When Lies in the Legal System Become a House of Cards: The Imperative of Truth in Justice

(L) Legal House of Cards - Built on a foundation of falsehoods. (R) Persian King Cambyses II (Corrupt Judge Skin) Chair.

Legal House of Cards - The Dangers of Falsehoods on Record

In the realm of law, every sworn statement, every legal instrument, and every court judgment rests on a single, fragile foundation: trust.

When officers of the court, be they lawyers or judicial officials, take an oath, they swear to uphold honesty and integrity. This is not ceremonial triviality, it is the backbone of justice itself.

The reason is simple, yet profound: a single material lie, once embedded in the legal record, can ripple outward and cause immense harm. It’s the first crack in a dam that, if left unchecked, can lead to a flood of injustice.

A false entry in a court document, such as a fictitious contract, can take on a life of its own. It becomes the cornerstone of a whole structure of falsehoods that distort reality, corrupt the administration of justice, and infect every proceeding it touches.

That lie travels from one legal setting to the next, influencing decisions at every stage, from costs assessments to District Court hearings and to the Court of Appeal. By the time the process is over, the falsehood may be so deeply cemented into the official narrative that it can even lead to stripping the rights and/or liberties of a person, adversely affecting their livelihoods, without affording them proper due process.

Lived Experience: When A Lie Becomes A Record - How One Fabricated Contract Became a Legal “Truth”

In our experience, we’ve seen exactly how dangerous a single falsehood can become. 

Here are the facts:

The origin of the falsehood

• Credit Corp Services Pty Limited / Credit Corp Group (“Credit Corp”) filed a Statement of Claim signed by Mr Carlos Toda of its incorporated law firm, Certus Partners.

• The pleading was later amended by Ms. Anne Freeman and Mr. Florian Ammer of Piper Alderman.

• The case hinged on an alleged breach/default of an alleged credit contract which was never produced.

Magistrate Sharon Freund’s judgment

• At hearing, no contract was tendered and no evidence supported its existence. Despite this, Magistrate Freund’s judgment referred to a contract approximately 75 times

• By doing so, the Magistrate created a narrative that excused Credit Corp and its lawyers from proving their pleaded case under the Credit laws and Contract Law. 

• Mr Nicolas Ford and Mr Thomas Glynn of Glynns Lawyers hijacked their own client’s case. Instead of pressing the real material issue their client had always raised, that no contract existed, they aligned with Credit Corp and its lawyers (Piper Alderman) & counsel, Mr Sebastian Hartford Davis of Banco Chambers.

• At the bar table, Mr. Ford simply stated his client had “received a contract.”

• No document was produced. No evidence was presented.

• Magistrate Freund nevertheless relied on that bare statement by Mr Ford and falsely recorded the contract’s existence as an established fact.

The ripple effect of the lie

The fabricated “contract” became the foundation for subsequent decisions and processes, including:

• The Supreme Court costs assessment process

• Proceedings in the District Court

• In the NSW Court of Appeal leave to appeal procedural application

Ultimately, relying on the mere judicial commentaries of the decisions in the NSW Court of Appeal - leave to appeal applications, the Law Society of NSW issued a view of unfitness decisions, stripping two innocent lawyers of their lawful right to practise. Adversely affecting their law firm, its clients and wider community.

Systemic failure to correct the record

• At every stage, officers of the court accepted and repeated the original lie.

• This occurred despite repeated notices pointing out the fabricated contract and falsehoods embedded in the record.

• Over time, the lie hardened into a distorted “truth”, driving unjust outcomes and a wholesale denial of due process.

The NSW Court of Appeal: False Records in Judgments

Court of Appeal Justices Leeming, Kirk, Basten and White made alleged false records in their leave to appeal procedural application judgments in Odtojan v Ford, Glynn and Condon in 2023 where the three defendants were not in court and never gave evidence.

In 2023, during the leave-to-appeal procedural hearings in Odtojan v Ford, Glynn and Condon:

No defendants appeared, the three defendants were not in court and never gave evidence.

In Odtojan v Ford, Glynn and Condon, the three defendants never appeared in any hearings, neither in the District Court nor in the NSW Court of Appeal. Despite their absence, the judges made records and representations on their behalf. What transpired was not the rule of law or the proper administration of justice. Instead, it was the fabrication of records in legal documents and judgments, creating a false narrative in place of evidence.

On the record, Justices Leeming, Kirk, Basten, and White stated openly in court that no contract existed.

In the written judgments, the same justices nevertheless recorded that a contract did exist, despite there being no evidence before them to support such a finding.

In their own judgment, Justices Basten and White went further:

• They recorded that a contract existed.

• They applied provisions of the National Credit Code to that non-existent contract.

• This entrenched the false record at the appellate level, giving judicial authority to something that was never proved, never tendered, and never admitted into evidence.

The judgments went beyond the fabricated contract:

• They eliminated our role as witnesses, even though in open court Justices Leeming and Kirk explicitly noted that we were witnesses to the crucial conference.

• The conference with Senior Counsel Miles Condon, acknowledged in open court, vanished completely from the published judgment.

• In effect, the judgment erased witnesses, introduced evidence and representations on behalf of three defendants who was not in court nor gave evidence, and ignored the actual documentary and transcript evidence before the Court.

This stark contradiction, between what was said in open court and what was later recorded in the official judgments, illustrates how false records can be created at the highest level. Such records then cascade through the system, being treated as fact in later proceedings and regulatory decisions, even when they were never proven.

Lawyers Weekly Media Amplification: Misrepresentation and Undisclosed Interests

Lawyers Weekly, Director William Magee and Journalists, Naomi Neilson was notified that its article contained falsehoods and sensationalised reporting about Ms Odtojan’s case. Lawyers Weekly ignored the notice and continued to mislead both the legal community and the public at large. It failed to disclose its commercial relationships with Piper Alderman and DLA Piper.

Lawyers Weekly sensationalised the Court of Appeal commentaries, reporting the matter in ways that amplified the distorted narrative.

The publication was notified of the factual errors, including that three defendants had never appeared in court, and that our role as witnesses and the Miles Condon conference had been erased from the judgment.

Despite those notices, our attempts to correct the record were muted. Lawyers Weekly chose not to publish our side, ensuring that only the distorted judicial narrative misleads the profession and the public at large.

Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest in Legal Media

Lawyers Weekly failed to disclose its commercial relationships with two corporate law firms, Piper Alderman and DLA Piper, while reporting on matters in which those very firms were implicated.

Piper Alderman

Reported to regulators as early as 2016 for extensive alleged misconduct and suspected offences in Ms Odtojan’s civil cases.

Despite this, its involvement and history were not disclosed in coverage.

DLA Piper

Alleged to have tampered with court documents in Ms. Odtojan’s matters, for example:

• Exhibits were reduced from approximately 300 pages to just 15.

• Inserted documents were then misrepresented as Ms. Odtojan’s own affidavit exhibits

Alleged to have misled the court regarding its own client’s written advice:

• A false narrative was created that the contract was supported by “secondary” documents.

• In reality, Mr. Condon SC’s written advice materially relies on the existence of a contract, it never stated that it was based on secondary evidence.

• To this day, Mr. Condon has never produced the alleged contract or any evidence of it, despite repeated requests from his client.

The problem with transparency

• By omitting these connections, Lawyers Weekly failed its ethical duty of fair and impartial reporting.

• The absence of disclosure casts serious doubt on the neutrality and integrity of its coverage.

  
  

The Effect of Falsehoods from the Highest Court in NSW

What should have been a simple leave-to-appeal application. a procedural step, never intended to determine facts, credit, or law, was transformed into a vehicle for creating false records.

Those false premises were then echoed by media outlets, Lawyers Weekly, giving them legitimacy and spreading the falsehoods like cancer. Then the legal regulators weaponised those falsehoods to issue its views of unfitness decisions without due process.

Persian King Cambyses II - A Flayed Warning to Corrupt Judges

Here is where history offers a stark warning.

Herodotus known as the "Father of History" referred to the story of the Ancient Persian King Cambyses II, who discovered a royal judge, Sisamnes, had accepted a bribe and delivered a corrupt judgment. Furious at the betrayal of justice, the king ordered the judge executed and had him flayed alive.

The corrupt judges' skin was cut into leather strips to upholster a judicial chair. The king then appointed Sisamnes' son, Otanes, as his father's judicial successor, to sit on the chair as a reminder to him of what happens to corrupt judges and the importance of judicial integrity.

Future judges were forced to sit on that chair, quite literally, as a reminder of the fate awaiting those who dared to corrupt the law. The message was brutal, but unmistakable: when you pervert justice, you undermine the kingdom itself.

Persian King Cambyses II (Corrupt Judge Skin) Chair

That ancient lesson still speaks to us today. The integrity of the legal system must be guarded with absolute seriousness. When a false record is created, it is not merely a “mistake”; it is fraud. It is a perversion of the course of justice. If we fail to call it out, we risk letting these deceptions multiply, corroding the entire structure of justice and the rule of law.

As Robert Greene and other historians have noted, an unchallenged lie can become the seed from which a whole forest of corruption grows.

Why Our Story Should Be Told

That is why our story matters. It is a reminder that every person who stands up and speaks the truth helps to dismantle that house of cards. Courage in this context is not the absence of fear, it is the decision to act despite fear. It is the refusal to remain silent when the stakes are too high.

So let this be a call to action: truth matters. Honesty in the legal system is not a formality, it is the bedrock that keeps society from sliding into chaos, into a Gotham City. We must be willing to call out fraud for what it is and demand accountability. Only then can we ensure that justice is not just a word or lip service, but a reality worthy of the public’s trust, one that safeguards a safe and fair society for all.

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