the documents - what was in the boxes, what
28 weren't in the boxes whether my client should have
29 delivered and whether she did deliver them have been
30 litigated endlessly or attempted to be litigated
31 endlessly by Mr Johnson in the various interlocutory

2Cressy
1 stages of this proceeding. It's not appropriate in my
2 respectful submission for Mr Johnson to be trying to
3 litigate that now and I also raise the issue that this
4 isn't at all relevant to the matter before Your Honour.
5HIS HONOUR: Well that's an objection of greater substance.
6 What is the relevance of this?---Your Honour the
7 relevance is this, is that there have been a number of
8 thefts of records. It's my evidence that the thefts have
9 been perpetrated by Ms Cressy. The records stolen are
10 mine. My case has been substantially hindered. I had to
11 go back to Mr Ioannou to reconstruct those parts of his
12 records that corresponded with a portion of my records so
13 that I had evidence to give Your Honour in these
14 proceedings as to my - the fact that it's my, the
15 property purchases were mine. The income was mine, the
16 energy and the effort, in, in the incurring of legal
17 obligation by mortgage. All mine, mine, mine and mine.
18 Nothing to do with Ms Cressy whatsoever. I put - the
19 issue has not been litigated. It has always been the
20 simple question, did Ms Cressy have the documents?
21 Conceded. The issue, did she hand them over to me as she
22 was required in the other matters in the orders before
23 Mr Justice Whelan back in March last year? Did she hand
24 them over or not? She says yes - - -
25Well what part of the case - - - ?---- - - I say no.
26What part of the case is this relevant to? It's obviously not
27 part of the case of the plaintiff. Is it relevant to any
28 part of your counter claim?---Your Honour it is
29 relevant - - -
30You have pleaded in your counter claim that the plaintiff took
31 possession of some contracts and records, but as I

2Cressy
1 understand it your case is that those documents have been
2 lodged with the Werribee Court pursuant to a subpoena?
3 ---No Your Honour. There, there are three sets of
4 mysteriously missing documents. You're, you're
5 discussing the third set now Your Honour. I'm talking
6 about the first set.
7Yes but of the documents you're now seeking to speak about, are
8 they the documents referred to in your counter claim?
9 ---The original purchase, construction, yes the documents
10 referred to by Mr Justice Whelan.
11No, in your counter claim?---Yes they are Your Honour, yes.
12 Now - - -
13Well (indistinct) evidence on it if it relates to your counter
14 claim but just bear in mind the caution that I gave you
15 on Friday relating to the issues of costs should you
16 (indistinct) into any irrelevant issue. So be very
17 careful of that?---Your Honour Ms Cressy is weighting an
18 argument that a dingo stole her evidence in September
19 2007. Now my argument and it goes to my costs because
20 I'm defending myself, I've had to go to a lot of effort
21 and I'm missing a lot of documents and my ability to deal
22 with my properties, ability to sell them is impeded by me
23 needing documents - - -
24That is not relevant to any of the claim or counter claim. If
25 you - - - ?---Damages on the claim Your Honour and - - -
26Just a moment?---I'm sorry Your Honour.
27You keep saying you're an officer of the court. You know
28 better than interrupt a judge?---Forgive me - - -
29Don't do it again. You have a counter claim relating to the
30 wrongful seizure by the plaintiff of a number of items
31 including, 27.3 of your counter claim, your contracts and

2Cressy
1 records of land purchases, construction of dwellings
2 thereon for each of your properties. Now you can lead
3 the evidence as to that, as to how you say what these
4 documents are and how you say the plaintiff took position
5 of them?---Thank you Your Honour.
6All right?---Thank you Your Honour.
7But you will confine your evidence to that?---Thank you Your
8 Honour. Thank you. These are the first set of the
9 mysteriously missing documents. They came into
10 Ms Cressy's possession - see the very substantial
11 documents, part of my archived records, I didn't need
12 them on a day to day basis. When I moved Ms Cressy and
13 the children into the house at Altona I had three garages
14 constructed at the back. These were big garden sheds.
15 One to store a whole lot of art and craft equipment,
16 about $10,000 worth of leather, some very expensive and
17 unique leather working machinery.
18Well we've had plenty of evidence about this but I
19 think - - - ?---But not from me Your Honour. Not,
20 not - - -
21It's uncontested evidence. There were three sheds?---Yes.
22But one of them was used to store your records is that right?
23 ---Yes, yes. That's - - -
24So we've got common ground there. Now what was in the shed
25 that was used to store your records?---The first shed
26 contained leather and leather working of Ms Cressy's
27 which in her evidence she said she paid $40,000 for.
28 Your Honour these are actually materials and tools that I
29 purchased for her as part of her 2.5 year footwear and
30 leather work course at RMIT and their value was about
31 $10,000 funded out of my cash again, not the $40,000

2Cressy
1 exaggerated figure Ms Cressy gave in evidence. And
2 that's all I need to say Your Honour about that shed. I
3 had a lot of archived records in a second shed. Now I'm
4 paying a lot of money for that property, very high
5 mortgage. I can't rent it out. I certainly - again I'm
6 economising on my expense I didn't want to pay for
7 expensive commercial storage. For archived, legal and my
8 own personal investment records. So I stored them in the
9 shed out at Altona.
10Yes?---Relationships were good and they should have been
11 extremely good given my generosity in the volume of child
12 support and non-agency benefits I had been giving
13 Ms Cressy, and as indeed they were up until Easter 2007
14 and I hope Your Honour will remind me to explain where
15 this child support arrangement that we had in place came
16 unstuck in April, about a week after Easter 2007. Not at
17 May '07 or at any later date. So I need to come back
18 specifically on that issue, Your Honour. I went to the
19 house at Altona, three days after this portrait was
20 drawn, up in the Rialto Café, level 55. I went to look
21 for some papers that Ms Cressy had stolen from me years
22 earlier and not to put too fine a word on it she had been
23 blackmailing me with. That's all I want to say about
24 that. If Mr Devries wants to raise it in cross-
25 examination I will be very welcome, but I will skip on.
26 At that point I had organised an appointment with an
27 estate agent to come through and give me a rental
28 evaluation for the property. One of the things that
29 Ms Cressy had asked me to vary our child support
30 arrangements was that she would rent the property from
31 me. I told her I would think about it. I used that

2Cressy
1 opportunity to organise for an agent to come and give me
2 a curb side and told me that it's worth about $320 a week
3 in rental.
4MR DEVRIES: That's hearsay Your Honour.
5HIS HONOUR: I don't know what the relevance of all this is. I
6 thought we were focussing on this shed that had your
7 archived records in?---I will come back to that very
8 quickly, Your Honour, in terms of motive for this
9 hypothetical stealing of evidence. I gained access to
10 the property by - - -
11When is this?---This was Sunday 2 September.
122000 and - - - ?---2007.
13Right?---So it was probably yes, 5 September. Either the
14 Wednesday or Thursday - - -
15So you went to the property on 5 September 2007?---Yes, yes,
16 there was no one home. I gained access by climbing over
17 the side fence, walking around, walking in through the
18 back door. I've explained how the front door was never
19 locked from the outside. In about May of '07 that was
20 rectified, Ms Cressy did put locks on the doors, so it
21 could be locked from outside. Twice previously I had
22 given her $200 on each occasion. This is going right
23 back to June 2006 to put locks on the doors at the front
24 door for security and to stop the children running out of
25 the house at night when they were angry, it's quite a
26 busy road, Queen Street, Altona. It's one of the main
27 roads in the region.
28Could you please keep your mind on the job?---Thank you, Your
29 Honour. So I walk in through the back door, I have a
30 look around at the house which was in its typical shabby
31 condition.

2Cressy
1So how did you get in the back door?---You just open the door
2 and you walk through.
3It was unlocked?---Yes, of course Your Honour.
4So the back door you opened?---Yes.
5Went in?---Yes, had a look around. I went looking for my
6 papers that I believed were in Ms Cressy's possession
7 that had been mysteriously missing since about 2003.
8 More than happy to deal in cross-examination if
9 Mr Devries wants to raise it. While I'm waiting for the
10 agent to come I had a look through Ms Cressy's bedroom.
11 I saw her two diaries under the bed, I saw no other
12 diaries. There were some bank statements and little
13 things, recent mail tucked inside the pages of one of
14 them. There were no other diaries from any previous
15 years. There wasn't much in the way of what I would call
16 evidence of the kind that you would want to bring if you
17 were making a Part 9 application such as Ms Cressy has.
18 That doesn't surprise me because caveats had been lodged
19 in May of '07 and you would think that any hard evidence
20 would have been in the very safe hands of the
21 lawyer - - -
22This is all argumentative, stick to your evidence, all right?
23 ---Your Honour. I perused the diary, I saw the
24 references to her boyfriend, Mark, and his 50th birthday
25 in April. I saw references to the Shanghai holiday trip
26 which I had already been told about. I saw that there
27 was about a week's pages missing out of the personal
28 diary, been ripped out and there is evidence of that in
29 that Exhibit 3 Your Honour. The week including 12 June,
30 which happens to be my birthday, is missing and entries
31 for that date are kind of written in longhand across the

2Cressy
1 top of the pages, and I'm thinking this is evidence that
2 is material in this case, will Ms Cressy voluntarily
3 disclose it - - -
4What you were thinking is irrelevant, you just describe what
5 you saw?---Thank you, Your Honour, I photocopied those
6 pages, most of those pages have got entries in them.
7So you photocopied her diary?---Yes.
8Where did you do that photocopying?---I walked around into the
9 front bedroom which had a desk of which ownership was
10 mind, there was a printer.
11There was a photocopier there was there?---Yes, a printer with
12 a photocopier.
13That's the short answer?---Also my asset, and I photocopied
14 them using paper that I probably paid for Your Honour.
15Yes?---I then put the diaries back. The agent came, did the
16 walk through inspection. I had evening appointments and
17 that included telephoning Ms Cressy's children who were
18 on their way back from the Mt Bulla ski trip that
19 afternoon. So I left. If I had had time I would have
20 gone out to the shed and got my boxes and boxes of
21 documents, the original purchase construction documents.
22Just pausing there, what did you take away with you then?
23 ---Only the photocopies of the diaries. The originals I
24 put back thinking well, if they're destroyed - - -
25It doesn't matter what you were thinking, you took the
26 photocopies?---Thank you, Your Honour. Now, I could have
27 saved myself a lot of time and stress and expense having
28 to bother Mr Ioannou with, et cetera, if I had had time
29 that day to simply take my records of which the Inverloch
30 Drive one is the only one actually I was given late on -
31 sorry, in March 2008. So there's an issue that's been

2Cressy
1 left open in all of the Practice Court trials that we've
2 had, deliberately using funny words, Your Honour, whether
3 Ms Cressy did hand over all that folder plus the 30 or 40
4 other folders of that ilk or she did not. My allegations
5 have consistently been she did not. My suggestion is
6 that I had opportunity to take them and I didn't on that
7 5 or 6 September '07. Ms Cressy admitted under cross-
8 examination that in March - - -
9Don't worry if she admitted it. You're just giving evidence at
10 the moment?---Thank you, Your Honour. Yes, I realise I'm
11 blurring the submission territory.
12Yes?---I understand. I appreciate that much, Your Honour.
13Just stick to your evidence?---Thank you, Your Honour. I had
14 no motive to remove - sorry, I'm submitting it, aren't I?
15You are indeed?---Perhaps I've said enough, Your Honour.
16You may have. Tell me, in relation to the shed, what documents
17 do you say were in the shed which were not returned to
18 you when you went to receive them pursuant to other
19 matters part of Justice Whelan's order?---Thank you, Your
20 Honour. The very documents that Ms Cressy's counsel on
21 that day, which will be clearly stated in - in the
22 transcripts said, were those irrelevant documents that
23 are just the four or five years worth of contracts and
24 documents whereby Ms Cressy (indistinct) properties.
25Well, do you say you had in that shed - - -?---Yes, Your
26 Honour.
27Documents - you're jumping out a bit quick there. Documents
28 relating to the purchase of the various properties?
29 ---Only construction of the houses where I put houses on
30 them. Yes, Your Honour. And the refinancing.
31What were they contained in, in that shed?---Folders just like

2Cressy
1 this one.
2That blue folder?---The blue folder.
3That's Exhibit 1?---But - but different colours. Most of them
4 were different colours. The Dorrington ones I think were
5 pink and green.
6Yes?---Hawkhurst might have been blue as well actually, and
7 Lisa Court. They were twins, non-conjoined twins. This
8 one was given to me. I had a lot of archived Melbourne
9 Water work, recycled water projects, water reclamation,
10 sewerage farm type contracts (indistinct) really old
11 fashioned language. This one was handed to me in a bundle
12 of those, and it is my submission that Ms Cressy went
13 through these with a fine tooth comb, took out all of the
14 ones that I really wanted, the ones that her counsel
15 described to Mr Justice Whelan in March 2008. But in the
16 time period she gave me that one thinking that it was
17 one - - -
18You're pointing out one. Is that the blue folder which is
19 Exhibit 1 relating to, I think, Inverloch Drive?
20 ---Inverloch Drive. And I don't think I've given
21 evidence in chief about that purchase. No, yes I did.
22 Yes I did, Your Honour. I did.
23Yes, you said you spotted it over the back fence?---Yes,
24 115,000, bought within a week of it going up, and it
25 settled 30 days later, Your Honour. OK, so it's - it's
26 the remaining 30 or 40 folders that - plus that one that
27 I refer to as the - the mysteriously missing documents.
28 The mystery clearing up, we know at least that that was
29 still sitting in that shed as at mid March 2008.
30 Ms Cressy admitted that under cross-examination.
31 Ms Cressy claims that a whole lot of documents were

2Cressy
1 stolen from her. She said in August 07, but to make any
2 sense of the - of the tale, it must have been in the week
3 after this photo was taken, after 2 September 2007. I
4 say yes, I was at the property. Yes, I did photocopy her
5 diaries. I did - yes, I did replace the originals. No,
6 I did not take any of Ms Cressy's documents. I don't
7 include when I say Ms Cressy's documents, obviously I'm
8 saying rightly or wrongly that the photocopies I took
9 were not Ms Cressy's documents.
10Right?---I'll just close at that logical loop. Then there is a
11 third bundle of mysteriously missing documents. These
12 are the ones that Ms Cressy came to my house at
13 Dorrington Street. I had moved out of the Bourke Street
14 apartment because the owner was selling it and I had to
15 move out. So I moved out of there in early August 2007.
16 Now, at this stage I was a man who owned six properties
17 with seven mortgages, and I was homeless. I couch
18 surfed. I lived on my friends' couches for about six
19 weeks. In order to spend time with the children under
20 the family law orders, which included Illyana on a Monday
21 night, pick her up from school on the Monday afternoon,
22 take her back to school Tuesday morning, and ditto one on
23 Thursday afternoon. Arrangements for Skye and Treece to
24 come with me also if they expressed the wish. I was
25 renting a Quest apartment in Williamstown, horribly
26 expensive. But being homeless, I needed to have
27 somewhere, even at that expense, to - to comply with the
28 court orders that I'm allowed to spend the time that I
29 and the children are expected to have together. That
30 period of homelessness stopped when I entered into the
31 lease arrangement for Torquay. So, for six weeks during

2Cressy
1 winter 07, me with six properties, I own seven mortgages
2 on them, I was homeless. That homelessness ended with -
3 so it ended two ways, and I became dual residents.
4 Torquay from mid September. I persuaded the tenants I
5 had at Dorrington Street. They were under a two year
6 lease with 18 or so months to go. I persuaded them to
7 break and to move out early, and as part of that process
8 I actually physically moved them, which was - that - that
9 was quite a task. So I had 2 Dorrington Street to live
10 in. I thought I was giving a good family configuration
11 here. I was applying my application in the family court
12 for permanent orders that the three Cressy children live
13 at the Altona house which I would fund ad infinitum.
14 Ms Cressy would live there one week, I wouldn't live
15 there the other week. That's what I was seeking. I was
16 not seeking to dispossess her of that property. I was
17 not seeking to dispossess the children. I wanted the
18 children to grow up in that house in that neighbourhood
19 with that school.
20We're not really getting into family court issues?---We're
21 describing living arrangements.
22MR DEVRIES: It may be marginally relevant to Your Honour's
23 findings about the nature of the relationship.
24HIS HONOUR: Yes, all right, well, then you proceed. Thank
25 you, Mr Devries?---Indeed, thank you Mr Devries. And in
26 the interim I applied for a - - -
27Sorry?---Sorry, I thought my back complaint had perhaps
28 afflicted me. I'm sorry, Your Honour.
29No, it will predate yours. Keep going?---I - I have a medicine
30 cabinet here.
31Let's not worry. Let's not compare backs?---Temporary orders

2Cressy
1 which I thought would only apply up until the 19 Dec
2 hearing that Ms Cressy live in the house with the three
3 children. There's been discussion, submission by
4 counsel, that I consented to an order that she and the
5 children live in the house. I didn't consent. I applied
6 for it. I sought it. It's in, it's in my initial – I'm
7 quite prepared to hand up a copy of that application if
8 it would assist Your Honour.
9I don't see the relevance of it, but it's a matter for you?
10 ---Then rather than risk um Federal Magistrate O'Dwyer's
11 ire, I won't hand it up Your Honour.
12MR DEVRIES: I'm quite happy for it to hand up, because I'll be
13 asking some questions about the application.
14HIS HONOUR: If you wish to?---If I can now find it
15 Your Honour.
16MR DEVRIES: I've got multiple copies if it would assist
17 Your Honour.
18HIS HONOUR: Yes. You wish to tender this document, do you?
19 ---Yes, Your Honour, and I wish to say this is consistent
20 with maintaining - - -
21What is this, an application by you to - - -?---In the Federal
22 Magistrates' Court.
23To Federal Magistrates' Court?---Regarding, I believe it's
24 called, "Live with and time with issues for the three
25 Cressy children".
26All right?---The terminology I had for the first time a few
27 days ago in this court, Your Honour.
28Yes?---Access and residency I would have called it,
29 Your Honour.
30The times are changing.

31
32#EXHIBIT 19 - Copy of the application by the defendant
2Cressy
1 to the Federal Magistrates' Court of
2 Australia dated 13/09/07.
3WITNESS: Yes. The last thing I want to say in evidence on
4 chief on this, Your Honour, is that I was seeking through
5 that jurisdiction to give some legal recognition to what
6 had previously been a voluntary arrangement, for live
7 with and time with, access and residency between
8 Ms Cressy and myself. Primarily in respect of my child,
9 who I believe is my child, though I'm asking for DNA
10 confirmation, but of course supporting her half brothers,
11 because you can't support just a fraction of a family
12 Your Honour. Moving right along Your Honour, are the
13 third bundle of mysteriously missing documents. Well
14 these are the ones that um – I collected Illyana from
15 school on Thursday 15 November 2007. I'd actually spent
16 the afternoon with her in her class as a parent helping
17 with the swimming lesson for that day. After that
18 swimming lesson, Illyana and I came into the city, where
19 she and I – she came into one of my meetings with, with a
20 former client and his wife, just a five o'clock cup of
21 coffee. I had to compress as much as I could into the

22 day. We then went to the Melbourne Aquatic Centre, where
23 Illyana wanted to ride the water slide, and she's below
24 the height restriction.
25Do you think you could try to keep relevant?---And Your Honour,
26 rather than driving down to Torquay that night to sleep,
27 we stopped off at Point Cook. Now me having ridden the
28 water slide with her, me having worked without sleep the
29 night before, I was exhausted. I fell asleep. I'd
30 pulled out one of the beds for her to sleep on, one of
31 the couches. I hadn't gone into the other room to pull
32 out my bed, I'd simply fallen asleep. I hadn't locked up

2Cressy
1 the house. I had my little puppy who I was toilet
2 training, so I had the back door open for her. About
3 right o'clock I fell asleep. I had my two mobile phones
4 switched on expecting phone calls, charging on the
5 kitchen bench. One was a work phone, one was a personal
6 phone. That's all I remember until waking um at about
7 quarter to five the following morning, that being the
8 Friday morning. I wake up, I walk into the kitchen. My
9 two phones are missing from the bench. My first thoughts
10 were my puppy, she was lying asleep beside the bed. I
11 then have a little walk around the house. All the doors
12 are unlocked, there are lights on funny. I use archive
13 boxes, like a bookcase Your Honour, and I put the lever
14 arch folders in, and they're all labelled. They labelled
15 things like tax returns, credit cards, AMP, things like
16 that. Um they were all missing. Someone had come into
17 the house, they just upended the box and carried it out.
18 Four or five boxes of my records. They'd switched on one
19 of my notebook computers looking at, at accessing that.
20 They didn't steal the notebook, password restricted of
21 course, and it wasn't important, only for me in any case.
22 Um basically at that stage, what I had in there was the
23 remnants of my legal practice that I was still trying to
24 nurse along.
25In where, in the computer?---Dorrington Street, Point Cook.
26 The whole house, it was basically the remnants. The
27 residents had from, had gone from Bourke Street to
28 Torquay, the office bits including ten years worth of
29 archived records were sitting in the shed, and bits and
30 pieces. And I had toyed with the idea of - - -
31What were in these archive boxes that you say were taken on the

2Cressy
1 night?---Tax returns back to 1995, bank statements,
2 credit cards, phone bills going back for a number of
3 years. I also had two green shopping bags that I'm quite
4 fond of full of correspondences. There might have been
5 80 items of mail that I hadn't even opened, and weren't
6 open. Getting large volumes of mail with lots of
7 properties and lots of business and lots of clients, lots
8 of children. I had things like, I had a modem card,
9 mobile wireless card for my notebook. It came in the
10 mail, hadn't opened. I was learning Portuguese. My
11 girlfriend at the time, who had just become my ex-
12 girlfriend for the second time, her mother was Portuguese
13 and didn't speak English, so (foreign language), yes I
14 began to learn Portuguese.
15Just a minute, you're getting a wail from the - - -?---These
16 are among the items that were stolen that night,
17 Your Honour.
18I know?---They're among the items that weren't returned to me,
19 Your Honour. I call the police. The come out. They do
20 the investigation. I tell him who I suspect. Full name,
21 date of birth, car rego number, telephone number, pin
22 code, not the pin code the PUC code for the phone,
23 because it was actually my phone, it's one of those
24 phones I'm paying for.
25All right, you told him who you suspected?---Yes. They said,
26 "Yes well what we normally do now is we, is we will go
27 and then we'll talk to the person".
28You reported the matter to the police?---I did indeed, simply
29 as a burglary. Now I have copies of that report that I
30 made, so I can show the report was made to police.
31No, well that's accepted - - -

2Cressy
1MR DEVRIES: I concede that he's made the report to the police.
2HIS HONOUR: It's accepted, and indeed Ms Cressy has, in her
3 evidence, stated that the police came to Queen Street,
4 and took possession of documents that she had removed
5 from Dorrington Street, all right?---Yes, Your Honour.
6Then she has at a subsequent date instructed her solicitor to
7 subpoena those documents and they are now safely lodged
8 with the Werribee Court.
9MR DEVRIES: No, Federal Magistrates'.
10HIS HONOUR: Federal Magistrates' Court, I'm sorry.
11MR DEVRIES: Sorry.
12HIS HONOUR: Thank you?---Your Honour, I suffered huge damage
13 by being deprived of my goods which had no relevance.
14Yes?---Except in one respect to the child custody and access
15 proceedings.
16Yes?---OK. How a 1995 tax return could have any relevance to a
17 – is beyond me. Amongst the Portuguese language
18 materials et cetera et cetera. Now the police recorded
19 under search warrant about 70 per cent of what was taken.
20What did they not recover?
21MR DEVRIES: How can he give – sorry with respect, Your Honour,
22 I object. How can he give evidence as to what the police
23 did and didn't do if he wasn't there.
24HIS HONOUR: Did you see what they had recovered?---Yes, I'd
25 been up many times early this year to look what and
26 wasn't recovered, Your Honour.
27Where did you look at it?---In the custody area, records area
28 at the Federal Magistrates' Court. Now I have sworn
29 affidavits from Ms Cressy, two of them attaching copies
30 of other documents that she took that date that she did
31 not hand up to the police. Ms Cressy has filed an

2Cressy
1 affidavit of documents in these proceedings, despite
2 there being no orders made under Order 29. Now, the
3 documents attached and referred to therein are of the
4 same relevance and character - they are part of those
5 documents that were taken on 16 November, no relevance at
6 all to the proceedings, either here or before Federal
7 Magistrate O'Dwyer. So shall I tender up a copy of that
8 affidavit of documents.
9HIS HONOUR: It's an affidavit of documents in this
10 proceeding?---Yes, Your Honour, yes, Your Honour.
11I didn't think there had been any discovery in this
12 proceeding?---None has been ordered, there was confusion
13 I believe in - - -
14What's the date of the affidavits?---May I step down to locate
15 them Your Honour?
16Yes.
17MR DEVRIES: I might say, sir, none of this was put to my
18 client when she - - -
19HIS HONOUR: I understand that. In relation particularly to
20 this issue, Mr Devries, I don't think any of this was
21 addressed in cross-examination, I would be certainly
22 amenable to an application in due course by you in
23 relation to re-calling your client if you considered that
24 that was required.
25MR DEVRIES: If I was to do that, Your Honour, it would add
26 probably half a day because there is so much that
27 Mr Johnson has raised.
28HIS HONOUR: I will just simply notify you of that and you can
29 bear that in mind, just see where this goes.
30MR DEVRIES: If Your Honour please.
31HIS HONOUR: Is this an affidavit sworn on - - - ?---28 March

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1 Your Honour.
2Just a minute until I've found it. 28 March, is that the date?
3 ---Yes, and an earlier one sworn - witnessed by Mr Hanlon
4 on 11 March 2008. May I refer to that one first perhaps?
5Just a moment, I will get it off the file. 11 March did you
6 say?---Yes, Your Honour.
7Yes, I follow?---Thank you, Your Honour. When I attended court
8 on 12 March 2008, Practice Court hearing before
9 Mr Justice Whelan, Mr Hanlon handed to me this letter, it
10 is addressed to me at my mailbox, it is addressed to me
11 at two residential addresses, it is said to go by
12 facsimile. It is headed: "Without prejudice save as to
13 costs".
14MR DEVRIES: Then he cannot refer to it any further Your
15 Honour.
16HIS HONOUR: Yes, it's privileged?---Your Honour, it - but this
17 is just embarrassing because what it is is actually Ms
18 Cressy's affidavit - - -
19MR DEVRIES: I object to any reference to a without
20 prejudice - - - ?---The reference is misconstrued, Your
21 Honour.
22HIS HONOUR: Just a moment, Mr Devries. I understand your
23 objection. When do you say you were handed a letter?
24 ---As I walked into court on the morning of 12 March.
25Of what year?---This year Your Honour.
26Which court?---Practice Court, Court 10, Your Honour.
27Yes, and what were you handed?---I was handed an affidavit by
28 the plaintiff.
29When was that sworn?---11 March 2008.
30This is the affidavit that you are referring me to?---Yes, and
31 attached to that is a bundle of my documents which were

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1 amongst those that were taken on 16 November.
2Are they referred to in that affidavit?---Yes, Your Honour, may
3 I read from the affidavit?
4Well, it's probably appropriate then, you wish that affidavit
5 to form part of the evidence in this case?---I do and I
6 thought that it did, Your Honour, I was confused by the
7 case date.
8I understand that but you say that because that contains - I
9 have had a quick look at that, that contains admissions
10 to the taking of the documents?---Yes, Your Honour.
11You seek to rely on that affidavit?---Yes.
12I can simply receive - you are really relying on paragraph 2 of
13 that affidavit.
14MS SOFRONIOU: What I don't know, Your Honour, is whether that
15 was provided in a privilege context, whether that's part
16 of it.
17HIS HONOUR: It's on the court file. It's filed on the court
18 file.
19MS SOFRONIOU: That can't be, Your Honour, thank you. I was
20 thrown by the reference - - -
21HIS HONOUR: No, I follow. Do you have a copy of that
22 affidavit?
23MS SOFRONIOU: Not in front of me but I can do that, Your
24 Honour, I can get one.
25HIS HONOUR: It says on: "16 November 2007 I did remove
26 documents from the premises at 2 Dorrington Street, Point
27 Cook. The only documents which were removed on that day
28 which are not held at the Federal Magistrates Court
29 pursuant to subpoena are the following." Then at 2.1 to
30 2.20, and then paragraph 3: "These documents will be
31 available to deliver to the defendant at or before

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1 attendance at court on Wednesday 12 March 2008."
2MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you Your Honour.
3HIS HONOUR: Is there any objection?
4MS SOFRONIIOU: No.
5HIS HONOUR: What I think I might do is I will receive the
6 whole of that affidavit as an exhibit is probably
7 better?---Plus the covering letter please Your Honour.
8I don't see what relevance the covering letter is?---I like
9 Ms Sofroniou was thrown by the reference to "without
10 prejudice" because I don't know how a law firm of Harwood
11 Andrews calibre could purport to serve an affidavit
12 inside the court building under cover of a letter
13 claiming that the contents were without prejudice.
14MS SOFRONIOU: I object to that commentary Your Honour.
15HIS HONOUR: You don't even need to object to it, it's
16 irrelevant, we are not - - - ?---It wasn't directed at
17 all to Ms Sofroniou. Just that I shared her confusion
18 about the without prejudice reference.
19Do you want to show Ms Sofroniou the letter, it may be that it
20 is so uncontroversial that it can be tendered anyway I
21 think is the easiest way?---Yes, thank you Your Honour.
22 I don't know how an affidavit in proceedings can be
23 served on a without prejudice basis.
24I don't know what's in the letter and it might have something
25 else. Just a moment.
26MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you. I have no objection Your Honour.
27HIS HONOUR: Thanks Ms Sofroniou. There's something attached
28 to it. Is that the affidavit is it?
29MS SOFRONIOU: Yes.
30HIS HONOUR: What probably would be the best thing, could I -
31 thanks Mr (indistinct)?---And Your Honour these are the

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1 attachments - - -
2Well just - all right well what I'll do is I'll receive all as
3 one exhibit - - - ?---Thank you Your Honour. I don't
4 want to give you part of the document (indistinct).

5
6#EXHIBIT 20 - Letter of Howard Andrews to the defendant
7 dated 11/03/08 together with the copy
8 affidavit of the plaintiff sworn 11/03/08
9 and together with the bundle of documents
10 enclosed in the letter.
11MR DEVRIES: Your Honour if I could just have a very quick look
12 at the bundle.
13HIS HONOUR: Yes.
14MR DEVRIES: I'm not too concerned about the other two
15 documents. I'd only need a 30 second perusal.

16HIS HONOUR: Can I ask you Mr Johnson, a yes or no answer to
17 this before I handed them over, do they correspond with
18 the list?---Yes Your Honour. Indexed in the affidavit
19 Your Honour.
20Well you may still have a look at them but - - -
21MR DEVRIES: Just one aspect Your Honour, check it very quickly
22 Your Honour.
23HIS HONOUR: All right?---I assume (indistinct). I've never
24 bothered to - seemed so evident Your Honour.
25Well I would act on that basis.
26MR DEVRIES: I can hand it back now Your Honour.
27HIS HONOUR: Thank you very much?---Your Honour on 28 March
28 2008 the - - -
29Sorry?---On 28 March 2008 the plaintiff filed affidavit
30 documents.
31Yes?---I think there was some confusion by her new instructors
32 who were very new to the file, Berry Family Lawyers that
33 what Mr Justice Whelan had ordered was they'd somehow
34 construed that as - - -
2Cressy
1It doesn't matter what - how they construed it?---Her affidavit
2 of the documents, there's simply no more than a list of
3 those documents that Your Honour (indistinct) in evidence
4 in that exhibit and I had a letter from Berry Family
5 Lawyers.
6I'm sorry is - you say the affidavit of documents - - - ?
7 ---The affidavit of documents consists solely of those
8 portion of documents taken from me on 16 - - -
9Consists solely of the documents which are referred to in that
10 letter 11 March - - - ?---Yes Your Honour.
11- - - is that what you're saying?---Yes Your Honour.
12So it just replicates that is it?---Yes Your Honour.
13All right?---And I have a letter from Berry Family Lawyers plus
14 a massive attachment, identical - I'd like to tender this
15 as an exhibit to Your Honour, confirming that point.
16What are you showing me?---A letter I received from Ms Cressy's
17 current solicitors saying these are the documents
18 referred to in our affidavit of documents.
19So these are all the documents referred to in that affidavit.
20 You want to tender that too do you?---Yes Your Honour.
21 Two affidavits with identical bundles - - -

22
23#EXHIBIT 21 - Letter of Berry Family Law to the
24 defendant dated 09/04/08 with attached
25 documents.
26And you say that duplicates what had already been handed to
27 you?---I've not checked page by page, but yes - - -
28Right?---Your Honour Ms Cressy gave in evidence to the effect
29 that she handed to the police everything that she took on
30 16 November, she gave that evidence on Thursday afternoon
31 or Friday - yes, Thursday. Thursday afternoon would have
32 been right. I just want to point out that that can't be
33 the case given that her then solicitor, Mr Hanlon, handed

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1 to me that bundle of originals on 12 March this year. I
2 think there's a number of inferences that - - -
3Well I follow that but this is really a matter of argument
4 now?---Yes, yes.
5You're talking about the relevance of the tender?---The
6 suggestion was on Friday that I'd produced a birth
7 certificate, I was producing stolen document as evidence
8 in my case. I'm suggesting that the telescope was around
9 the wrong way in a lot of these allegations - - -
10Yes well you're now going into argument again?---Thank you Your
11 Honour. We make it through submissions though Your
12 Honour.
13Well let's just get through your evidence first. You told me
14 you'd finish by lunch and it's eight minutes to go?
15 ---No, no. I said I'd try to finish to finish by
16 lunch - - -
17Well keep trying?---- - - Your Honour.
18Keep trying?---Thank you. I just want - sorry, this is a
19 submission point and I'll deal with it in submissions
20 Your Honour. There are other documents that - and goods
21 that were never returned to me. My mobile phones for
22 example. I had hundreds of photographs stored on them,
23 which I had not fully backed up because it was a very
24 painful process and I hadn't found anyone who could teach
25 me how to download them quickly. There were holiday
26 photos, family photos of all of my children. There were
27 photos I wanted to use in, in evidence including my
28 daughter being delivered up to me in very, improperly
29 dressed and improperly fed at collection time at, under
30 the Family Court orders for time with, with me. When I
31 did finally get to inspect my goods it was January of

2Cressy
1 this year, late January. They'd all been deleted Your
2 Honour.
3What had been deleted?---All of my photos.
4So you saw the mobile phones did you?---I, I inspected them in
5 the evidence room up at the Federal Magistrates' Court in
6 late January Your Honour. First chance I had to access
7 them. No, sorry, second chance. I did pop in in mid to
8 late December to the Werribee police station and just had
9 a quick visual, went to switch the phones on but the
10 batteries were flat, so I couldn’t see what data had been
11 manipulated.
12You didn't make that allegation - you didn't put that to
13 Ms Cressy in cross-examination did you, so she has had no
14 opportunity to respond to that. Anyway, we will have to
15 deal with that in due course?---There are difficulties
16 because I thought like those affidavits were already in
17 the body of evidence, I thought it was the case that it
18 was - - -
19No, I think I explained it to you on so many occasions I hate
20 to think?---Not until I opened my case, Your Honour, I'm
21 sorry.
22I don't think that's right but let's move on?---Thank you, Your
23 Honour.
24Thank you Mr Johnson?---I think that's all I need to say about
25 the history of the missing documents Your Honour.
26Right?---I might in the minutes before lunch just talk about my
27 employment history. When I met Ms Cressy I was a full
28 time employee of Minter Ellison. I was in the process of
29 being promoted to special legal counsel, not quite a
30 salaried partner Your Honour.
31How long had you been at Minters for?---At that stage about

2Cressy
1 five years, Your Honour, and I'd been with Corrs Chambers
2 Westgarth for the six years before that. That's where I
3 did my articles in 1990. Before that, the previous two
4 years I was a full time academic at Monash University.
5 Am I getting irrelevant?
6No, no, that's sufficient?---Thank you. While I completed my
7 second degree, my Bachelor of Laws on a part time basis,
8 thank you.
9You were at Minters when you met Ms Cressy?---Yes. About a
10 year later I accepted the employment opportunity from
11 Barwon Water, so on 4 October 1999 I commenced working
12 with Barwon Water. Now, I had moved to 142 Gheringhap
13 Street, two blocks from Harwood Andrews and just around
14 the corner from Barwon Water. It was an easy two minute
15 walk which apart from my credentials and attitudes, et
16 cetera, was one of the things that Baron Water really
17 liked. So I ceased working for Barwon Water and coming
18 to work from - sorry, I ceased working for Minter
19 Ellison, commenced working for Barwon Water. I also set
20 up my own legal practice which I called Sutton Lawyers -
21 sorry Sutton Johnson.
22When did you commence Sutton Johnson?---I registered in very
23 late August or 1 September 1999. Now, I was writing a
24 monthly column for the Law Institute Journal - - -
25As I understand it Sutton is the name of Ms Cressy's father, is
26 that right?---Yes, Your Honour.
27Is that why you adopted that name?---Ms Cressy and I were
28 dating, I didn't want to be a James Johnson and Associate
29 because I had no associates, I thought it was misleading,
30 I wanted something that went like Minter Ellison, Baker
31 McKenzie, something Johnson.

2Cressy
1But did you get Sutton - was your choice of Sutton because of
2 Ms Cressy?---That's the etymology of it, yes Your Honour.
3Thank you very much?---Thank you, and it looked good having a
4 firm name on my monthly columns in the Law Institute
5 Journal, my various other speaking engagements for the
6 Law Institute. I chaired two Law Institute committees at
7 that time. I was a chairman of the GST Task Force for
8 about two and a half years. I chaired the State Taxes
9 Committee and I was on various other committees as a
10 result. I was also given speaking engagements through
11 the Northern Territory Law Society at about that time as
12 well, all because of the need to get up to speed quickly
13 with the GST coming in. I set up my own consultancy
14 providing GST advice to other lawyers. I was the
15 lawyer's lawyer on GST. One of my biggest clients was
16 the Legal Practitioners Liability Committee who set up a
17 GST help line for the profession. I was the only sole
18 practitioner on the committee of three. The others were
19 big city law firms, Your Honour. My funding from my
20 practice right from day one was 150 per cent of what my
21 salary was from my 9 to 5 Barwon Water in house position.
22 I had great cash flow from that point, I had great things
23 that I could do and in building my property portfolio I
24 went on to do it. Now, Ms Cressy and I were dating, I
25 have given evidence on our living arrangements. I was at
26 Gheringhap Street.
27I see the time, if you're going to move on to that it is
28 probably an appropriate time. How long do you think
29 you'll take to complete your examination-in-chief?
30 ---Your Honour, given the pace I've gone at this
31 morning - - -

2Cressy
1Hopefully not too long?---There's a good two hours, Your
2 Honour.
3You are going to have to - - - ?---Just a moment - no, sorry,
4 I've actually cleared a few things.
5You are going to have to focus on what is relevant, rather than
6 me putting a lot of strain on my vocal chords having to
7 remind you ever three minutes to stay relevant, all
8 right?---Your Honour, I think there's about an hour of
9 evidence-in-chief that has my relationship with
10 Ms Cressy, which is for my counter-claim against her. I
11 need about an hour I think for my relationship with
12 Harwood Andrews which is my counter-claim against them.
13Can I suggest again you give careful thought to remaining
14 relevant, all right?---I hope I'm doing a good job so far
15 Your Honour.
16Variable is the kindest I will put it. We will now have
17 lunch?---Thank you Your Honour.
18<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)
19LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT
20

2Cressy
1 (Kaye J)
2UPON RESUMING AT 2.12 P.M.:
3HIS HONOUR: Easily becoming the norm Mr Devries.
4MR DEVRIES: Not in this honourable court.
5HIS HONOUR: Right, Mr Johnson.
6MR JOHNSON: Yes Your Honour.
7HIS HONOUR: Into the witness box thanks.
8MR JOHNSON: Thank you Your Honour.
9<HAROLD JAMES JOHNSON, recalled:
10WITNESS: Yes sir. Thank you. Your Honour I'm just wondering
11 whether I should raise that affidavit of the other
12 witness Mr Cochran, at this point.
13HIS HONOUR: Sorry?---I'm just wondering - because time isn't
14 marching - - -
15Yes?---- - - Mr Peter Cochran called and compelled to give
16 evidence, should I raise it again with you at this stage?
17Well what have you done with Mr Cochran?---I've subpoenaed the
18 gentleman and the subpoena was served within time. I
19 have an affidavit of service by the process server who of
20 course is not personally known to me.
21Yes?---And that is as far as I've gone. I, I have no other way
22 of contacting him, Mr Cochran, nor would I want to
23 contact him to be honest.
24When was he served?---On 24 November 2008 at either 9 a.m. or
25 9 p.m.. It's not clear from that affidavit service.
26Was he given conduct money?---Yes he was given $10 conduct
27 money. I'm just concerned if the - - -
28When was he required to attend?---On Tuesday morning, Tuesday
29 of last week Your Honour. The start of the trial.
30He didn't attend then?---No Your Honour, I believe not.
31Well give me a look at the subpoena and the affidavit?
1.LL:ASC 08/12/08 FTR:22 290 JOHNSON XN

2Cressy
1 ---Sorry Your Honour I - - -
2Can I have a look at the subpoena and the affidavit?
3 ---Certainly Your Honour. There's, there's an invoice
4 (indistinct) with it as well Your Honour and I have
5 copies for my learned friends to distribute. I may have
6 handed these in earlier today - yes thank you
7 Ms Sofroniou.
8Well the affidavit doesn't refer to handing the witness any
9 conduct money?---No it doesn't Your Honour but it does
10 include a photocopy because I actually provided the $10
11 cash to the process service to hand over. I'm surprised
12 at that, even (indistinct) Your Honour would be expected
13 and I did hand him $10.
14From recollection it's a requirement, before I take any action,
15 under the paroles?---With my letter there's a watermark
16 partly produced of the moneys, of the note that was
17 handed to him.
18Yes well I think before I took any action under the Act, under
19 that the processor would need to swear an affidavit that
20 he provided - - - ?---Or give viva voce - - -
21Viva voce evidence?---- - - which is my concern because I
22 expected to see that - I didn't prepare this affidavit.
23 The process server does it - - -
24I notice there is an address where he's successfully served
25 Mr Cochran?---Yes Your Honour. As I say I did not see or
26 (indistinct) this affidavit - - -
27I don't know whether - - - ?---The process server prepared
28 it - - -
29It would be desirable that some approach be made to Mr Cochran
30 before I turn the forces of law on him, advising him for
31 the necessity for him to comply with the subpoena?

2Cressy
1 ---He was given the relevant information in the notes
2 attached to the - - -
3I understand that - - - ?---I have no way - I've never met this
4 gentleman and - - -
5Mr Devries I don't - there's simply, I put this all as an
6 invitation, is there any possibility for your instructor
7 to make contact with Mr Cochran advising him of the
8 consequences that may ensue if he does not comply with
9 the subpoena?
10MR DEVRIES: Your Honour before I - I'll get some instructions.
11HIS HONOUR: Yes.
12MR DEVRIES: I cannot concede how, on the information I have,
13 how the evidence of Mr Cochran can be of any assistance
14 to Your Honour - - -
15HIS HONOUR: Well - - -
16MR DEVRIES: - - - Mr Johnson each time Your Honour's asked him
17 to assist you that way he has avoided answering the
18 question. There is no considerable way that this person
19 can assist Your Honour in my respectful submission and is
20 not going to be a cooperative witness for Mr Johnson in
21 any case.
22HIS HONOUR: Well he may or may not be and that's - he's got to
23 give evidence and he's got to tell the truth and that way
24 he'll be cooperative but, I'm loathe at this stage to
25 interrupt your evidence to debate - to hear long debates
26 of the issues as to relevance but - - - ?---I, I can
27 answer them quickly Your Honour.
28Well that would be very gratifying?---Thank you Your Honour.
29 In the amended statement of claim the plaintiff is
30 claiming that she worked as an adult service provider.
31 She doesn't specify the period but she's also claiming I

2Cressy
1 believe that she channelled funds from those activities
2 to me, which I then used to purchase my properties. Now
3 this man, if I'm saying too much please stop me in a
4 minute Your Honour, I believe from correspondence that he
5 wrote to me which I wish to tender in evidence that he
6 was an intimate personal relationship with Ms Cressy for
7 about three years. While she was living under my roof at
8 South Yarra. And he observed her working at several
9 licensed, unlicensed I don't know – several brothels,
10 Your Honour. And it's also I believe to the Part 9
11 application, being in an intimate relationship with one
12 or many people, I think, other than myself which makes it
13 a little bit difficult on the balance of evidence for the
14 plaintiff to assert that she was - - -
15She's in a domestic relationship with you?---Well bona fide for
16 starters, I believe those words have independent
17 operation. Bona fide as opposed to mala fide perhaps.
18 Domestic, as opposed to, sorry the word feral comes into
19 my mind, but I probably shouldn't say that. Bona fide,
20 mala fide, domestic feral.
21The quicker - you say it would go to the relevance as to
22 whether the words bona fide aren't there because it's a
23 genuine domestic basis?---Yes, I apologise for the delay
24 in that, Your Honour.
25MR DEVRIES: I've got an answer to Your Honour's first
26 question. My client's got no contact details for
27 Mr Cochran, and indeed she's the agreed family member in
28 an intervention order taken out against him.
29HIS HONOUR: Mr – it seems to me that at least potentially
30 there's some relevance in relation to the question as to
31 the existence of the domestic relationship which is an

2Cressy
1 issue raised by Mr Johnson. On that basis it would – if
2 he sought to lead evidence on that behalf, I would allow
3 it in.
4MR DEVRIES: Having heard what he said, Your Honour, I can't
5 take you.
6HIS HONOUR: No.
7MR DEVRIES: It wasn't intended to take issue with that.
8HIS HONOUR: No, thank you. Now Mr Johnson, I would not take
9 action under, unless you can tell me as a matter of law I
10 can, under the – in relation to the subpoena on this, I
11 was, had evidence that conduct money had been paid. But
12 it's a while since I've looked at the rule, and I may be
13 wrong on that?---Your Honour, I am the last lawyer - - -
14Which is the relevant rule, do you know?---I'm the last lawyer
15 in this, in your court room who could give you assistance
16 on that legal issue. All I can say is that I did give
17 the process server or the company that engaged him, AA
18 Professional Documents Service, a $10 note along with the
19 original subpoena, Form 42A, and my covering letter which
20 is partly handwritten. There's a watermark of the
21 photocopy of the $10 note, at the top of the letter.
22Just a minute?---And I relied on my agents to do for their
23 $80.96, the preparation of an affidavit for service in
24 the proper form.
25I understand that?---Thank you, Your Honour. And that was my
26 concern, that if the deponent, Steven Whitiking, it's
27 German, it's German, has to give a lot of evidence - - -
28Can I tell you this. It's Rule 42.061, "An addressee need not
29 comply with the requirement as a subpoena to attend to
30 give evidence unless conduct money has been handed or
31 tendered to the addressee a reasonable time before the

2Cressy
1 day on which attendance is required". What I would
2 require, I would not issue a warrant for his arrest under
3 s.150 until I had evidence to that effect?---May I be
4 excused for ten minutes to ring the process server to
5 have Mr Whitiking brought before you as soon as possible,
6 to give vice voce evidence that he did hand over the
7 conduct money. He is a professional, they are
8 professional, they'd be one of the few - - -
9When will you complete your evidence?---Given that there's
10 cross-examination, I can't say for sure I'll complete my
11 evidence in chief this afternoon, Your Honour.
12I think we'll proceed with your evidence in chief. If I get
13 tired, we'll take a break at quarter past three and you
14 can ring Mr Whitehead, or whatever his name is then, and
15 he can be here tomorrow morning?---Thank you,
16 Your Honour. I'm indebted Your Honour.
17Going back to your evidence, you were – you had been telling me
18 about the details of your employment?---Yes, Your Honour.
19That you moved to the water, Barwon Water in October 99, and
20 you set up your own consultancy, which you were earning a
21 lot of money advising people about the GST legislation
22 that was about to be introduced?---Thank you,
23 Your Honour.
24Right?---I was residing at Gheringhap Street. Ms Cressy, with
25 her two boys, were residing at 5 Illouera Avenue,
26 Grovedale, along with the maternal grandmother, Ms Cressy
27 senior, and um the middle of the – the younger Rose,
28 Ms Cressy's junior, the plaintiff's younger – I'm sorry,
29 I understand it's Ms Cressy's younger half-sister.
30You can use Christian names if it helps?---Thank you, thank you
31 I shall from hence forth, Your Honour. I wished to

2Cressy
1 encourage Ms Cressy to um cease working at Lorraine Starr
2 Brothel, which is the place that we met on 12 September
3 1998. And which she sporadically, or most often worked
4 during all of 1999. Um to do that, um I mentioned um
5 Donald Trump and the apprentice in my evidence this
6 morning, this was my first attempt, looking at the story
7 of Poppy King, the lipstick queen, who was funded into
8 her own business by a donation of $20,000 from an older
9 man, and um a garage provided by her parents. Now what I
10 did, was I set up a business known as The Gallery of
11 Artemis. Should I go into the, how the name was derived
12 Your Honour?
13Don't think it's very relevant, is it?---Thank you Your Honour.
14 Um this was a premises that I leased in Geelong. Um it
15 was like a T-intersection. If you walked down Gheringhap
16 Street, 400 metres from my home, you turn left at Ryrie
17 Street.
18Yes?---You'd be at Barwon Water. Barwon Water's one of the
19 biggest employers in the region, um with substantial
20 offices, I think only surpassed by the City of Greater
21 Geelong. If you walked half a block down, the
22 Geelong - - -
23I don't think its actual location matters, does it?---All
24 right, Your Honour. And if you walked a distance - - -
25You leased the premises?---Yes.
26In your name?---80 Little Malop Street, Geelong, in my name.
2780 Little Malop Street, is it?---Yes, yes, the corner of James
28 Street and Little Malop Street. $400 a week from a Greek
29 family. The downstairs area - - -
30For what period of time did you lease it, was the term of the
31 lease?---It was a three year, and I had four or five

2Cressy
1 three year rolling options.
2All right?---It was substantial, Your Honour. The idea was to
3 create an art gallery space upstairs. Which would also
4 be a convention space, party space, lots of art work,
5 hopefully make some money for local artists and
6 downstairs the ideas were to sell high end ladies
7 fashion, dresses, Australian designers, accessories, and
8 even have a little bit of a café and a reading corner. I
9 didn't have sufficient funds to fully carry it through
10 and ran into funding difficulties because of the cost of
11 funding stock, so it never really achieved the
12 goals - - -
13Was it a company or a business name?---As my tax returns, which
14 are included in the loan materials for the Dorrington
15 Street loan application will show my own name, Your
16 Honour, there was nothing fancy, no corporate structures.
17Did you register the business names?---Of course, Your Honour.
18In your name?---Yes, Your Honour, and that also assisted
19 because the losses from that business in the early set up
20 stage could be offset against my other taxable income,
21 and that is all demonstrated in my tax returns for '99,
22 2000, 2001 tax returns, some of which are included in the
23 bank documentation for when I applied for the loan for
24 Dorrington Street, so some of those materials are in that
25 exhibit. The Commonwealth Bank letter enclosing Colonial
26 Bank mortgage documents and submitted donations. Thank
27 you, Your Honour. That business, because I already have
28 quite a few businesses I'm running myself, I'm inside
29 Barwon Water as in-house legal counsel, I was a full time
30 employee at that stage and I had my moonlighting legal
31 consultancy Sutton Johnson, so I needed to hire staff to

2Cressy
1 run it. Now, the primary reason for setting that
2 business up at all was to give Ms Cressy Junior an
3 interest other than the prostitution work that she had
4 been doing. My intention - if I might describe my
5 intention - was once the business was successful she
6 would draw a salary working there in the meantime and
7 then she could progressively purchase equity, perhaps
8 even taking full equity off me if it had ever taken off.
9Did you discuss that intention with Ms Cressy?---Yes, Your
10 Honour. I hired staff - not just Ms Cressy but her
11 mother. Her mother never did any accounting or book
12 work, I did all the tax records myself and they were all
13 properly kept as a shop assistant part time. So I was
14 providing employment to two - to both Ms Cressy's.
15 Ms Cressy wasn't happy working as a shop assistant. She
16 loved travelling up to Melbourne and buying lots of stock
17 at my expense, with my money. Of course it would be my
18 money, it was my business, nothing improper about that.
19 Purchasing decisions perhaps not wise but so be it, she
20 was happy to be on the purchasing side of things, but not
21 the actual dealing with customers in the shop. She
22 decided three, four months after Illyana was born to go
23 back to working at Lorraine Starr. I had two other
24 employees working for me, Kim as I recall, Kimberley, my
25 memory is refreshed from Ms Cressy's evidence - Kimberly
26 Brookes. He was the son of the lady who owned Lorraine
27 Starr brothel in Geelong. It may be sliding off
28 relevance, none of it relevant I believe that she sold
29 the business for my recent company searches about four
30 years ago.
31If it's not relevant don't say it?---All right, Your Honour.

2Cressy
1 The other lady that I hired was a young lady by the name
2 of Bianca, I don't think I ever knew her surname or
3 didn't recall - Davies being her surname. I am refreshed
4 from Ms Cressy's evidence. Who was a young lady who
5 worked as an adult service provider at Lorraine Starr,
6 along with Ms Cressy. The business did not go well.
7 Demographically it's bad, Geelong is a very low socio-
8 economic area. Over 20 per cent of households rely
9 solely on - there was no demand for the product that we
10 were selling.
11This business didn't go well so what happened to it?---I had to
12 close it in the end, so being internal - - -
13How long was it open for?---Up until - well, it didn't start
14 right away. I signed the lease in December.
15Of?---'99. That was a very critical day in the context of my
16 relationships plural with Ms Cressy Junior, and so I must
17 come back Your Honour to describe that as one of the two
18 key breaking points.
19Business didn't go well, how long was it open for, just
20 approximately?---I signed the lease in December 1999. It
21 didn't really open until about a week, 10 days before
22 Ilyanna was born, so late May, 31 May might be the exact
23 day, 2000, we had an official opening for the gallery and
24 there were lots of Barwon Water people of course invited.
25Yes, that’s interesting but no relevant?---Thank you, Your
26 Honour.
27When did it close?---It closed in about July 2001. The day
28 that I signed the lease on that shop, blocking myself
29 into a $400 a week commitment I would not have done but
30 for my relationship with Ms Cressy who was not domiciled
31 with me and my desire to see her make a better show of

2Cressy
1 her life by giving her a lift up like Poppy King received
2 to set up a business that she could work in, in an area
3 that she was inspired in, that she might one day take
4 over some or even all of the ownership once she had
5 worked and earned and achieved that. I returned to my
6 home that Thursday evening - - -
7I take it from what you have just said that at that stage you
8 cared a lot about Ms Cressy?---Yes, Your Honour. Thank
9 you, Your Honour.
10All right, sorry, keep going?---Thank you, Your Honour. I
11 returned home that evening from my Barwon Water. I was
12 exhausted because the previous Wednesday night I'd
13 completely worked through, completing tasks, advices for
14 Sutton Johnson clients directed to me by the Legal
15 Practitioners Liability Committee. So I had not slept.
16 I was extremely tired. I returned home. Ms Cressy was
17 upstairs in my kitchen, my upstairs kitchen. Now, that
18 wasn't unusual because I had given her keys to the door,
19 and she was free to come and go as she pleased. She was
20 washing some dishes in the kitchen sink. I walk
21 upstairs, I stand in my doorway of the kitchen. Ms
22 Cressy turns to me and she says - she says, "I've gone
23 back to work today," and she had a very strange voice on.
24 I immediately took that as a reference that she was
25 working again at Lorraine Starr. "I'm pregnant. I think
26 you're the father. I hate you. I hate it. I hate me.
27 I wish I could kill this thing growing inside me. I wish
28 I could kill you. I wish I could kill myself." Now, as
29 she is saying this, she is throwing coffee cups at me,
30 including a relevant detail, a cup that she had bought me
31 for my birthday that year, a Looney design on it. She

2Cressy
1 picked up a plate. She smashed it. She pulled out the
2 big roast meat carving knife and held it towards me. At
3 that point I walked backwards out of the door,
4 downstairs, left my home. I spent the next hour walking
5 around the central grid streets of Geelong. When I came
6 back an hour later, Ms Cressy had - had left. I had very
7 little contact with her for the next few weeks. We did -
8 that was the - the Y2K New Years Eve, Your Honour,
9 millennium bugs and all the rest of it. I had organise
10 to take her and her two boys on a week's holiday to South
11 Australia in Kangaroo - Kangaroo Island by car. I'd
12 bought a brand new Landrover a couple of months earlier.
13 We did go on that holiday but it was very strained. Ms
14 Cressy was quiet, did not speak, slept most of the time.
15 I had been teaching her to drive. She had her learners
16 permit. She was supposed to drive part of the return
17 trip back, but we had an argument because she was
18 insisting that the very moment we got back to Geelong,
19 she was going off to Lorraine Starr to work, and I would
20 have to look after her two boys. And I had spent that
21 week trying to talk her out of taking her life.
22How long was the holiday?---About a week, Your Honour, most of
23 which Ms Cressy and her youngest boy Skye slept. So it
24 was mostly myself and Treece getting to see the - the
25 seals on the beach and the remarkable rocks and those
26 sorts of things. We did a lot of things, just Treece and
27 I. So I drove back all the way from Adelaide via the
28 Barossa on that last day back to Geelong. Ms Cressy sat
29 quietly, did not speak at all. We got back to Geelong.
30 I don't have a clear memory of it. I think the logical
31 thing was I took her back to Grovedale. That's the only

2Cressy
1 thing that makes sense. Her - dropped her and the kids -
2 I must have. I'm just struggling to remember. Dropped
3 her and the kids at Grovedale, came back to Gheringhap
4 Street. I had no contact at all, did not see Ms Cressy
5 again for - so this - we're talking 2 or 3 January 2000.
6 OK. I'd only been told three weeks earlier that I might
7 be a father for the fourth time. "I think you might be
8 the father." I had no contact with her for the rest of
9 January, all of February, March, April, till about mid
10 May. Now, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
11 Ms Cressy was working back at Lorraine Starr during that
12 part of her pregnancy, up to and including the early part
13 of May 2000. I then get a phone call from her. "Oh
14 James, I've been young and foolish. I want to get back
15 together with you." Now, I was putting - depositing
16 money into her bank account all the way through. I
17 didn't want her to feel that she was under any financial
18 necessity to do that work, certainly and God forgive her
19 when she's three months or more pregnant. So I'm putting
20 money into the bank account for this woman and those two
21 little boys who are not mine, although I cared, and do to
22 this day care greatly about. She rings me up in May and
23 there were various proposals. She wanted me to buy an
24 old building in Geelong called the Ritz, do it up as a
25 brothel called the Garden of Eden, all sorts of crazy
26 stuff. I just wanted to get through the birth period of
27 the little girl who might be mine, and find out is she
28 mine. Now, there are physical resemblances. She has, I
29 believe, the best of me, but whether it's by nurture
30 rather than nature, by osmosis rather than DNA, I don't
31 know. She also has the best of her mother, and there is

2Cressy
1 a lot of good in her mother. It's just mixed up with a
2 lot of other things.
3Let's just cut out the character?---Thank you, Your Honour.
4And the kids, and remain relevant to the issues?---Thank you,
5 Your Honour.
6As far as I am concerned, the plaintiff has said that Illyana
7 is your daughter. You have not produced any proof to the
8 contrary, and in fact I don't really hear you deny it.
9 For the purposes of these proceedings, it would seem to
10 me on the balance of probabilities that Illyana is the
11 relevance of an application under Part 9. Now, you may
12 be able to just talk me out of that, but that's, I must
13 say, the state of the evidence at the moment?---Your
14 Honour, I don't feel a need to talk you out of it.
15Right?---But I do find a need to find out the truth, whether
16 it's now or in ten years time.
17Well, that's for outside this court?---But that's a - exactly,
18 Your Honour, thank you. So, as of just before Illyana's
19 birth, about four weeks prior, Ms Cressy and I are seeing
20 each other again. In the circumstances I am spending a
21 bit more time at the Grovedale house, probably more of my
22 time at the Grovedale house than at my own house in
23 Gheringhap Street. OK, that gets us through the - the
24 birth period. It was really only just in that May period
25 that I reminded - May 2000 while heavily pregnant I
26 reminded Ms Cressy that I had the lease on the shop. I
27 had set up my office practice upstairs, I had moved it
28 from my front bedroom at Gheringhap Street down to
29 upstairs. So then she became reinterested in getting
30 involved in that project. So basically there was a lot
31 of work had to be done, I had to actually sand down the

2Cressy
1 floors sand that myself, it was very expensive. I would
2 be going 22 hours without sleep. I'd do my Barwon Water
3 work, I'd do my Sutton Johnson consultancy, I'd be
4 sanding floors in this gallery, and by doing that that's
5 how we achieved getting an opening - my memory is that Ms
6 Cressy was only like two or three days before giving
7 birth when we opened,
8 31 May 2000 would be about the right date. Somewhere
9 lost there are some formal invitations that were sent
10 out. They could be anywhere. OK. After the birth of
11 Illyana I had an extra reason to be on good terms with
12 the Cressy household. I continued after the initial
13 excitement of the birth to live at Gheringhap Street by
14 myself where I continued to live up until about
15 April 2001. Now, at that point I had spread myself too
16 thinly. The gallery was a major drain of funds. My
17 salary from Barwon Water was just under six figures which
18 was nice but not nearly even half enough. The easy GST
19 work, because it was all in the preparation and the first
20 year of bedding it down, GST had been around in force for
21 about nine months now. The Legal Practitioners Liability
22 Committee was no longer a substantial source of income.
23 I needed to find the next wave of work. That easy GST
24 work was no longer available. I resolved that I needed
25 to move up to Melbourne in order to sustain and as I
26 needed to do to grow my income level, particularly when I
27 had over six figures of debt accumulated from the moneys
28 that I'd brought into the gallery business. So I looked
29 for a number of residences up in Melbourne in the
30 Richmond area and the South Yarra area and I then settled
31 on the South Yarra as the place I would move to.

2Cressy
1 Ms Cressy in the meantime had been at Grovedale from I
2 believe around about the birth of her second child Skye,
3 12 July 1998 through up until April 2001. Now I believe
4 that that was a lease arrangement, I believe it's not
5 contested between Ms Cressy as the tenant and the
6 administer of housing, public housing Your Honour. A low
7 rental arrangement managed by the Salvation Army under a
8 young women in distress program emergency short term
9 accommodation. She'd been there nearly three years Your
10 Honour. She told me she was under pressure to move out.
11 I sought because of the gravity of, of - her children
12 were in long term care in the Geelong area. Treece's
13 biological father, although the contact was intermittent,
14 was in the Geelong area. Her mother was in the Geelong
15 area. All the gravity pointed to Ms Cressy staying with
16 her children in the Geelong region even after I relocated
17 back up to Melbourne. She was unable to find alternative
18 accommodation, I was unable to find alternative
19 accommodation even if I put my name down on the lease.
20 And things were looking rather grim and in the end I
21 agreed to her request to let her and the children move up
22 with me to South Yarra. So from about June 2001 there
23 was Ms Cressy and I plus Treece, Skye and Illyana living
24 in the house that I rented in my name and under the lease
25 I was supposed to be the only tenant, in Nicholson
26 Street, South Yarra. Things were all a bit hectic and
27 stressful especially when Mr Peter Cochran erupted on the
28 scene about five months later. So I had a period of
29 about a year where after discussing things with Julie,
30 I'd backed out of spending time with my own three
31 children, David, Dylan and Jessie. Certainly I wouldn't

2Cressy
1 bring them to the house because it was, it was - there
2 was too, too much negative stress ball - there's no way
3 you could be a nurturing parent with the children in that
4 environment. So I had very little contact. Of course I
5 kept the funding up to Julie, we stayed in contact by
6 phone. I would visit the children for a few hours of a
7 weekend but I certainly didn't have them living over - I
8 didn't have any live with time under the new (indistinct)
9 with my three children for that period. And when that
10 period ended I was quite shocked actually when I saw them
11 again. They changed remarkably in the year or so - - -
12Well now you're becoming irrelevant again?---I hope I'm doing
13 all right mostly Your Honour. That was the configuration
14 of the household up until, and I hope I'm starting to
15 overlap a little bit on my earlier evidence until Ms
16 Cressy - - -
17(Indistinct) on your evidence?---I hope I'm overlapping
18 consistently - - -
19You were there until 7 March 2003 when you moved into
20 Dorrington Street - - -?---Thank you Your Honour and
21 about six months earlier Ms Cressy Senior - - -
22Yes?---- - - and Rose - - -
23Had moved into South Yarra and the whole lot of you moved to
24 Dorrington Street?---And I believe that there's no
25 controversy or contest about those facts Your Honour.
26No. But then what becomes controversial is you say you moved
27 out of Dorrington Street after a few months and lived out
28 of Bourke Street?---Yes Your Honour.
29We've heard that evidence on Friday?---Thank you Your Honour.
30 So we've completed that daisy loop, that's excellent.
31 While I was living at Nicholson Street with just the one

2Cressy
1 Ms Cressy I secured a position with Primelife
2 Corporation.
3Yes?---That was when I began working four days a week with
4 them. Initially at an hourly rate of $55 an hour. By
5 the time I finished up with them in the first quarter of
6 2007 that had grown up to $275 an hour and my time sheets
7 and my tax invoices and work reports show that it was
8 very rare for me to work under 60 hours a week for that
9 company.
10Sixty hours a week?---Very rare, yes. And there was some
11 fortnights where, you know, I would be recording 120, 130
12 hours a week. All my time. I did have staff later doing
13 some work from Primelife under me, but that, that was
14 much later. At the same time I was spending one day a
15 week in Geelong. Under my arrangements I'd ceased to be
16 full time, part-time with Barwon Water and I would be
17 doing ten, 15, 20 hours of Barwon Water work off site out
18 of Geelong from my little hole in the wall office in
19 Nicholson Street, South Yarra. So the cash flow was
20 running good and I'm overlapping and repeating so I've
21 closed that daisy loop as well. I had a lot of funding
22 and the tax environment was very kind in terms of when I
23 had to pay the tax money (indistinct).
24Yes?---So I had more than enough money to fund all of these
25 property purchases I did at which Dorrington Street,
26 Point Cook was the first one. I then signed up for the
27 two Hoppers on the one day, got the red carpet treatment
28 because it was two purchase, not one and an investor not
29 an occupier - - -
30MR DEVRIES: We've been through this - - -
31HIS HONOUR: We have - - - ?---I have Your Honour. So I've

2Cressy
1 completed that loop, thank you Your Honour. I think I
2 completed my employment history. I've completed
3 Ms Cressy's employment history as employed by me
4 including in the double trump stage where she was working
5 on my properties because she was on my pay roll and that
6 was generally what she was doing. Her mother did some
7 work for me, office administration work. Her mother
8 moved to Lisa Court in Hoppers Crossing June 2004, I know
9 I'm repeating. The reason is that while I was at
10 Dorrington Street I needed an office area, a home office
11 area. So I set that up with a desk and computer et
12 cetera. Now when I moved out I left that there and I
13 brought a computer in because I was paying Ms Cressy
14 Senior to do some accounting type work. Basically
15 recording my time sheets for me. These were all things I
16 had to do and lawyers being lawyers the last thing that
17 you like doing is filling in your time sheet at the end
18 of the day. I certainly (indistinct). So Ms Cressy
19 Senior was processing those for me so she would travel
20 from Lisa Court where she was living to Dorrington Street
21 where her daughter was living. She would work on the
22 computers there, processing my time sheets. I would drop
23 these off in batches once or twice a week when I was
24 coming in, there'd be an envelope with some cash. She
25 would write down her hours if she'd worked. I was also
26 providing money for living expenses for Ms Cressy Junior
27 and the children. Her mother was administering those
28 aspects and she was even doing a bit of cooking for the
29 children as well so there were notes that she would give
30 me of what money she had spent on you know, food and, and
31 outings and that sort of thing for the children. Both

2Cressy
1 women were driving cars that I provided to them
2 (indistinct). They were driving my cars. Paying for
3 their own petrol but driving my cars nonetheless. Her
4 mother gave evidence that the first year that she was
5 renting out at Lisa Court even though the rent was only
6 half market, she didn't pay any rent. She was - instead
7 of paying me the rent money at half market she was
8 putting the money to buy a car. She was driving one of
9 my cars while she was saving.
10That's getting pretty irrelevant. Can I - - - ?---To - - -
11Let's just stick to - - - ?---The relevance is that that is why
12 the bills (indistinct) for Dorrington Street - - -
13Yes I understand?---- - - wasn't really my office but the bulk
14 of the period - - -
15Well the short point is you left an office there because Gail
16 Cressy went there to do your billing?---Exactly. Time
17 sheet entry yes Your Honour. Yes. That is pretty much
18 the way my, my practice, Sutton Johnson - I, I only used
19 that for a couple of years Your Honour to Sutton Johnson
20 as the name for my individual sole practice. I let the
21 name go for a couple of years and practice under my own
22 name, James Johnson because the water authorities that I
23 was working for, after I went part time with Baron Water
24 I began getting jobs from the other water authorities
25 around the state. They all just knew me as James
26 Johnson. I wasn't writing for the Law Institute, my
27 monthly column. I didn't need the Sutton Johnson name
28 anymore and I actually let it lapse, the registration
29 lapse and then I realised that all the people referred to
30 me as Mr GST from Sutton Johnson, a lot of lawyers. So I
31 realised that I needed to pick it back up for protective

2Cressy
1 purposes. There was some value in that. So I did
2 re-register it. The name Sutton Johnson appears in a lot
3 of my documents including tax returns. Just as a matter
4 of continuity, you don't get time to go back and correct
5 everything but for a long period of time it was just like
6 a little accounting department in my mind. I had
7 services provided to me which I continue to use, title
8 searching and that sort of thing. Me as me whether I
9 call myself James Johnson or James Johnson (indistinct)
10 and Johnson so I just let them run. In about June, June
11 2000 - am I getting this year right? I think it was late
12 2005 I decided to, rather than practicing as James
13 Johnson and having this little Sutton Johnson, there was
14 a Johnson Johnson continuous, I decided to rename my
15 practice as Johnson Legal and I started promoting that to
16 both my client basis, Johnson Legal. So that business
17 name appears in some of my later tax returns and papers
18 and, and retainer letters. At about that time I also
19 decided, well look I'm doing all right here with the
20 legal practice but a lot of what I'm doing is really
21 commercial work. Even for the water authorities 80 per
22 cent of it was commercial rather than legal.
23Get to the point?---I created a company, a corporate advisory
24 company called Johnson Corporate and my intention was
25 eventually to move out of legal practice into corporate
26 advisory work. It was an intention I never fully
27 realised. I continued to do exactly the same work but
28 sort of a little uncertain whether it was me, Harold
29 James Johnson trading as Johnson Legal, or Johnson
30 Corporate Pty Ltd trading as Johnson Corporate. Things
31 just started to happen very fast and furious, so those

2Cressy
1 plans didn't fully mature. I organised - because I
2 didn't want clients in my home at Bourke Street, just my
3 personality that that was - - -
4You had a serviced office at 140 Bourke Street?---Level 40,
5 thank you Your Honour.
6You told me that on Friday?---The problem I have, Your Honour,
7 is I have told you things via puttage and cross-
8 examination which don't count.
9Don't worry about that?---Thank you, Your Honour. I may be
10 tripling up, that's the reason. OK. My relationship
11 with Primelife Corporation continued on that basis upon
12 until - financially up until December, Christmas Eve
13 2006. Politically I had been there longer, I had been
14 there through the 10 cent days, the Ron Walker, Robert
15 Discrepancy days, the Babcock and Brown days - - -
16That doesn't matter, it's the period of time?---There were less
17 than this many people who had been there longer than I
18 had, despite the fact that I was engaged originally on a
19 three month contract. I'd been there I think six years,
20 seven years. They didn't know how to say they didn't
21 need me anymore, so I had to actually encourage them to
22 formally quit my retainer arrangement and that happened
23 just before Easter 2007. But that stripped me of over
24 two thirds of my earnings. Not unexpected, but I needed
25 some time to turn around and find alternative sources of
26 income. I also had some unproductive staff that I had
27 engaged lawyers that were a bad mistake, that were a big
28 cash train, were not producing and I needed to get rid of
29 them as well. What I did at that point, I had been
30 dating - from early 2004 - - -
31We have really got up to your income source at the time of the

2Cressy
1 - what the plaintiff says is the end of your
2 relationship?---Yes, Your Honour, I think I've said
3 enough on income sources now.
4It seems to me you would be right?---Yes, in terms of emotional
5 relationships. Between 2004 and 2005 I was dating a
6 young lady Elizabeth Erasmus. I didn't have time for a
7 full time relationship. I'm not the sort of guy who
8 mucks around, Your Honour, we were - - -
9You have told me that many times?---It is an important part of
10 my character, Your Honour. We would meet and we would
11 have dinner, we would go out two, three times a week for
12 that period, 2004, 2006. I didn't see a lot of Elizabeth
13 during 2006 because she was overseas. She never slept
14 over at my apartment, not once. I was quite keen on
15 that. Not to develop too far because I wasn't - with my
16 other family commitments I wasn't emotionally available.
17 But we were and we remain good friends. We stopped
18 seeing each other romantically in late December 2006,
19 early 2007. We did subsequently organise a holiday to
20 Hong Kong for May 2007 but I pulled out of that.
21 Elizabeth went by herself, she had family there she was
22 catching up with. In January 2007 I had met a lovely
23 young lady, Portuguese background.
24This is Stella?---Yes.
25We heard about this on Friday?---You have heard about this?
26I have heard about Stella from the same person who is telling
27 me now?---Thank you, Your Honour. Including my desire to
28 learn a bit of Portuguese to speak to her mum.
29Yes, we've heard about that?---Thank you, Your Honour. I
30 mention one break point in terms of my affairs with Ms
31 Cressy and that was the day I signed the lease on the

2Cressy
1 Mallop Street shop in December 1999. We had another
2 break point in the week after Easter 2007. Now, however
3 you describe Ms Cressy's relationship and mine from July
4 2003 up to the relevant break point in 2007, this is the
5 break point. It was in April, it was the Thursday after
6 Easter, which was early that year. Ms Cressy and I had
7 been talking about - or I had been trying to encourage
8 her to come on a holiday with me to the Whitsunday's so
9 we could talk about things. There was also this
10 possibility in my relationship with Ms Cressy that we
11 might at some stage when whatever the feminine equivalent
12 of sowing your wild oats is, once she had completed that
13 process perhaps we might go into a relationship. But
14 that process - the wild oats, it's never actually
15 finished and I believe it's still ongoing, Your Honour,
16 from evidence given in cross-examination from Ms Cressy.
17 Anyway, Ms Cressy turned me down on that. So I thought
18 I'm not going to waste my Easter. I believe I may have
19 given some of this evidence on Friday Your Honour.
20You did?---Thank you. So Stella and I went up to Byron Bay and
21 did a diving course, we were half a kilometre off the
22 coast of Byron Bay for most of Easter 20 metres under the
23 water, it was beautiful. Came back, I had been dating
24 Stella, I feel that I fell in love with her on that
25 Easter weekend. On the Thursday Stella and I drove in
26 from her house into the city to my apartment. I had rung
27 my employee who I was on the point of firing and should
28 have done that pre-Christmas. Told him to go home early.
29 I come up to my apartment, Stella had stayed down in the
30 car park because she didn't want to meet this fellow
31 Andrew. So I go up to my apartment. Andrew is still in

2Cressy
1 my apartment - - -
2Mr Johnson - - - ?---Ms Cressy was in the apartment as well
3 Your Honour.
4Are you getting to the point after a very long digression?
5 ---Yes, I am, yes, I am, thank you Your Honour.
6If there were demerit points for irrelevance, you'd be so far
7 in debt it just would be irredeemable. Now, just do
8 stick to the point, OK?---Yes.
9There are relevant issues that's already flagged with you, you
10 need to address in your evidence?---Yes, Your Honour.
11OK?---I dismissed Andrew. He went home. I went down and said
12 goodbye to Stella, came back up. Ms Cressy and I had a
13 discussion on that day and over the forthcoming days
14 which was along the lines of, "James, I've just come back
15 from spending Sydney with my boyfriend Mark," the first
16 time that Ms Cressy discussed him with me. "He doesn’t
17 know, but I'm never going to see him again. I had a
18 break through moment. I realised you're the man I want
19 to be with. I'm going to break up with Mark. I'm going
20 to break up with my other boyfriend," who is actually -
21 Mark was from Melbourne, Toorak. "I'm going to break up
22 with my other boyfriend Zac who is in Sydney. No, maybe
23 I won't. Maybe he's just really a friend. You're the
24 man I want to spend the rest of my life with. Come on,
25 James. How about it?" Now, I - I - the short answer is
26 that I - I said, "Let me think about it," because I
27 needed to buy some time. And if that proposal had been
28 put to me even a year earlier, none of us people would be
29 in your courtroom today, Your Honour. But the timing, it
30 was just too late and it was too yucky, the way that it
31 was done.

2Cressy
1Well, late, I take it you rejected that suggestion?---Yes, I
2 did reject it, and that resulted in all sorts of
3 subsequent episodes.
4Well, that doesn't matter. It's just simply the - - -?---Which
5 I don't want to talk about.
6No, and I don't want to hear about it?---And it wouldn't be
7 what you want to hear, Your Honour.
8No, because it's not relevant to what I need to decide in this
9 case?---Yes. So from that point onwards, Ms Cressy and I
10 have been communicating through court process and
11 accredited family law specialists which is not the ideal
12 way.
13Right, I don't need that either?---Thank you, Your Honour. I
14 was no longer working at Primelife. I needed to focus.
15 I needed to market. I needed to go back to my former
16 contacts to generate (indistinct)
17Well, I think we're at the end point of the relevant evidence,
18 aren't we, in terms of time?---No, Your Honour. My
19 relationship with Barwon Water continued up until the end
20 of October 2007, my intention being to move my home to
21 Torquay to work in Geelong, to set up the house for the
22 Cressy children in Altona with Ms Cressy alternately
23 living in the house with the children one week, me coming
24 in the other week. I was going to step down and work
25 three days a week, earning $3000 a day. That was plenty.
26 It's all I needed to do. And concentrating on quality
27 parenting for my daughter, and in the process her two
28 half brothers, the younger of which Ms Cressy had always
29 raised, believing that he was my biological daughter -
30 biological son, that Illyana and Skye were full blooded
31 brother and sister. It's not something that I insisted

2Cressy
1 on ever required, it was all Ms Cressy's doing, that was.
2 That fell through with the managing director retiring at
3 Barwon Water. There was a new managing director
4 appointed and a new broom went through.
5I don't think it matters. All that's, if there's any relevance
6 at all, is that you completed working with Barwon Water
7 in October 2007?---Yes, Your Honour. My relationship
8 with Harwood Andrews being tied up with my relationship
9 with Barwon Water, Your Honour, so it's relevant to those
10 counter claims. OK. What I want to do next, Your
11 Honour, is give evidence relevant to my relationship with
12 Harwood Andrews, so it's primarily in respect of my
13 counter claims against Mr Hanlon and Harwood Andrews, but
14 it also will bring in description of the financial
15 circumstances for my properties. So it's also relevant
16 to my defence of Ms Cressy's claim, and also relevant to
17 the third aspect, my counter claim against Ms Cressy.
18 OK. My relationship with Harwood Andrews commenced
19 shortly after I joined Barwon Water in October 1999. Up
20 to that point, Barwon Water had never had an internal
21 legal branch or an internal legal manager or internal
22 legal counsel. So when I joined them, I was all those
23 three things. I was a branch manager of a branch of one.
24 A full time employee, I was briefed by the then managing
25 director who was there and did not retire until about
26 September 2007. My brief was to cut down on the millions
27 of dollars they were paying in legal fees, the bulk of
28 which were being paid to Harwood Andrews.
29MS SOFRONIOU: Objection.
30HIS HONOUR: Yes, I don't see the relevance of this. You've
31 articulated specific - well, that's a side of the

2Cressy
1 statement, yes, but articulated in your counter claim
2 some claims against Mr Hanlon and Harwood Andrews?---Yes,
3 Your Honour.
4Now, you've addressed them. There's no question of your
5 relationship with Harwood Andrews, it would seem to me.
6 It's a question of the allegations you made against
7 Harwood Andrews and Mr Hanlon in your counter claim, and
8 you are entitled to give evidence in relation to those
9 matters?---May I point out firstly, Your Honour, that
10 that counter claim and defence were just holding fees.
11No, they aren't. They are the pleadings. This is a court of
12 pleading, and they are the claims that I am here to
13 decide?---Your Honour, they were to be - - -
14I cannot decide anything else. They are the claims that are
15 pleaded?---I have consistently maintained I couldn't
16 finalise my pleadings until after discovery, and the way
17 that the plaintiff has conducted her case, there simply
18 hasn't been discovery.
19Mr Johnson, the 2nd and 3rd defendants by counter claim are
20 here to answer particular claims brought by you against
21 them. They're the claims in your pleading. That is how
22 this court has always operated. And I believe you are a
23 sufficiently good enough lawyer to know that. The fact
24 of the matter is that you cannot articulate claim or try
25 to make claims that border outside those counterclaims.
26MR DEVRIES: As well, Your Honour, he had the opportunity on
27 Friday to discontinue his proceedings against those
28 defendants.
29HIS HONOUR: I understand that.
30MR DEVRIES: And chose not to, and if he's now going to do
31 that, we've wasted an enormous amount of time.

2Cressy
1HIS HONOUR: I don't know what he's going to do, but he wants
2 her to give evidence relating to Harwood Andrews.
3 Ms Sofroniou has correctly objected to what seemed to be
4 entirely irrelevant evidence, and I ruled it
5 inadmissible. It doesn't seem to me they relate at all
6 to the counterclaims. Your entitled to give evidence
7 relevant to the counterclaims that you have pleaded?
8 ---Your Honour, I wish to proceed with my counterclaims
9 against um David William Hanlon and Harwood Andrews Pty
10 Ltd.
11Yes?---And incorporate a legal practice, just like my defence
12 counsel alter ego. I've been disadvantaged, because
13 proper direction orders were never made, and proper
14 discovery has not been made, proper pleading has not been
15 made because of the way that the plaintiff has chosen to
16 run this case without normal court procedures. I believe
17 that Your Honour has power under the rules to allow a
18 claim to proceed even in the absence of pleadings.
19No I don't?---I believe that is in the rules, Your Honour.
20I would not do that. I would allow you to amend your
21 pleadings, subject to any issues of prejudice to the
22 defendants, however this court is a court of pleading, it
23 is a common law court, the proceedings are by way of
24 writ, you managed to deliver a defence and to serve
25 counterclaims against all defendants. I will not hear
26 claims outside those pleadings. It would be a matter of
27 breach of the rules of natural justice to permit you to
28 wander at large and make unspecified claims against any
29 party which I've had no notice?---I believe I have
30 sufficient facts stated in my February 2008
31 counterclaims, on which to ground my counterclaims

2Cressy
1 against David William Hanlon and Howard Andrews Pty Ltd.
2You have to prove those facts?---I appreciate that,
3 Your Honour.
4Do you understand, pleadings are bear allegations, they have no
5 evidentiary value?---Yes, Your Honour. May I also say
6 that there are other proceedings in this honourable court
7 on foot, Proceedings 9623 of 2008. There is some overlap
8 in - - -
9Yes, you've mentioned that, but I'm hearing - - -?---Thank you,
10 Your Honour.
11A different proceeding?---Thank you.
12I'm hearing Proceeding 9665 of 2007?---And I did seek to have
13 the two conjoined Your Honour.
14Yes?---Thank you, Your Honour. I met the two senior partners
15 of Harwood Andrews, two of them are senior partners of
16 Harwood Andrews. Certainly within a fortnight of joining
17 Barwon Water, I was introduced to Richard Anderson - - -
18MS SOFRONIOU: I object, Your Honour. The circumstances of the
19 first meeting way precedes the matters listed in the
20 counterclaim.
21HIS HONOUR: I agree with that?---Your Honour, I believe this
22 is relevant because I had an eight year plus relationship
23 with Richard Anderson and Warwick Nelson in Harwood
24 Andrews Pty Ltd. They were my external counsel during
25 the whole of the period of - - -
26What is the relevance of that to the allegations? You have
27 made allegations against Harwood Andrews commencing at
28 Paragraph 22 of your counterclaim. That is a - the first
29 allegation relates to the, what you say is Mr Hanlan's
30 registration of a caveat which is not as yet in evidence,
31 as I understand it on behalf of the plaintiff?---

2Cressy
1
2 Your Honour, may - - -
3Secondly, at Paragraphs 27 and following, you have made an
4 allegation against Mr Hanlan and Harwood Andrews, that
5 they were in some way involved in the alleged thefts that
6 you say the plaintiff committed on 16 November 2007. You
7 declined to cross-examine the plaintiff in relation to
8 that after she had been cross-examined by Ms Sofroniou on
9 that, when you were given full opportunity to do that.
10 They're the matters you're here to address?---
11 Your Honour, I note the time, and I need to um follow up
12 on that service of subpoena for Mr Peter Cochran.
13I don't say things - - -?---And I'd like to refresh on my
14 amended defence and counterclaim, because that's a
15 document in truth I haven't looked at for many months.
16I can't understand why you haven't looked at it. You brought
17 the three, the defendants to counterclaim here on
18 particularly serious allegations. You talk – you raise
19 issue of Briginshaw. There is no doubt that the
20 Briginshaw principles would apply with full force in
21 relation to the allegations you make to Paragraph 27 and
22 28 of the counterclaim?---And - - -
23You are an officer of this court. You know the seriousness of
24 making allegations like that in a court document when you
25 have not as yet after four and a half days sought to
26 address them. You seem not now that you wish to do so?
27 ---I do wish to address them, Your Honour.
28I will give you 15 minutes to telephone your process server,
29 and to contemplate your counterclaim. I will be back at
30 3.30, no later?---Thank you, Your Honour.
31 (Short adjournment.)

2Cressy
1HIS HONOUR: Mr Johnson?---Thank you Your Honour. I'm pleased
2 to report, as defence counsel, I used the break wisely.
3 Mr Stephen Whitiking, I'm not sure on the pronunciation,
4 the process server, will be available in court first
5 thing tomorrow I'm told to give evidence that he did
6 indeed serve conduct money when he served
7 Mr Peter Cochran. Your Honour I'll continue with my
8 evidence. I'm looking at Paragraph 15B of the
9 plaintiff's statement of claim as amended on Friday and
10 I'm looking at Paragraph 22 of my counter claim.
11Just a minute?---Which is dated 18 February 2008.
12Yes?---Thank you Your Honour. I did wish to give evidence of
13 my eight year relationship with Harwood Andrews including
14 first name basis with the current chairman.
15How is that relevant to your counter claim?---Because part of
16 my counter claim is the fact that Harwood Andrews should
17 never have accepted instructions from Ms Cressy - - -
18You haven't pleaded - - -
19MS SOFRONIOU: Well I object to that.
20HIS HONOUR: You haven't pleaded breach of fiduciary duty or
21 any other basis?---Because I had expected the pleadings
22 would not be settled until after discovery and there was
23 no discovery. The issue was raised in the other - - -
24Mr Johnson I have (indistinct) if you intend, if you wish to
25 make a claim not in your pleadings then you will not be
26 able to do so without an amendment of your pleadings.
27 You have to make proper application to do that and I
28 would only allow an amendment if it did not prejudice the
29 defendant in their defence?---In the circumstances then
30 we should proceed with the pleadings as I drew them in
31 February this year.

2Cressy
1Yes?---Thank you Your Honour. I hope not to transgress again
2 on that point.
3Yes well I expect you not to. You're an intelligent person.
4 You know exactly what is required to adhere to the issues
5 stated in that counter claim?---I'm flattered Your
6 Honour, thank you. The first I became aware of Harwood
7 Andrews Pty Ltd having any involvement in these
8 proceedings for the plaintiff was when I received a
9 letter from the Department of Sustainability and
10 Environment informing me that they had imposed a caveat
11 over my property at Altona.
12MS SOFRONIOU: Well I object to that too because the caveats in
13 question that give rise to the claim is only one type of
14 caveat. It's not in respect to the caveats issued on
15 behalf of the plaintiff so - - -
16HIS HONOUR: Yes I follow that.
17MS SOFRONIOU: - - - to that extent there may be some overlap
18 (indistinct).
19HIS HONOUR: Yes Ms Sofroniou. You are correct. The cause of
20 action such as it is as stated in the counter claim
21 relating to Harwood Andrews relates to one caveat?
22 ---Yes Your Honour. The, what I've called the Harwood
23 Andrews caveat.
24Yes?---Caveat No.AFO66328D.
25Yes?---The affidavit of Mr Hanlon undated but I believe was put
26 on my desk on the 2nd - on the Bar table 2 December.
27 I've already handed up a full copy of the plaintiff's
28 Exhibit A. This is another exhibit to that affidavit
29 Your Honour. It's a copy of the caveat. I'd like to
30 tender it.
31Yes?---Thank you Your Honour.

2Cressy
1
2#EXHIBIT 22 - Caveat No.AFO66328D dated 09/05/07
3 launched by Harwood Andrews Pty Ltd as caveator
4 over the land containing certificate of
5 title volume 4948 folio 514.
6WITNESS: Thank you Your Honour. If I may go back to
7 Paragraph 15B of the amended statement of claim of the
8 plaintiff, there's reference to my letter of 29 October
9 2007. With its exhibits it is Exhibit 15 Your Honour as
10 fully tendered by me this morning, Exhibit 15.
11This is a fax by you to Mr Hanlon of 29 October 2007?---Yes
12 Your Honour that's correct.
13Yes?---With the attachments. That - - -
14You sent the fax to Mr Hanlon on 29 October?---Yes Your Honour.
15Yes?---At that point in time the totality of the plaintiff's
16 claim against my assets and the totality of Harwood
17 Andrews Pty Ltd's claim against my assets were set out in
18 those two caveats. The caveat that I've just exhibited
19 and the caveat which is Exhibit 16 Your Honour.
20Yes?---Thank you Your Honour. There were no pleadings
21 prepared.
22This proceeding that we're in now, Your Honour, had not
23 commenced. I am writing to David William Hanlon and/or
24 Harwood Andrews Pty Ltd trying to explain to them that
25 these are my properties and that Ms Cressy has not
26 contributed anything by way of acquisition, the other
27 form of words, improvement, et cetera to the properties.
28 I am seeking to have the caveat lifted from Gibson
29 Street, at least to buy me some breathing space, some
30 funding so I can continue my generous financial support -
31 not only myself but Julie and the three children, Ms
32 Cressy and the three children, Treece, Skye and Illyana.
33 In that context I wrote particularly a number of letters

2Cressy
1 during late October 2007 to Harwood Andrews. I wonder
2 whether I should put them in as exhibits right at this
3 point Your Honour.
4Well, that is a matter for you. If you consider they are
5 relevant to this claim you are entitled to tender them?
6 ---May I be allowed to step down to get those?
7Yes?---Thank you, Your Honour.
8MR DEVRIES: Whilst he is doing that, Your Honour, I am
9 instructed to admit that my client gave the charge to
10 Harwood Andrews as referred to in that caveat and it's
11 also referred to in another caveat and if that does come
12 up I am similarly instructed to admit that charge was
13 given. Hopefully that might shorten things a little bit.
14HIS HONOUR: Thank you. Well, you say there was a charge given
15 by the plaintiff to Harwood Andrews?
16MR DEVRIES: Yes.
17HIS HONOUR: Dated 8 May 2007.
18MR DEVRIES: That's correct, Your Honour.
19HIS HONOUR: Is there a copy of that charge that can be
20 tendered?
21MR DEVRIES: I can, Your Honour, yes.
22HIS HONOUR: Just a moment, we will just wait for Mr Johnson
23 who is collecting documents. Mr Johnson is in evidence,
24 we will just allow him to get his documents together and
25 we can raise - - -
26MR DEVRIES: He has got a copy of that Your Honour.
27HIS HONOUR: Yes, he is at the moment at the Bar table sorting
28 his documents out.
29MR DEVRIES: I am just - - -
30HIS HONOUR: Conscious of the time?
31MR DEVRIES: I'm just trying as hard as I can to shorten it as

2Cressy
1 much as I can without doing my client any - - -
2HIS HONOUR: I understand that Mr Devries. Commendable intent.
3MR DEVRIES: I suspect there is a large degree of self-interest
4 in that as well, Your Honour?---Your Honour, I'm having
5 trouble finding them, perhaps if I could find them this
6 morning and put them in in the morning.
7HIS HONOUR: All right?---Thank you, Your Honour.
8While you were looking for those documents Mr Devries to save
9 time has admitted on behalf of his client that a charge
10 was executed by the plaintiff in favour of Harwood
11 Andrews, dated 8 May 2007. He has offered to tender that
12 charge in this case?---Your Honour, I saw this for the
13 first time as part of Mr Hanlon's affidavit of
14 1 December. I am quite happy to tender that.
15What is it, the charge is it?---That is the charge apparently
16 Your Honour.
17Thank you. That may speed things alone?---Thank you, Your
18 Honour.
19I will have a look and see that is tendered through you.
20
21#EXHIBIT 23 - Copy of equitable charge
22 by the plaintiff to
23 Harwood Andrews Pty
24 Ltd, dated 8/05/07.
25HIS HONOUR: Yes?---Your Honour, my defence counsel takes issue
26 as to any legal impact of that document but I believe
27 that is the submission not evidence-in-chief, thank you
28 Your Honour. A series of I think five letters to Mr
29 Hanlon's attention at Harwood Andrews. I sent the letter
30 which was dated 29 October 2007. Now, attached to that
31 letter - my objective was to have the caveat withdraw
32 from Dixon Street so that I could do a refinancing to
33 keep the sinking ship afloat. I attached to that letter

2Cressy
1 copies of - there is a settlement summary letter. I
2 covered this a little bit this morning already Your
3 Honour and pointed out that I didn't contribute any money
4 into the funding acquisition or improvement of the
5 property. My bank funded me 111 per cent or thereabouts
6 and I got cash back. I put the proposition that given
7 that if I didn't provide anything for the acquisition,
8 maintenance or improvement of the property, his client
9 most certainly did not either and demonstrably the claim
10 in the plaintiff's caveat for that property was improper
11 and vexatious and should be removed.
12MS SOFRONIOU: I object, Your Honour, on two bases, one in
13 terms of relevance to my client's case, but secondly if
14 that is put forward as I understand it to be as truth of
15 what was asserted, then it's hearsay or it's a
16 conclusion.
17HIS HONOUR: It's a conclusion and if he is putting it forward
18 as the contents of a letter the letter speaks for itself.
19 So you simply sent that letter, now what happened after
20 that letter was sent?---I did my weekly checks of my
21 titles by my online title search process and I identified
22 a couple of weeks later that the caveat had been removed
23 from Gibson Street. Would have been about mid November,
24 I guess.
25This is a caveat in respect of Queen Street, wasn't it?---No,
26 no, no. This was Exhibit - Exhibit 15. Exhibit 16
27 caveat, Your Honour. My letter was about the Exhibit 16
28 caveat.
29Yes?---Harwood Andrews never at any time have caveated, or at
30 this relevant time. They only caveated the Altona
31 property, Your Honour.

2Cressy
1Yes?---Yes, Your Honour.
2But you wrote the letter concerning the Caulfield East
3 property?---Exactly, and that caveat - that caveat was
4 withdrawn, Your Honour. I was given no correspondence,
5 no explanation, no courtesy of notice, either when the
6 caveat was put on or when it was removed. I was simply
7 left to find out for myself.
8Yes?---By my own careful investigation. That opened the door
9 for me to do the refinancing of Caulfield, and I talked
10 about that in this morning's evidence, Your Honour. It
11 appears what happened at the same time was that Harwood
12 Andrews withdrew the caveat that they had taken, and did
13 that charge document that I saw for the first time last
14 week over my Altona property.
15Yes?---I had no knowledge of that until in about December 2007
16 I put together contracts for the sale of the property.
17Of Queen Street?---Yes, yes. I had attempted other discussions
18 which I think I'm not allowed to discuss with Your
19 Honour. I put out offer waves, but nothing could come
20 back. There was just silence, Your Honour. Desperately
21 to try to work out what to do, I filed an 89A application
22 objecting to all of Ms Cressy's caveats against all of my
23 properties, separate 89A applications for each of them,
24 but I did not put an application in in respect of the
25 Queen Street property. My negotiating stance was that,
26 and I had a discussion with Ms Cressy to this effect as
27 early as July 2007, "Look, I understand you're scared.
28 You want some security. Keep the one at Altona for the
29 time being and we'll talk about it. It's not right, but
30 keep it if you feel comfortable. Drop the other caveats
31 please because I need to be able to sell some properties

2Cressy
1 to keep some properties, or things are going to get very
2 very desperate." Ms Cressy responded in that
3 conversation, "Well, no, I'm not going to do that because
4 I've been told that once I remove a caveat, I can never
5 put it back again." That was the gist of that
6 conversation. So I put my 89A applications in for all
7 the properties. I then thought, well, I'll negotiate a
8 sale for the Altona property because things are starting
9 to get grim. That's the one with the most equity in it.
10 That's the one to sacrifice to keep the other properties
11 in place. And I was offering - sorry, I can't talk about
12 that, Your Honour.
13OK?---So in late December through the agent I bought the
14 property through, Altona for $500,000 in the February
15 2006 contracts, I signed a contract to sell the property.
16 I think it was dated 22 December 2007, a 60 day
17 settlement for $770,000.
18MS SOFRONIOU: Well, I object to that evidence in that form,
19 Your Honour. It's an assertion of the contents of a
20 document that I don't understand to be before the court.
21HIS HONOUR: Yes?---I would like to tender that document, Your
22 Honour.
23HIS HONOUR: Yes, certainly?---Your Honour, this is a document
24 that I did disclose pursuant to the orders that Mr
25 Justice Whelan made on 12 March 2008.
26Yes?---Those orders require me to disclose such documents as
27 are in my possession regarding three of my properties.
28 From memory, it was Altona.
29Well, I don't hear Ms Sofroniou saying you haven't but - - -?
30 ---Point Cook.
31She was objecting to you giving oral evidence as to the

2Cressy
1 contents of a written document?---Yes, the simple point I
2 wanted to make to close it out, Your Honour, is that
3 those orders Mr Justice Whelan made only because I
4 consented to them. OK.
5They are irrelevant. Stick to the point, and we'll finally get
6 to the end of your evidence one day?---I have a large
7 bundle of documents, Your Honour, which I provided as
8 part of that process.
9That's irrelevant. As I understand it, you are seeking to put
10 in evidence a contract which you say you entered into to
11 sell the Altona property in late 2007. You started to
12 give oral evidence of the contents of that document.
13 Ms Sofroniou has correctly objected?---I - I didn't.
14And you should tender the contract because you say you've got
15 it there?---I'll do them piecemeal, Your Honour. Thank
16 you, Your Honour. This is the contract of sale dated, I
17 think, 22 December 2006.
18Six or seven?---2000 and - yes, Your Honour, 2000 and - 2007,
19 Your Honour.
20Thank you, can I have a look? Thanks again. Did you see this?
21MS SOFRONIOU: Yes, thank you, Your Honour. I'm not saying
22 it's relevant to any case against my client. It escapes
23 me however that - - -
24HIS HONOUR: Well, I will receive it as an exhibit.
25MS SOFRONIOU: Subject to objection if you would Your Honour.
26HIS HONOUR: Yes, well, subject to the questions of relevance
27 filed.
28
29#EXHIBIT 24 - Copy contract of sale of the property at
30 166 Queen Street, Altona, between the
31 defendant as vendor and David Peter
32 Cudmore and/or nominee as purchaser dated
33 24/12/07.
34MR DEVRIES: If I could also reserve the right - - -
2Cressy
1HIS HONOUR: Yes, you're both now.
2MR DEVRIES: - - - to object at a later stage to its relevance?
3HIS HONOUR: Yes?---Your Honour, I'd - I believe that I am
4 giving evidence relevant not only to my defence to
5 Ms Cressy's claim, but also to my counterclaim against
6 her and my counterclaim against - - -
7HIS HONOUR: Yes. Can we just proceed? I've received it at
8 the moment?---Thank you Your Honour?---On 21 - oh. OK.
9 Your Honour, I wrote to Ms Cressy via David Hanlon at
10 Harwood Andrews advising - sorry, I'll start again. Um,
11 at about the same time I entered into contracts for the
12 sale of the house that I was occupying which was
13 Dorrington Street, in Inverloch Drive, Point Cook, and I
14 would like to exhibit those contracts as well please, all
15 of which have been disclosed to the parties pursuant to
16 Mr Justice Whelan's orders.
17Just tender the document?---Thank you Your Honour. This is the
18 contract of sale dated 16 January 2008 for the sale of
19 2 Dorrington Street, Point Cook.
20MS SOFRONIOU: So, I object to it on the ground of relevance in
21 respect of my client's (indistinct).
22HIS HONOUR: Yes. Thank you. Well its not pleaded against
23 your client as far as - - -
24MS SOFRONIOU: Indeed, and there may be residual relevance, but
25 I put that object on record in case it's - - -
26HIS HONOUR: Well, I assume this is going to the claim against
27 the - the counterclaim against the plaintiff?---All - all
28 (indistinct) by counterclaim Your Honour.
29No?---Because it's evidence against all three.
30You haven't pleaded a claim in relation to the Dorrington
31 Street property against Harwood Andrews?---Because when

2Cressy
1 the pleadings were drawn up on 18 - - -
2I have - I'm not going to get into this argument with you
3 again. You're pleadings are in black and white. You
4 will be - I have told you that your claim is restricted
5 to what's in the pleading.
6MS SOFRONIOU: Your Honour will note that Paragraphs 15 and 20
7 of the counterclaim are running that argument respecting
8 caveats on the other properties.
9HIS HONOUR: Yes.
10MS SOFRONIOU: And the plaintiff's caveat over the Altona
11 property against the plaintiff.
12HIS HONOUR: Yes.
13MS SOFRONIOU: We don't understand Harwood Andrews to be the
14 subject of that complaint.
15HIS HONOUR: They are not.
16MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you.
17HIS HONOUR: I can't pick up a date of that contract?---I
18 believe it's 16 January. It's between 14 and 16 January
19 2008 Your Honour.
20Yes, we'll the document itself is undated, but that will
21 nonetheless be Exhibit 25?---Sorry Your Honour, second
22 page of the particulars schedule. "Day of sale" is the
23 - - -
24Sorry? Are you sure you've tendered all - I only have one page
25 of the particulars here?---Does it finish with a
26 settlement - purchaser's finance, day of sale at the
27 bottom?
28No. Just hand up the document you've got there?---This is the
29 analogous one for the land, 7 Inverloch Drive, Point
30 Cook.
31Sorry?---This - that's the - - -

2Cressy
1No, well this is the document that I - this will be
2 Exhibit 25?---Yes. The question is is it complete?
3Well, what I'll do is I'll have it exhibited, marked as exhibit
4 and perhaps if it'd be pulled together and then we can
5 check later whether that's - - -?---Yes.
6- - - the complete exhibit. Do you follow?---Yes.

7
8#EXHIBIT MFI25 - (For identification) Contract of sale of
9 the property at 2 Dorrington Street,
10 Point Cook by the defendant as vendor to
11 Mr Xinji Zhang and Zhuqin Mo as
12 purchasers dated 16/01/08.
13HIS HONOUR: You're now tendering another contract? Is that
14 right?---Yes. The second part of the Point Cook
15 property, 7 Inverloch Drive.

16I would repeat my objection which falls under Your Honour's
17 (indistinct) for the previous contract of sale.
18HIS HONOUR: Well this is tendered against the plaintiff?
19 ---Um.
20Which property is this?---That's the contract of - - -
21Inverloch Drive? Yes?---Yes Your Honour, yes Your Honour.
22Well this document seems fairly incomplete, but what there is
23 of it will be Exhibit 26.

24
25#EXHIBIT 26 - Part of the contract of sale of the
26 property at 7 Inverloch Drive, Point Cook
27 by the defendant as vendor Xuan Ling Tan
28 dated 11/01/08.
29MR DEVRIES: Your Honour, I haven't asked to see any of those
30 exhibits.
31HIS HONOUR: Yes.
32MR DEVRIES: But If I can mention now in case we run out of
33 time at quarter past four, I'll be seeking leave for my
34 instructors to have overnight all of the exhibits for
35 today.
36HIS HONOUR: Yes.

2Cressy
1MR DEVRIES: On the same undertaking that I'm instructed to
2 give on their behalf that they'll return to court before
3 the start of proceedings tomorrow.
4HIS HONOUR: Certainly, yes.
5MR DEVRIES: Mr Devries, and I'll also permit Ms Sofroniou to
6 have access to those exhibits?---Your Honour, um just
7 foot noting that these are among the many documents that
8 I'd disclosed to the parties in accordance with
9 Mr Justice Whelan's orders of 12 March. So they were
10 disclosed in late March, early April this year.
11MR DEVRIES: No issue was taken with that.
12HIS HONOUR: Let's just proceed with the evidence Mr Johnson?
13 ---Um, what I discovered in preparing those contracts for
14 the sale of Queen Street, Altona, was the caveat had
15 disappeared. The Harwood Andrews caveat had disappeared,
16 so that the only caveat on title was Ms Cressy's title.
17HIS HONOUR: When was the Harwood Andrews caveat withdrawn?
18 ---Um, not fully researched it, but um until last week
19 when I saw Mr Hanlon's affidavit of 1 December, unfiled
20 in these proceedings. I could only pinpoint the date as
21 November or the first week and a bit of December 2007.
22HIS HONOUR: You say it's either November 07 or early December
23 07?---Yes. Now in the affidavit that Mr Hanlon has
24 sworn, but not filed in these proceedings dated 1
25 December 2008, there is explanation and there are copies
26 of withdrawals of caveats. And if I may paraphrase that,
27 because I'm quite happy to accept that evidence as to how
28 the caveat was withdrawn. It appears what happened is
29 that Harwood Andrews um prepared two withdrawals of
30 caveat, one for Ms Cressy, one for themselves, put the
31 Gibson Street title details down on both of them, and

2Cressy
1 filed both of them. That um caveat, the partial
2 withdrawal from Ms Cressy's caveat of course went through
3 as intended, um but the caveat for Harwood Andrews of
4 course hit an impediment, because their caveat instrument
5 exhibited. Um, 23 - - -
6HIS HONOUR: It was over Queen Street, Altona?---And solely
7 Queen Street.
8Yes?---Here was a withdrawal of caveat instrument relating – by
9 their interest relating solely to Gibson Street. So it
10 appears that someone in the Titles Office, or one of
11 their agents - - -
12I'm not worried what appears, but you say in any event, that
13 that caveat was withdrawn early – late November or early
14 December?---It, it seems now I'm informed by reading
15 Mr Hanlon's affidavit over the weekend, that um, that
16 both withdrawals of caveat went through the same time.
17 So I have, which I'm quite happy to tender, and this may
18 assist Ms Sofroniou later, this is a letter provided to
19 me in the manner I've explained from Harwood Andrews to
20 their titles agents affecting those two withdrawals of
21 caveats.
22MS SOFRONIOU: It sounds from what I have heard Your Honour,
23 that my friend may be conceding that it was an accidental
24 withdrawal in the circumstances that he states.
25HIS HONOUR: I think he might be saying it's an accidental non-
26 withdrawal,
27MS SOFRONIOU: Yes.
28HIS HONOUR: An accidental abortive withdrawal, but there's a
29 letter, there seems to be a letter from Harwood Andrews
30 to Axis Searching and Settlements, 1 November 2007,
31 enclosing withdrawals of caveats, both in relation to the

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1 same property.
2MS SOFRONIOU: Yes, Your Honour.
3HIS HONOUR: If you - - -
4MS SOFRONIOU: Gibson.
5HIS HONOUR: Gibson, which I assume is the – he's gone and got
6 the title particulars. I'll assume that's the Gibson
7 Street property, 10946, Folio 643.
8MS SOFRONIOU: Then writing that Your Honour can have regard
9 to. There are a couple of titles as I understand it that
10 are on that, one in type and one in handwriting as it
11 were.
12HIS HONOUR: Right.
13MS SOFRONIOU: I'll just see if Your Honour's looking at the
14 document that I think Your Honour is.
15HIS HONOUR: There's two withdrawals of caveats dated 1
16 November 2007.
17MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you, I'm sorry, I was having regard to a
18 different document. I withdraw that.
19HIS HONOUR: But this is essentially the evidence of an
20 abortive attempt to withdraw.
21MS SOFRONIOU: Yes, Your Honour.
22HIS HONOUR: I'll make that anyway Exhibit 27.

23
24#EXHIBIT 27 - Letter of Harwood Andrews to Axis
25 Searching and Settlements 2007 together
26 with the attached two withdrawals of
27 caveats and remittance advice.
28
29MS SOFRONIOU: If it please Your Honour.
30HIS HONOUR: That would have been ineffective to withdraw the
31 caveat over Queen Street?---No, it was effective,
32 Your Honour. The caveat, the caveat - the Harwood
33 Andrews caveat was withdrawn.
34That was - it was those type of particulars I've just read out,

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1 the Queen Street title particulars were they?---The
2 handwritten ones were yes. 09 something 4H Your Honour.
3Well I didn't see any handwriting. But when - - - ?---I'm
4 sorry, that's coming next Your Honour I'm sorry. We're
5 two exhibits away. But my learned friend said I might be
6 consenting to some sort of accidental withdrawal. My -
7 as defence counsel says well I'm pointing out that there
8 was an accident but some accidents are without fault,
9 some are with fault. There's a certain standard of care
10 that should be applied to caveats in title dealings.
11Let's just stick to evidence?---The - - -
12Mr Johnson you want to tender another document?---I do indeed.
13 This is - - -
14Well done?---Thank you Your Honour.
15What is it?---Again provided to me in a manner - all of these
16 documents are provided to me in that same way.
17You've said that on 14 occasions - - - ?---Yes Your Honour.
18 Well this is the fifth time I think Your Honour. Five
19 Your Honour. This is a facsimile from Harwood Andrews
20 asking their access search agents what happened.
21Doesn't make a lot of sense to me but I'll receive it as an
22 exhibit. It may be the hour, it may be the strain of the
23 case, it may be the time of the year but it doesn't make
24 much sense.
25
26#EXHIBIT 28 - Facsimile from David Hanlon to access
27 search dated 05/03/08.
28WITNESS: One's a transmission page Your Honour.
29HIS HONOUR: Right?---I tender as Exhibit 29 was the Harwood
30 Andrews caveat withdrawal that simply didn't need to be
31 prepared with the handwritten alteration.
32Do we need to go through this lengthy preamble? If it's common

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1 ground that the caveat was withdrawn, isn't it sufficient
2 to simply get to that stage?---It, it was the impression
3 of the caveat being withdrawn. I thought that Mr Hanlon
4 was beginning to appreciate, understand and accept my
5 impassioned writings to him that this letter had no
6 claim - - -
7You see common ground when the caveat was withdrawn?
8 ---Ms Sofroniou?
9MS SOFRONIOU: I believe so Your Honour. This - the exhibit
10 that Your Honour has in Your Honour's hands is the
11 final - - -
12HIS HONOUR: It's the final chapter in this - - -
13MS SOFRONIOU: - - - piece of the puzzle as I understand.
14HIS HONOUR: - - - torture.
15MS SOFRONIOU: Your Honour will see that the title has been
16 changed.
17HIS HONOUR: It has. Do I take it that the handwritten title,
18 the Particulars 4948514 that's Altona is it?
19MS SOFRONIOU: Yes Your Honour.
20HIS HONOUR: Thank you very much.
21MS SOFRONIOU: And to that extent given that my learned - the
22 witness has tendered that we are in agreement about the -
23 as I understand it, about the content of those exhibits.
24HIS HONOUR: Thank you very much.
25MS SOFRONIOU: Thank you Your Honour.

26
27#EXHIBIT 29 - Document of the withdrawal of caveat in
28 respect of the land of certificate of
29 title Volume 4948 Folio 514 dated
30 01/11/07.
31WITNESS: Thank you Your Honour. The effect of those two
32 withdrawals of caveat as processed by the titles office
33 in my mind was that my writing (indistinct) to David

2Cressy
1 Hanlon & Harwood Andrews were beginning to make sense to
2 him and that we could resolve this matter quietly without
3 resort to any further legal process.
4MS SOFRONIOU: Well I object to that - - -
5HIS HONOUR: His thinking is irrelevant?---Your Honour I came
6 to court - so the next thing that happened was the issue
7 of a summons in January. I wrote to David Hanlon at
8 Harwood Andrews in January, I think it was 21 January.
9 I've just got so many paper - perhaps I can find it
10 overnight.
11(Indistinct) to do?---Thank you Your Honour.
12Sort out your papers overnight on these issues?---Yes.
13Yes?---Advising the status of all of my properties that
14 Dorrington - - -
15MS SOFRONIOU: Well I object Your Honour. The latter - - -
16HIS HONOUR: Yes.
17MS SOFRONIOU: - - - can speak for themself - - -
18HIS HONOUR: Yes?---Thank you Your Honour. We'll do that in
19 the morning. Thank you Your Honour. The next step in
20 the legal process was a summons and we were in the
21 practice court before Justice Mandy in late January 2008.
22 The next step is that, that hearing was adjourned.
23Whose summons was that?---The plaintiff's summons Your Honour.
24Yes?---That was adjourned until the - I believe it was
25 18 February before Mr Justice Whelan. On that occasion
26 it came clear from submissions that I made from the Bar
27 table or discussions outside of the court door that I
28 informed Harwood Andrews and David Hanlon and
29 Ms Sofroniou I believe was present on that occasion that,
30 that Harwood Andrews' caveat had been withdrawn from
31 Altona. The next thing I was receiving a letter from the

2Cressy
1 Department of Sustainability and Environment claiming
2 that another caveat had been put on by Harwood Andrews by
3 the same party over the same land to protect the same
4 interests. It looks - if you measure them up they're
5 identical, they're printed off the same machine, the same
6 document. The only differences are that the signatures
7 are all different and the date is 6 March 2008. I'd like
8 to tender this which is the replacement caveat referred
9 to in my counter claim, AF709814N.
10So that was lodged with the Titles Office was it?---Yes Your
11 Honour. It's registered and I believe it's still hanging
12 on the title Your Honour.

13
14#EXHIBIT 30 - Copy of caveat dated 06/03/08 by Harwood
15 Andrew Pty Ltd in respect to the land of
16 certificate of title Volume 4948 Folio
17 514.
18WITNESS: Thank you Your Honour. And as - I believe as a
19 submission in my alter ego and other legal personality as
20 defence counsel I will be submitting that Mr Hanlon
21 prepared and signed and had that instrument, Exhibit 30
22 registered in the full knowledge that in doing so he was
23 in breach of s.91 - - -
24MS SOFRONIOU: Well, I - - -?---Sub-s.4 of the Property Law
25 Act.
26HIS HONOUR: Well, that will be your submission in due course?
27 ---Thank you.
28We're actually at the moment in the middle of evidence?---In
29 evidence, I might - - -
30Or we should be?---I might short cut things a little bit by
31 saying that that property was sold, Altona. The sale
32 under my contract of sale did not proceed. It was
33 frustrated at the $770,000 value. That should have

2Cressy
1 happened in February 2008.
2MS SOFRONIOU: Well, I object to that evidence being given in
3 that form, Your Honour. The frustrated part, the price
4 part and - - -
5HIS HONOUR: Well, you will need to give - - -?---The contract
6 of sale, Exhibit No. - it's - - -
7I think it's - - -?---24, it shows the day of sale.
8Yes?---Which I think was 22 February 2008.
9Yes?---The sale didn't occur on that date, Your Honour. The
10 purchaser withdrew from the contract. The title
11 ownership situation remained like that up until the
12 property was auctioned by my mortgagee.
13Well, at that stage there was no caveat on the property?---The
14 caveat - there's a string of caveats still there. That
15 auction sale hasn't yet settled, Your Honour.
16But the Harwood Andrews - there was no Harwood Andrews caveat
17 on the property at the end of February 2008?---No, there
18 wasn't, but Ms Cressy's caveat was still there.
19I see?---Yes, and then in - a couple of weeks later, Harwood
20 Andrews's replacement caveat came on, Exhibit 30, Your
21 Honour. So after ten months of mortgage payments, the
22 mortgage payments at this stage were about $1000 a week.
23 So we've got ten months of 40 - 40 - $40,000 more in
24 interest payments. The - and it's not contested. The
25 property was sold at auction by mortgagee. It was sold
26 on, I believe, 8 November, and the daily newspaper for
27 10 November, the only information I have received even
28 from my bank as to the sale is a public advertisement
29 that it was sold at Altona, 166 Queen Street, 756 square
30 metres, brick.
31MR DEVRIES: This is hearsay, Your Honour.

2Cressy
1HIS HONOUR: Yes, yes?---$626,000.
2Yes, well, I'm sorry, it is hearsay. You weren't at the sale?
3 ---Your Honour, amongst the orders that Mr Federal
4 Magistrate O'Dwyer made, if Ms Cressy had been at the
5 sale, I would have been in breach of those orders for
6 being within half a kilometre of her or the children.
7 The answer is no, I wasn't at the sale.
8Is there any issue about the property having been sold by
9 mortgagee on that date?
10MS SOFRONIOU: No, Your Honour. It's hearsay. It's of no
11 relevance to our case anyway.
12HIS HONOUR: No, I understand that.
13MR DEVRIES: We have no detail. We know it's been sold, but
14 that's as much as we know.
15HIS HONOUR: You don't know the detail, but do you know it was
16 sold by the mortgagee at auction on 8 November? Do you
17 accept that as a fact?
18MR DEVRIES: I accept it was sold. I can't either agree or
19 disagree with the date or how it was sold because I've
20 got no instructions on that?---Your Honour, I believe the
21 transcript will show that Mr Devries led in his opening
22 to the fact that it was sold by mortgagee for $627,000.
23HIS HONOUR: I think you're right on that one?---And I believe
24 - I believe Ms Cressy also gave evidence.
25MR DEVRIES: I said it was sold.
26HIS HONOUR: Is there any issue as to this?
27MR DEVRIES: I said it was sold, Your Honour, and that we
28 believe that at the end of the day there might be a
29 certain figure above what I think I said, $48,000, but I
30 didn't give any more particulars than that because my
31 instructor didn't go beyond that, Your Honour.

2Cressy
1HIS HONOUR: Well, you might make inquiries over the break, but
2 if in fact it was sold, and it was sold by mortgagees
3 auction, then it would seem to be appropriate that your
4 side admit that.
5MR DEVRIES: I'll certainly make those inquiries, Your Honour.
6HIS HONOUR: Yes.
7MR DEVRIES: But at this stage I can't - - -
8HIS HONOUR: If it's a fact, it's a fact.
9MR DEVRIES: Yes, I'm not trying to be difficult, Your Honour.
10HIS HONOUR: No, well, if you could confirm that, and you may
11 be in a position to concede that without requiring the
12 matter at considerable further expense to be the subject
13 of any further delays, so that a formal precedent
14 relating to that sale can be put together.
15MR DEVRIES: If Your Honour pleases.
16HIS HONOUR: It is usual for those sorts of matters to be
17 admitted. I notice my notes were, "Sold, balance
18 $103,000 with contested costs of 55."
19MR DEVRIES: Yes, that's all the information I have, Your
20 Honour.
21HIS HONOUR: Well, it sounds like it was a mortgagees sale.
22 Confirm it over the break.
23MR DEVRIES: Yes, I'm sorry. I'm not being deliberately
24 difficult.
25HIS HONOUR: No, I follow that. You can confirm that over the
26 break.
27MR DEVRIES: I will, Your Honour.
28HIS HONOUR: This case is proceeding far too slowly and I am
29 concerned as to when it, if ever, it will complete. I
30 think that what we'll have to do is sit longer hours to
31 get it finished. If we start at ten o'clock tomorrow, is

2Cressy
1 that inconvenient to anyone?
2MR DEVRIES: Not to me, Your Honour?---I have Mr Whitiking
3 coming in at 10.30, Your Honour.
4HIS HONOUR: Well, if he comes in at 10.30 we will interrupt
5 your evidence. We'll at least get half an hour of
6 evidence. Now, I expect you at ten o'clock tomorrow, and
7 we start with evidence. We don't have any more time
8 wasting?---Thank you, Your Honour.
9You don't need an arm wrestle with the judge each break. All
10 right?---Yes.
11Now, my associate tells me some documents in answer to
12 subpoenas sought on behalf of the plaintiff to the
13 Commonwealth Bank have been produced to the Prothonotary
14 and thus to my associate.
15MR DEVRIES: Could my instructors also have a look at those,
16 Your Honour?
17HIS HONOUR: Yes, we'll release them to the plaintiff's
18 solicitors on the usual undertaking.
19MR DEVRIES: And we'll make them available to my learned friend
20 as she wishes.
21HIS HONOUR: Yes?---Learned friends, plural, Mr Devries.
22Yes, Mr Johnson too.
23MR DEVRIES: I would prefer not to have any face to face
24 dealings with Mr Johnson, Your Honour.
25HIS HONOUR: Well, it may not be necessarily face to face.
26 Your instructor can hand them over to him, I would hope.
27 If I release them, he's entitled to have a look at them.
28 Now, you'll be giving an undertaking to return them
29 properly to the court?---Most definitely, Your Honour.
30Yes, and I would expect - - -?---My feelings are hurt, Your
31 Honour, by the comments by Mr Devries, but of

2Cressy
1 course - - -
2Well, I'm not here as a soother of feelings. I'd expect
3 everyone to behave with decorum in their dealings with
4 each other. You are an officer of this court?---It's not
5 my behaviour that - that is - - -
6MR DEVRIES: My instructors, Your Honour, will bring them back
7 here, all of the documents at court at ten tomorrow. I
8 presume that that's not going to inconvenience the court
9 staff.
10HIS HONOUR: Right, and then there will be someone here on
11 behalf of the court to hand them over to you?---I should
12 be here, Your Honour.
13Yes, the matter will be in the list for 10.30 but we will in
14 fact resume at ten o'clock tomorrow, and that will hold
15 for the next couple of days, and hopefully we will
16 complete this case Wednesday?---I think you are unduly
17 optimistic, with respect, Your Honour.
18I'm used to common law cases. All right, ten o'clock tomorrow.
19<(THE WITNESS WITHDREW)
20ADJOURNED TO TUESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2008

2Cressy

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1MR DEVRIES: Yes the matter's proceeding Your Honour.

2HIS HONOUR: Yes, thank you Mr Devries. A couple of brief

3 matters. Firstly I understand that the judgment in

4 Procopets will be delivered tomorrow morning by the Court

6MR DEVRIES: Well that's very handy Your Honour. Excellent

9 nonetheless we're grateful for what we get Mr Devries.

10MR DEVRIES: Particularly from the Court of Appeal Your Honour.

11HIS HONOUR: Anyway and the other matter Ms Sofroniou

12 (indistinct) I understand you're in some pain from a back

13 injury like Mr Johnson - - -

14MS SOFRONIOU: (Indistinct).

15HIS HONOUR: - - - so the same rule applies to any back

16 sufferers including myself, stand or sit as you need.

17 Now we're right to proceed. Mr Johnson you're in the

20 my client, in the witness box I just wish to clarify a

21 couple of things. Firstly Your Honour recognises that

22 I'm involved in these proceedings in two alter egos, as

23 defence counsel and also as the defendant. I just wanted

24 to clarify that each of my alter egos has a separate

25 distinct legal personality (indistinct) Solomon v.

26 Solomon. When I'm in the box I am of course Harold James

27 Johnson a legal practitioner. I was practicing law in my

28 - under the law firm name as a sole practitioner, Johnson

29 Legal. Before that under my own name, James Johnson and

30 years and years ago under the business name Sutton

31 Johnson. Your Honour but when I'm addressing you as I am

1.SB:ASC 08/12/08 FTR:1 211 DISCUSSION

2 managing director of an incorporated - - -

3HIS HONOUR: No you're not Mr Johnson. When you address me now

4 you are representing yourself. You are Harold James

5 Johnson the defendant - - -

6MR JOHNSON: Your Honour the court documents - - -

7HIS HONOUR: Now that is the point.

8MR JOHNSON: - - - clearly show that - - -

9HIS HONOUR: Now Mr Johnson - - -

10MR JOHNSON: - - - by Sutton Lawyers Pty Ltd.

11HIS HONOUR: Mr Johnson this strikes me again as a number of -

12 as another of the speeches which you have made in this

13 case which is irrelevant and which is delaying the case.

15 do, to be representing yourself. When you (indistinct)

16 to the issues you are doing it most capably. Now would

17 you please go to the witness box and we'll continue with

19MR JOHNSON: Before I do Your Honour, I raised on Friday my

20 concern about a witness I subpoenaed who was served - - -

21HIS HONOUR: Yes.

22MR JOHNSON: - - - and not here. He is a vital witness for the

23 defence Your Honour, a Mr Peter Cochran. I have here

24 materials (indistinct) service.

25HIS HONOUR: Yes.

26MR JOHNSON: I'll hand copies to my learned friends.

29HIS HONOUR: Mr Johnson's evidence, is there any urgency to do

31MR JOHNSON: In terms of time if we (indistinct) of getting

1.SB:ASC 08/12/08 FTR:1 212 DISCUSSION

2 I suggest there's an urgency to deal with this

4HIS HONOUR: Well what is your application from that?

5MR JOHNSON: I'm not sure of the exact technical language to

6 use but the language Your Honour used on Friday was to

7 have him called on a subpoena? I believe it's a contempt

8 of court his failure to show up on - - -

9HIS HONOUR: It may be a contempt of court, it has a potential

10 to be but a number of steps have to be established first,

11 and those steps established as a last resort, I have

12 power to order the warrant for his arrest which can be