Latest news with #JeremyWilkinson
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Lawyer struck off after taking $200k of client funds to escape abusive relationship
By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice reporter of The woman said she lived in constant fear of her husband. Photo: 123RF A lawyer who says she feared for her life at the hands of an abusive husband took at least $200,000 from her clients, partly to escape the relationship. "I understand how on the face this looks like a simple story of a lawyer who misused client funds," she told a disciplinary tribunal today, "but, this is a story of a long shadow of domestic violence". The woman, who has name suppression, said she and her children were in a state of survival for seven years. She said they lived in constant fear of her husband and often had to barricade themselves in a bedroom so he wouldn't hurt them. "The term survival mode does not do justice to the psychological toll," she said. "I genuinely believe we would have ended up as a news headline for a murder suicide." Despite the abuse, the woman continued to operate a successful legal practice, but began dipping into her firm's trust account so she could move cities to escape her husband. Today, the woman told the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal that taking money from the account, which is used to hold client funds, began as an error. But, she then started taking more in the belief she could repay it. The woman told the tribunal that she accepted she would be struck off for taking the money, some of which she has already repaid, and realises now that she should have shut her firm down when she couldn't cope. "But I loved being a lawyer. "In all the darkness, it was the one thing I was holding onto that made me feel like me." She knew it was wrong Milan Djurich, counsel for the Standards Committee laying charges against the woman on behalf of the New Zealand Law Society, told the tribunal that the woman knew what she was doing was wrong. "It was a high level of theft and a breach of professional standards," he said. According to the charges against the woman, it was one of her clients who contacted the Law Society in 2023, concerned about the lack of contact from the woman after they'd paid a significant deposit. Investigators estimated that there was a shortfall of at least $200,000 in the trust account before taking control of it in December 2023. It was found the woman transferred money out of the trust account and spent it on things like insurance, gym fees, relocation costs, school fees and books and payments on a deposit for a property she'd purchased. There were also several large transfers into her personal accounts, but it's unclear exactly what that money was spent on. The woman's lawyer, Stewart Sluis, said his client didn't have access to the trust account any longer as the Law Society took it over, and she now couldn't determine exactly how much she took, but the Standards Committee accepted that the shortfall was at least $203,000. The woman, who handed in her practising certificate voluntarily, accepted she would be struck from the roll of barristers and solicitors. The woman has recently won a relationship property settlement in the Family Court against her ex-husband. She now plans to use the proceeds to pay the rest of the money she took from her clients. While the woman was granted name suppression, she asked the tribunal to include the context of why she took the money in its written decision. Because the Family Court is strictly suppressed, if she had lost name suppression, the wider context about her husband could not have been referenced by the tribunal, nor reported by NZME. "This is my attempt to tell my side of the story, one shaped by domestic violence and a mental state shattered by fear," she said. "I hope that sharing this story may help other women in the future." The tribunal ordered that the woman be struck off and that she pay legal costs as well as repay the money that was taken from her clients. * This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald . If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Otago Daily Times
28-05-2025
- Health
- Otago Daily Times
Former TVNZ presenter and doctor claimed HIV doesn't exist
By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice multimedia journalist A former TVNZ presenter and doctor from Christchurch has claimed, in a series of YouTube videos that garnered thousands of views, that HIV doesn't exist and gonorrhoea isn't sexually transmitted. Samantha Bailey, who was previously one of four presenters on the TVNZ health series The Checkup, has worked in a range of healthcare roles. She references her medical experience on her YouTube channel where she has uploaded 142 videos that discuss a range of health issues to her 352,000 subscribers. Bailey's medical registration was cancelled after she posted a series of 23 videos, questioning the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine, to the same channel. Those videos racked up close to 18 million views and she was ordered to pay $148,000 in fines and legal fees. Today, a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hearing focused on four of her videos, which allegedly spread misinformation about the HIV/Aids virus and the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea. In a three-part series titled 'The Yin and Yang of HIV', Bailey claims there's no proof it exists, nor that it is sexually transmitted, and that treatment for it can be toxic and harmful. Bailey claimed that diagnostic tests for the virus are inherently unreliable and that 'the same person tested in three cities on the same day may or may not be HIV infected'. 'Supporters of the HIV causes Aids hypothesis cannot back up their claims with scientific evidence, yet they continue to reject alternative explanations and promote life-threatening drug treatments,' she claims in the videos that have a combined 70,000 views. '…it is impossible to claim from epidemiological data that HIV/Aids is an infectious sexually transmitted disease.' Former TVNZ presenter ordered to pay $148k According to the World Health Organisation, HIV is an infection that can turn into Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Aids) if left untreated. The virus can be transmitted via sexual intercourse. Internationally, there were nearly 40 million people living with HIV at the end of 2023, and a further 42 million have died since the epidemic began in the 1980s. A second video titled 'What We Weren't Taught About Gonorrhoea' has 64,000 views and claims that the infection is not sexually transmitted and refers to it as 'germ theory nonsense'. Bailey also claims that historical results regarding the existence of gonorrhoea had a 'spin' put on them to 'dial up the fear'. Bailey wasn't registered as a doctor for several months when she published the videos from March to May 2022. At today's hearing, which Bailey did not turn up to, the Medical Council levelled charges of professional misconduct against her on the basis the videos amounted to malpractice and negligence. Abigail Brand, counsel for the Professional Conduct Committee pressing charges, said Bailey had published harmful information under the guise of it being 'self-styled health videos'. 'The PCC submits that numerous statements have been made that are inaccurate and misleading,' Brand said. 'Ms Bailey's statements go beyond the realm of legitimate scientific debate and pose a risk to the public.' Brand said that while everyone has the right to freedom of speech, medical professionals, as per their code of ethics, have a limitation on this right and any robust debate they engage in must be well-founded, and expressed in a balanced way. In addition, Brand said that Bailey stood to profit from the videos with advertising revenue, by requesting donations for her work and by promoting her book. Bailey didn't engage with the committee's investigation, which occurred at the same time as she was being investigated for spreading Covid misinformation on the same YouTube channel. Rabbit holes and conspiracy theories Dr Timothy Blackmore, an infectious disease and microbiology expert with a research interest in sexually transmitted infections, was called as a witness where he said he'd reviewed Bailey's videos and found them 'misleading in the extreme' and that she'd been highly selective in the information she'd used. 'Old studies and conspiracy theories are emphasised without reference to modern literature,' he said. 'I think she's gone down a rabbit hole of an argument that was done and dusted in the 1990s.' Blackmore was asked by the tribunal how far Bailey was from presenting a balanced view in her videos. 'I have been downplaying how ridiculous her statements are,' he replied. 'It's almost insulting to my patients and my practice, implying that I must be ill informed and moronic to do these things to patients.' Blackmore said that all of Bailey's claims in her videos were inaccurate and said that HIV was known to cause Aids, and that tests to detect it were reliable and to claim otherwise was inaccurate and could discourage proper treatment and prevention. The tribunal asked how damaging it would be if people believed the information in Bailey's videos. 'One would be that they may not have any trust in the health system, but even worse they may not even come forward for testing,' Blackmore said, noting that medical practitioners had focused on de-stigmatising people who are infected with HIV, so that they do come forward for help. 'That's the most insulting part, her comments are so stigmatising.'
RNZ News
05-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Woman wins court order that could let her starve to death
By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice reporter of A 26-year-old woman has won the right to refuse medical treatment. Photo: 123RF A 26-year-old woman with a history of health problems has won an order to "let nature take its course" - a move that could allow her to starve to death in hospital where she is refusing food and medical intervention. The woman, whose name is suppressed, has a long and complicated history of health issues and has spent large portions of the past seven years in hospital. While she and her family believe she suffers from gastroparesis, a physical condition affecting the stomach, there has never been any medical evidence that she has the condition. Instead, she's been diagnosed with a factitious disorder, a mental health condition in which the sufferer consciously self-induces, feigns or exaggerates physical or psychiatric symptoms to receive medical care. It cannot be treated with medication. Despite this, neither the woman nor her parents has ever accepted that there is a psychological or psychiatric component to her condition. As a result, she has refused to engage in any kind of psychological therapy that might help. The woman has been subject to orders under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act since 2018, which permitted health professionals to treat her, including food via a tube. These orders have been extended eight times but expired in October last year. The following month, the woman collapsed at home and was re-admitted to hospital in Auckland, where she's remained since. During that time, she's undergone 30 surgeries for various infections and, since early this year, has limited her food intake and refused any further surgical intervention. The woman is described as being emaciated and frail, bed-bound and in a dark hospital room with closed curtains as natural light hurts her eyes. Te Whatu Ora has applied for another order under the Act, which would allow medical professionals to continue to treat her. However, the woman has opposed any such order being made and does not want any treatment administered against her will. Instead, she wants to let nature take its course, even if that results in her death. And now, in a recent ruling from the High Court at Auckland, she's been granted her wish. The woman told a court-appointed legal adviser living in a hospital long-term - as she has done for 1588 days (about four years and three months) in the past five years - was not, for her, a life. She is completely dependent on others for assistance and does not even have sufficient strength to lift herself up in bed. She says she no longer wants to be under the control of anyone else, including medical professionals. The woman told the adviser, who visited her in the hospital, that she'd been forced to undergo psychotherapy in the past, but it did not help, and she doesn't want to do it again. While the woman accepts that without further medical intervention, she will likely die, she said she isn't suicidal and doesn't want assisted death. Her parents have also accepted her decision not to consent to further treatment. When a treatment order was first imposed in 2018, one expert found that in most issues, the woman had full capacity, except when it came to healthcare decisions. "The pattern of poor decisions is life-threatening (she has left the hospital against medical advice, discontinued care, requested palliation for a treatable condition), and appears to have no insight (and is... resistant to input) around the basis for her condition," that expert found. "Therefore, I think she is impaired around her ability to understand the nature and consequences of her situation." A Family Court judge then granted a treatment order on the basis that she didn't "appreciate her situation and its consequences" and lacked the capacity to make informed decisions about her medical care. Fast forward to 2025 and three experts produced by Te Whatu Ora conceded she had the ability to understand the decisions she was making about her health, as well as the likely consequences. However, all three were concerned that she was basing her decision on what was essentially a misdiagnosis of gastroparesis, when in reality, all her symptoms were psychological, they said. After a hearing at the High Court at Auckland in April, Justice Graham Lang found that just because the woman refused to accept the factual diagnosis of her condition, it didn't mean she was mentally incapable of making decisions about her own healthcare. "She has obviously based her decisions on this erroneous belief. Further, she is unwilling or unable to countenance the possibility that her belief may be incorrect," Justice Lang said in his decision. "A person may validly agree to, or refuse, medical treatment even where they do not accept the diagnosis that has led to the offer of the treatment in question. "The critical issue is whether they truly understand the nature, purpose and effect of the proposed treatment. "Further, she knows that treatment and nutrition will keep her alive. This means she understands the gravity of the consequences that her decisions may produce." Justice Lang ruled the woman had the mental capacity to decide her own fate. Justice Lang also noted the woman had repeatedly refused to accept psychological intervention, so it was unlikely that any court order would convince her to seek it as a treatment path. "[Her] death is not an inevitability, although there appears little prospect at this stage that she will engage in the psychiatric care that offers her the best hope of improving her disorder," Justice Lang said. "However, she is now in a position where the Court would be required to choose between making orders that override [her] wishes in the hope of preserving a theoretical prospect of her living a fulfilling life, or allowing her the dignity of deciding for herself. "As matters currently stand, [she] has decided that her best interests lie in letting nature take its course. I consider the Court should respect that decision given that she has made it after receiving nutrition and treatment over many years with little apparent accompanying long-term benefit." Justice Lang said that in reaching that conclusion, he took into account that the woman is well aware she needs to eat to stay alive, and can ask at any time to get help. "It is for her to decide whether she wishes to avail herself of this option." A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said it could not comment on individual patients, but confirmed that it would not be appealing the ruling. Human rights lawyer Michael Bott, a former Council for Civil Liberties national chairman, told NZME that freedom of choice meant the ability for people to make any decision they wanted. "It's the freedom to make bizarre choices, or choices that don't make sense to anyone else necessarily." Bott said that just because someone makes what is perceived to be the wrong decision doesn't mean the state should compel them to make the objectively "right" decision. Bott also said that if Te Whatu Ora thought the woman was mentally unwell it could have applied under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act for an order to force her to accept medical treatment. "As a general rule people make decisions about their health and they choose to either accept or reject the advice of the experts, in this case here she has a belief that trumps that," he said. "No one is going to change her view." * This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald .
