Latest news with #SlaterGordon
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Big 'fat' lie exposed as fresh details emerge about explosive Slater and Gordon email scandal
A convicted fraudster linked to the notorious all-staff email scandal that wreaked havoc at law firm Slater and Gordon has seemingly been caught out telling another big 'fat' lie. Former payroll manager Bridgett Maddox's unusually spelt first name appears in the metadata of a spreadsheet which allegedly listed all staff salaries and was attached to the revealing email. She has categorically denied being involved in the email's creation or publication. The email critiqued key staff, allegedly detailing who was 'disloyal', 'useless', 'a gossip' and 'lazy', and called the firm a 'textbook case of dysfunction'. Ms Maddox has since been unmasked as a serial fraudster under her former name, Bridgett Jones, before changing her identity after a two-year prison stretch in 2019. She tried to rebrand herself as a weight-loss influencer and told Nine Network's 9Honey website about her dramatic body transformation, two years after leaving jail. The single mum said she put on 40kg over 10 months after 'a series of unfortunate events', including becoming housebound when she fell down stairs and hurt her back. She omitted to mention she had also been 'housebound' by being stuck in 'the big house' - slang for jail - while serving her sentence for fraud offences. Ms Maddox's distinctive tattoo can be seen in the slimmed down pics she provided for her bizarre weight-loss warrior article 'I couldn't exercise and I wasn't being mindful,' she told the website. 'I gained weight so quickly, about two kilos a week at that point. 'Nobody told me I was getting big and your vision of yourself in the mirror doesn't always catch up. Because I was injured I was stuck at home a lot and wearing tracksuit pants. 'I didn't realise what I weighed and my family and friends said they were scared to tell me.' She said she began to feel 'embarrassed' and 'invisible' as she struggled to battle her obesity. 'By then I was feeling uncomfortable,' she said. 'I'd been on painkillers for a number of months and once I came off them all I felt really uncomfortable. 'Also I wasn't sleeping well. I was snoring. And walking to the tram stop, I was sweating, and I never used to sweat that much. 'I was chafing between my thighs and I realised that I was wearing clothes out really quickly. 'I'd buy a new pair of work pants and after a few weeks they were worn down in between my legs until they were almost see through, or sometimes they'd split. 'I was embarrassed a lot of the I met new people one of the first things I normally said was: "I'm not usually this big". 'And it was that I was invisible, I became invisible. I used to be slim and I was treated a certain way. 'There's a certain way that tall, slim people are treated. I'd go to restaurants and people would come to me or I'd be shopping and be served. 'When I put on all the weight people didn't notice me. 'I'd be standing in line at the deli and would have to ask for attention. I just blended into the background and people weren't thrilled to serve me.' She said she was ultimately referred to an endocrinologist and told that she should not blame herself for her dramatic weight gain. 'The first thing he said was it wasn't my fault,' she told the website. 'He explained it was genetics. Members of my family were overweight so it was in my genes. I could lose the weight but I'd have to stay on top of it. 'I just don't have the predisposition to eat a burger every he said, "You can beat obesity, but with your genetics, it's going to be a battle."' She also talked at length about her tough, no-frills childhood and love of fashion. 'I have a family history of obesity. For me, I was very sporty from a young age. I played a lot of sport and was very active,' she said. 'I also really loved fashion and clothes so I was mindful of what I ate and how I ate. 'We didn't have a lot of food, my mum was a single mum, and there were three kids in the family. 'We weren't overweight as kids. We had three meals a day but they were pretty conservative meals. There were never seconds or dessert. 'We didn't get money to go to the shops. "I hadn't had a soft drink until I was a teenager and got my first job. I'd never had McDonald's or fast food. 'Once a year for a birthday we'd have fish and chips as a treat. 'We ate a lot of cheap, easy to make foods and frozen vegetables, never fresh food.' She said lost 4kg in a week after a doctor put her on a strict eating plan, and that she eventually shed the excess weight by following a combined diet and exercise regime. Ms Maddox had been working as Slater and Gordon's payroll manager until she was suspended last November for improperly allocating a $200 gift and eventually left the business. Details in the rogue email sent to the firm's 900-plus employees were only current as of last November, coincidentally at the same time Ms Maddox was stood down. The email was sent from a private Gmail address set up falsely in the name of Slater and Gordon's outgoing Chief People Officer Mari Ruiz-Matthyssen, and written in the guise of a personal 'handover' document to her replacement. Slater and Gordon have confirmed that Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen, and it is not suggested otherwise, had absolutely no involvement in the controversy whatsoever and had been framed by the email's true author. It has since emerged that Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen was the executive tasked with formally suspending Ms Maddox. The respected HR manager is understood to be devastated by the vile attack on her reputation and has engaged leading Sydney counsel Monica Allen from top law firm BlackBay Lawyers. Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen has now launched legal action against Slater and Gordon in the Supreme Court of Victoria claiming negligence over their handling of the email row. 'Our client has suffered significant and ongoing personal and professional harm,' said the legal firm in a statement. 'We are resolute in our commitment to ensuring Slater and Gordon are held accountable for their actions - and inactions.' Meanwhile, Slater and Gordon gave Ms Maddox a payout of at least $60,000 after she engaged Maurice Blackburn to pursue legal action over her suspension. The Australian Financial Review revealed Ms Maddox's secret criminal past as Bridgett Jones after uncovering a slew of evidence that they were they same person - despite her strenuous denials to the contrary. They include a profile picture on a now dormant X account belonging to The_BridgettJones, which features her distinctive tattoo, the two identities' matching birth dates and eyewitness accounts they are the same person by former colleagues. Jones' criminal past stretched back to 2006 when she stole customer credit card details to use for her own financial gain while working in a Pizza Hut call centre, according to sentencing remarks delivered by County Court Judge Liz Gaynor. The following year Jones was convicted of defrauding a law firm after she received an unfair dismissal payout for $400 from a former employer and altered the cheque to bank $4000. In 2014, Jones received a suspended sentence for misusing four American Express corporate credit cards - primarily to make purchases at fashion retailers - while employed as an administration assistant. Jones was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to 66 charges relating to unlawful use of company credit cards. The same year, she managed to land a job as a payroll assistant at Melbourne company Premium Floors in Dandenong South. While there, she stole more than $240,000 from the firm to 'keep up appearances', Victorian County Court heard in June 2017, after admitting one count of theft and three of obtaining financial advantage by deception. The court heard Jones had used a combination of false accounting, transfers onto her credit card, using two employees' credit cards and making a fraudulent Motorpass card account between November 2015 and December 2016 She rationalised her crimes by claiming to help those close to her, and used the stolen funds to send her son to a private boarding school and for her mother to buy a car. Jones also told a forensic psychologist she was under financial stress and wanted to 'promote the image of success'. In sentencing her to a year behind bars, Judge Gaynor said there was a high risk of repeat offending unless there was intense psychiatric intervention. 'How someone thinks it's okay to knock off money to buy a car for your mum while on a suspended sentence for the same thing?' she said. 'That shows me how psychologically disturbed your thinking is. You must have known this would be uncovered. 'Your outlook is skewed, fractured and wrong. 'You might have seen the world as a tough place to negotiate. It doesn't make you more needing or vulnerable than anyone else.' Judge Gaynor noted Jones's dysfunctional upbringing in Shepparton, sometimes-abusive relationships and history of pharmaceutical drugs abuse. The judge stressed the 'nightmarish' pressure Jones placed on her immediate manager at Premium Floors, whose career and well-being suffered 'gravely' as a result of the offending. 'The unfairness must rankle with him all the time,' Judge Gaynor said. 'How dare you do that to another human being, Ms Jones.' The fraudster was back before the same judge the following October for further offences she committed after being sacked by Premium Floors and picking up a job as a payroll and accounts manager at labour hire out Ultro Construction and Recruitment. The court heard she fleeced the company out of almost $100,000 via a series of transactions between February and November 2016. On top of that, she also used forged payslips - fraudulently increasing her annual salary from $65,000 to $162,000 - to obtain a $900,000 loan from Westpac bank to buy a Cheltenham house worth almost $1million. Judge Gaynor sentenced her to a further year in prison, with Jones to remain locked up until December 2019, when she would begin a three-year community corrections order. The revelations about Ms Maddox's criminal past come as Slater and Gordon top executives struggle with the fallout from the email scandal. Slater and Gordon has said the matter 'has been referred to police and is being investigated' and that they won't 'comment on individual employees or former employees'.
News.com.au
15-05-2025
- News.com.au
Judge's ‘grave concerns' in NSW strip search class action case
A judge presiding over the case of a woman suing the state of NSW over a strip search at a popular music festival has told the court she has 'grave concerns' about the conduct of the defence, who admitted after two years the search was unlawful. Raya Meredith was made to undress in front of a police officer, lift her breasts, and remove her tampon during a 'humiliating' and terrifying strip search at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2018 that police later admitted was illegal. The then-27-year-old is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit brought by Slater and Gordon and the Redfern Legal Centre against the state of NSW on behalf of more than 3000 people likely subjected to illegal strip searches from 2016-2022. Ms Meredith's lawyer, Kylie Nomchong SC argued in her closing statements Tuesday and Wednesday that there was a failure on the part of 'senior echelons' of NSW Police to ensure proper training and supervision given to police doing searches. Julian Sexton SC, who is representing the state of NSW, pushed back on claims by Ms Nomchong about police training and the findings of a report by the Lessons Learned Unit (LLU) following a complaint after a 2013 Mardi Gras afterparty. Mr Sexton said the report, contrary to submissions by Ms Nomchong, did not represent an 'admission of widespread unlawful use of strip searches' or routine unlawful strip searches and instead only made 'recommendations about best practice'. He went on to tell the court that out of 172,000 searches in 2016, 3850 were strip searches. Resulting from those searches were only 79 complaints, four of which were sustained, with a further two sustained complaints the following year. 'This demonstrates that there was a decreasing number of complaints sustained. There were only five complaints sustained in the period up until November 2018. That doesn't indicate a widespread use of unlawful searches,' Mr Saxton said. He made similar claims about the 'very small number' of civil cases. Justice Dina Yehia said the defence case and state of NSW's admission that Ms Meredith's strip search was illegal were of 'grave concern' during Thursday's hearing. Justice Yehia told Mr Saxton before the lunch adjournment that 'the conduct of the proceedings in relation to the three iterations of defence that were initially relied upon, that is a matter, I'll be quite honest with you, of grave concern to me. 'All I have is three officers' statements that say either that they don't remember the search at all or both that they don't remember the search nor remember the plaintiff, the lead plaintiff in those circumstances,' she said, referring to Ms Meredith. 'I'm just not sure how this could ever have proceeded in the way that it did with the initial pleadings.' Mr Saxton said the admission about the legality of the search was 'more accurate to say it was an admission based on the absence of proof' and police may have based their recollections on 'practice' rather than specific memory. In response, Justice Yehia said: 'An assertion that the officer's assessment of the plaintiff's demeanour, physical appearance, body language and answers to questions while they spoke outside the tent is very specific.' Under NSW law, strip searches – which are recognised as being 'highly invasive and humiliating' – are supposed to be undertaken within specific statutory guidelines, including preconditions of 'seriousness and urgency' that they be done. Ms Nomchong told the court on Tuesday that not a single COPS event log contained why a strip search was necessary, and the general duties officers were 'defective in their understanding of the basis on which strip searches could be carried out'. 'They were not supervised. They were not trained. And, as a direct result, that is why my plaintiff was unlawfully strip searched … along with others who attended the music festival in 2018,' Ms Nomchong said in her more than six-hour statement. Resuming on Wednesday, Ms Nomchong urged the court to award exemplary damages 'not only to express the court's disapprobation but because of the manifest breaches of the (Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act) by searching officers'. Ms Nomchong went on to add 'but also because of the … manifest failures on the part of the senior echelons of the NSW Police Force responsible for both general and focus training for conducting strip searches' in the state at the time.
News.com.au
14-05-2025
- News.com.au
‘Senior echelons' of NSW Police's failure before woman's ‘humiliating' strip search: court
The 'senior echelons' of the NSW Police Force failed to properly train and supervise police officers before a woman's 'humiliating' strip search at a popular music festival that prompted a landmark class action lawsuit, a court has been told. Raya Meredith was forced to undress in front of a police officer, lift her breasts, and remove her tampon during a 'humiliating' and terrifying strip search at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2018 that police later admitted was illegal. The then-27-year-old is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit brought by Slater and Gordon and the Redfern Legal Centre against the state of NSW on behalf of more than 3000 people likely subjected to illegal strip searches between 2016-2022. Ms Meredith's lawyer, Kylie Nomchong SC, has argued in her closing statements, which continued on Wednesday, that there was an 'abject failure' on the part of NSW Police to ensure proper training and supervision given to police doing searches. Under the law, strip searches – which are recognised as being 'highly invasive and humiliating' – are supposed to be undertaken within specific statutory guidelines, including preconditions of 'seriousness and urgency' that they be done. Ms Nomchong told the court on Tuesday that not a single COPS event log contained why a strip search was necessary, and the general duties officers were 'defective in their understanding of the basis on which strip searches could be carried out'. 'They were not supervised. They were not trained. And, as a direct result, that is why my plaintiff was unlawfully strip searched … along with others who attended the music festival in 2018,' Ms Nomchong said in her more than six-hour statement. Resuming on Wednesday, Ms Nomchong urged the court to award exemplary damages 'not only to express the court's disapprobation but because of the manifest breaches of the (Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act) by searching officers. Ms Nomchong went on to add 'but also because of the … manifest failures on the part of the senior echelons of the NSW Police Force responsible for both general and focus training for conducting strip searches' in the state at the time. The state of NSW has maintained searching Ms Meredith's breast and genital area were 'objectively reasonably necessary', a claim Ms Nomchong described as 'outrageous' and claimed there was no 'no basis for the strip search in the first place'. She told Judge Dina Yehia that she would have to make factual findings in relation to Ms Meredith's pleadings in the case but admitted damages might be mitigated by changes since made by police – changes she said were available at the time, too. The state of NSW for 2½ years denied the search was unlawful. In her evidence, recited by Ms Nomchong on Tuesday, Ms Meredith said she remembered 'wanting to scream at her (the officer). I remember feeling disgusted that another woman was putting me through this. I was nauseated by this point. I felt like vomiting.' Ms Nomchong is seeking $5000 in damages for the 'pat down' as well as aggravated damages because of the 'colossal magnitude' of the contraventions made during the search, which was not lawful and 'breached nearly every safeguard'. She also alleged lawyers representing the state of NSW had issued a subpoena to Services Australia for Ms Meredith's entire medical history despite there not being a claim for personal injury damages, 'having the effect of intimidating the plaintiff'. 'The plaintiff's evidence was if 'I could have walked out of this case then and there I would have',' Ms Nomchong said. Much of Tuesday's hearing centred on what training was given to police, including at the police academy, in regard to the carrying out of strip searches as well as what Ms Nomchong claimed could have been done to avoid the contraventions. She told the court that plans had been drawn up in response to a complaint made following a 2013 Mardi Gras afterparty and an investigation by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission as well as a sticker systems officers could have deployed.
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- The Guardian
NSW police continued to justify festival strip-searches using drug dogs despite knowing 30% hit-rate, court hears
The New South Wales police force knew drug detection dogs only have a '30% hit-rate' but continued to use them as the primary justification to strip-search people at music festivals, a court has heard. The revelation came amid closing arguments for a class action in the NSW supreme court, where lawyers for the plaintiffs have argued the vast majority of strip searches conducted by state police between 2018 to 2022 at music festivals were unlawful. The class action was brought by Slater and Gordon Lawyers and the Redfern Legal Centre against the state of NSW over allegedly unlawful strip-searches conducted by police, including of children. Last week, the court heard from Raya Meredith, the lead plaintiff of more than 3,000 group members subjected to potentially unlawful strip-searches at music festivals by NSW police officers between 2016 and 2022. She gave an emotional testimony about her strip-search by police at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass after a drug dog sniffed in her direction but then walked on. During the search, Meredith – 27 at the time – was asked to remove her tampon while undressed in front of a police officer. The search found no drugs, and nothing else illegal. 'The female police officer ran her hands over the plaintiff's bare skin on her arms, up her thighs, and down her legs,' Kylie Nomchong SC, who is acting for the plaintiffs, told the court on Tuesday. Nomchong told the court in her closing argument that Meredith's case was not in isolation. At the 2018 Splendour in the Grass, 205 people were strip-searched but did not appear to meet the police's threshold to merit this. 'Not one records why it was necessary, not one single [incident in the police database] records the circumstance that made it sufficiently serious or urgent to conduct a strip-search. Not one,' Nomchong told the court. The Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, which dictates police strip-search powers, insists police can only carry them out when 'the seriousness and urgency of the circumstances make the strip-search necessary'. The court heard that the police undertook 155 out of those 205 searches on the basis that the festival was a 'well-known place' for drugs, the person 'looked nervous' in police presence, and the dog had sniffed in the person's direction. No drugs were found on those people. Nomchong argued these instances did not meet the threshold under the legislation, and reminded the court that police documents show that drug dogs are only accurate 30% of the time. 'That was something the police service knew yet we saw COPS event after COPS event,' she said, referring to the Computerised Operational Policing System database, 'where the only indication for the event was drug dog indication.' In instances where drugs were found at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass, Nomchong said most festival-goers handed them over after being asked by police if they had any, making a strip-search unnecessary. In one instance, a man told police when asked if he had any drugs that he had 'some joints' taped to his leg. They still conducted a strip-search and found nothing else. Nomchong argued part of the broader failing was due to NSW police considering strip-searches as merely 'routine'. Nomchong also argued that police had received 'absolutely negligible' training in conducting a lawful strip-searche, both in the academy and as part of ongoing mandatory training. She argued this was a statewide issue. '[This] didn't just happen during the Splendour in the Grass event, it's happening across the state in relation to all of the music and festivals,' Nonchong told the court. 'Same input, same result.' Nomchong told the court that internal police documents showed police were aware of an increase in strip-searches at music festivals – and alongside it, an increase in complaints and litigation. But the force 'did nothing', she said. 'Police officers and indeed upper echelons of the police force must have been aware or should have been aware the level of basic training was absolutely negligible,' she told the court. The NSW police admitted in court documents that its strip-search of Meredith was unlawful and unjustified, and ignored laws protecting her rights. This came, the court heard, after the police had denied Meredith's allegations that her strip-search was unlawful for two-and-a-half years. The case had been set down for 20 days of hearings before Justice Dina Yehia SC. But in the days before the hearing began, the state of NSW withdrew 22 witnesses, mostly police officers, who were due to contest Meredith's version of events. Nomchong told the court on Tuesday that the damages awarded to Meredith should be substantial because 'this wasn't just one thing'. 'It was the combination of a colossal contravention of the legislation.' Nomchong also urged the judge to factor in the police's extended denial of Meredith's version of events, only to eventually admit she had been illegally strip-searched. Closing arguments before Yehia are expected to end Wednesday.
