Casey Villification Case

Casey Villification Case

The Casey Villification case was one of the largest cases that PAN has been involved in It began in the first week of June 2003 with a front page article of a local paper, the Cranbourne Leader, Wednesday June 11 2003 named "Satanic Cult Fears" The article was a ripper with all the intolerance and bigotry and misinformation any fundamentalist could want.

The result, and the full story is below. Olivia Watts launched legal actions against Cr Wilson. The Pagan Awareness Network Inc on behalf of David Garland launched separate legal actions against Cr Wilson and Mayor Brian Oates claiming religious vilification.

Here is how it started.

Olivia Watts unsuccessfully ran for Casey council in March 2003. Another Councillor was elected and only stayed in office for only 34 days.While in office he stirred up a mess of trouble in the council. What is the connection I hear you say?

Well this councillor appeared on Today Tonight (Channel 7) and Olivia was asked to comment. Well Olivia exercised her democratic right to have an opinion and made a comment.

On The 28th May 2003 the Cranbourne Leader ran an article on the repeal of Section 13 of the Vagrancy Act 1958 Olivia featured In this article.

On June 2nd, 2003, Councillor Rob Wilson issued a press release warning that individuals with links to the occult were involved in attacks on the City Council and its recent run of negative publicity. In his press release, he named Olivia Watts, and stated among other things that her religious beliefs were ‘a matter of concern for all Casey residents.’ The Mayor of the City Of Casey, Brian Oates, weighed into the debate, supporting Cr Wilson’s claims. A media circus ensued.

Here is how PAN responded. 

Our original letter to Steve Bracks the Victorian Premier, received a response from his office stating that the matter was referred to the Attorney General and the Department of Justice for further investigation.

Our second letter sent as a CC in response to Mayor Oats' letter to also received a response thanking us for brining this to their attention and has also been referred to The Attorney General for investigation.

We sent a complete file of all the correspondence and newspaper articles with the complaint to the Attorney General. September 2003 saw a response from the Attorney General of Victoria. In his letter he reiterated his comments on April 14, "We govern for all Victorians – and that includes witches, magicians and sorcerers" . He also advised that we lodge our complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission Victoria under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001.

Our complaint was lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and received a response, we were advised to take it to the Equal Opportunity Commission of Victoria as it was out of their jurisdiction.

We then lodged a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission in Victoria. Our complaint against Cr Wilson could not be resolved and was referred to VCAT for hearing.

Here is how it was resolved. 

The complaint with Mayor Wilson was settled at VCAT on the 13th of March 2004. The results of the settlement are listed in this press release. As part of the settlement Mayor Wilson also issued this statement .