FACTS of a Section 474.17

Your Honour.

​I make these submissions in defense of the charge under Section 474.17 of the Criminal Code Act 1995. The Prosecution alleges that the use of a carriage service in this matter was menacing, harassing, or offensive.

​The Defense submits that when these messages are examined not in a vacuum, but in 'all the circumstances' as required by the statute, they fall fundamentally short of the criminal threshold. Furthermore, they are protected by the implied constitutional freedom of political communication, and stand as a lawful, purpose-driven attempt to seek accountability.

​1. The Context of the Communications:

Your Honour, the law mandates an objective test. The Court must ask what a reasonable person would think of these messages in the exact context they were sent.

​The context here is not a trivial dispute. The communications stem directly from an incident of severe police misconduct resulting in the reckless endangerment of safety. The messages before the Court are the direct result of a citizen surviving a traumatic, life-threatening breach of duty by officers of the State, and subsequently finding themselves stonewalled by the very system meant to protect them.

​The Prosecution seeks to characterize these messages as criminal harassment. We submit they are the desperate, frustrated pleas of a citizen seeking legitimate resolution and accountability for state corruption. A reasonable person, having survived reckless endangerment by law enforcement, would naturally communicate with intense frustration and urgency.

​2. Implied Freedom of Political Communication

Secondly, Your Honour, we raise the implied freedom of political communication. Australian law fiercely protects the right of citizens to scrutinize, criticize, and demand answers from government agencies and police forces.

​The communications in question were directed at holding state actors accountable for corruption and endangerment. They are inherently political. While the language used may have been blunt or unvarnished, the High Court has consistently held that the Constitution protects robust, critical, and even insulting speech regarding government officers. To convict on the basis of these messages would be to criminalize a citizen’s right to challenge police misconduct.

​3. The Threshold of "Offensive" and "Harassing"

Turning to the specific elements of Section 474.17. We rely on the High Court’s ruling in Monis v The Queen, which established that for a communication to be criminally 'offensive,' it must arouse significant anger, outrage, disgust, or hatred.

​It is not a crime to be angry. It is not a crime to be demanding. In the context of a severe grievance, the language used in these messages was proportionate to the trauma and stonewalling experienced. The Prosecution has shown that the messages were forceful, but they have failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they cross the extreme threshold required for a criminal conviction under Monis.

​Furthermore, the charge of 'harassment' implies a malicious course of conduct designed to torment. The evidence shows a clear, opposing motive: the pursuit of resolution. The contact was purpose-driven. It was persistent only because legitimate demands for answers regarding police endangerment were ignored. Persistence in the pursuit of justice and resolution does not equate to criminal recklessness or malicious harassment.

​Conclusion:

Your Honour, we cannot allow the Criminal Code to be used as a shield to silence citizens who are attempting to expose police corruption and seek resolution for reckless endangerment.

​The communications were purposeful. They were constitutionally protected criticisms of state actors. And in all the circumstances—circumstances initiated by the failure and endangerment caused by the authorities themselves—they do not meet the standard of being criminally menacing, harassing, or offensive.

​We submit the Prosecution has failed to make its case, and the charge must be dismissed. As it pleases the Court.

THIS MONTHS ACTION:

Sent: Wednesday 24 June, 2026.

Office for Public Integrity (OPI) / Police Ombudsman

Adelaide, SA

​To the relevant authority,

​I am writing on behalf of Marcia Anita Hobbs to formally demand a definitive resolution regarding the sexual assault and rape committed against her by Kurt Gavan Slaven in 2001.

​For over a decade, Ms. Hobbs has been trapped in an agonizing cycle of institutional delay. SAPOL has repeatedly indicated that they are considering charging Mr. Slaven for these crimes over the years - even on court records in Mount Gambier Magistrates Court DPP stated, yet no definitive action has been taken. The fact that the accused is a former employee of the very institution tasked with investigating him casts a dark shadow over these delays, raising severe concerns of institutional protection and conflicts of interest.

​The purpose of this letter is twofold: to demand an immediate, transparent resolution to the 2001 criminal matter, and to establish the medical and legal context of Ms. Hobbs's recent communications with your department.

​1. The Medical Reality: C-PTSD and Institutional Betrayal

​Ms. Hobbs suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) as a direct result of the trauma inflicted upon her in 2001. However, her current psychological state cannot be attributed solely to the original assault; it has been compounded by her treatment within the justice system.

​Extensive psychiatric and psychological research recognizes a phenomenon known as Institutional Betrayal (Freyd, 2014). This occurs when an institution—particularly one entrusted with protection and justice, such as a police force—fails to respond adequately to a victim of sexual violence. Medical literature confirms that when an institution protects an offender or subjects a victim to endless, unresolved delays, it inflicts a profound secondary trauma.

​The effects of this secondary victimization include severe hyperarousal, chronic systemic distress, and an inability to achieve psychological closure. Ms. Hobbs has been held psychological hostage not just by her rapist, but by an institutional apparatus that has repeatedly promised justice only to withhold it.

​2. Contextualizing Communications: A Demand for Humanity, Not Harassment

​It is our understanding that the tone and frequency of Ms. Hobbs's communications to SAPOL and associated agencies have been met with resistance, and potentially viewed through a punitive lens. We must be unequivocally clear on the legal and psychological nature of her correspondence.

​If any party attempts to characterize her communications as menacing, harassing, or offensive under Section 474.17 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), we place on record that such an assessment fails the objective legal test.

​The Neurobiology of Trauma: Ms. Hobbs’s communications—which may be perceived by your officers as demanding, urgent, or angry—are the documented, autonomic trauma responses of a victim suffering from C-PTSD and Institutional Betrayal. When an innocent person is forced to beg a system for their basic humanity and safety to be acknowledged for over twenty years, their desperation will naturally manifest as intense frustration.

​The Legal Context ("All the Circumstances"): Under the established threshold in Monis v The Queen, a communication is judged in "all the circumstances." The circumstances here involve a victim confronting a police force regarding an unresolved rape committed by a former member of that very force. Her communications are not a malicious course of conduct designed to torment; they are a constitutionally protected, purpose-driven attempt to seek accountability, expose potential corruption, and force a resolution to a crime that has destroyed her peace.

​A reasonable person, subjected to twenty years of trauma and institutional stonewalling, would exhibit the exact same urgency and righteous anger. Attempting to criminalize or dismiss a survivor's trauma response—while the alleged perpetrator remains shielded by institutional inaction—is a profound miscarriage of justice.

​3. Demand for Resolution:

​Ms. Hobbs has a fundamental human and legal right to access justice and resolution. We will not accept the continued use of procedural delays to silence a victim.

​Formally demand:

​A definitive, written update on the status of the investigation into Kurt Gavan Slaven.

​A clear explanation for the prolonged delays in laying charges, particularly given the accused’s former employment status.

​A commitment to finalize this matter without subjecting Ms. Hobbs to further institutional trauma or retaliatory administrative actions.

​Awaiting your prompt and formal response.

REPLY WILL BE POSTED HERE:

... ... ...

FURTHER ACTION:

Request a Discretionary In-Person Interview

​Under the ICAC Act, the Director of the OPI has the authority to grant an in-person interview for complaints that are "sensitive, complex, or of significant public interest."