Talk:Stephen John Sutton

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Please be patient with me. This is my first Wikipedia entry. I have read the FAQ and am trying to comply with the guidelines for entries. I am open to all suggestions and edits to make this page of Wikipedia calibre. Thank you, --Diana Elgar 08:02, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to all the Wikipedians who have helped to 'Wikify' this entry. I am paying close attention to the correct formatting for Wikipedia so I can do them myself in the future. --Diana Elgar 00:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I have noted that more sources of information would be desirable for this entry. Unfortunately, getting information about Stephen and thus news coverage about him and his case is very difficult. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) are responsible for providing consular assistance to Australians in legal trouble overseas. Absent the family's financial ability to go to Argentina to visit him themselves, DFAT would normally be the main source of information in a case like Stephen's.

DFAT have provided very little information to Stephen's family in Australia. DFAT have also not provided adequate medical care to Stephen despite the family's knowledge that he has medical problems that require ongoing treatment. It is also very difficult to find English speaking persons in Argentina to visit Stephen. A volunteer who must travel 3 hours by bus to get to the prison has managed to visit him once. DFAT have been slow in providing the permissions necessary for anyone to visit Stephen.

This all stands in very stark contrast to the generous assistance provided by DFAT to Schapelle Corby. Corby has in fact had a DFAT provided physician on standby to visit Ms Corby on her request and has also provided significant financial legal aid to her. I won't speculate on the reasons for the differences in treatment, but Sutton clearly has needs that DFAT could meet and have met for other Australians imprisoned overseas.

The main source of information about Sutton is his sister, Ann Cluse. Ann has gone to no small amount of trouble to put up a website and has been threatened with legal action by DFAT for her publication of what she has been told by them. If there were wider press coverage of this matter, I would happily reference it, but DFAT are releasing very little and it's hard to get in touch with Stephen directly. It is hoped that this Wikipedia entry and Ann's website will generate the sort of interest necessary to get some news coverage. thanks, --Diana Elgar 01:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

There has been a concerted effort on the part of some people to get material about Stephen Sutton deleted from Wikipedia. The reason for this appears to be due to a dispute between Sutton's sister, Ann Cluse, a prisoner advocate named Kate Gibbons who works on Ann & Stephen's behalf, and a prisoner advocacy oorganisation from Brisbane, Australia called Foreign Prisoner Support Service (FPSS).

FPSS is operated by Tony Fox. Kay Danes is his associate. Cluse had at one time engaged the assistance of FPSS in an attempt to help Stephen while he is in prison in Argentina but discovered that FPSS had engaged in unacceptable behaviours and sought to separate herself from them. Cluse only engaged FPSS to have Stephen's case mentioned on the FPSS website. Cluse has since set up her own website for Stephen at http://stephensutton.com. Kate Gibbons was working as a volunteer for FPSS and separated herself from them for the same reasons as Ann. The only thing Cluse and Gibbons want from FPSS, Fox and Danes is to be left alone by them- and that includes the Wikipedia entry about Stephen.

You will find extensive personal attacks on Kate Gibbons in particular in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Australians_in_international_prisons page. Many of these personal attacks come from a person who identifies as "Robert Frost from OSE Prisoners Dispute Services U.K." "Robert Frost" claims to be in the UK, but is posting from IP address 144.131.198.139 (see http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=144.131.198.139). This IP is in a block assigned to Telstra in Brisbane, Australia, which also happens to be the location of FPSS. You will find that "Frost" has repeatedly spammed links for FPSS in the aforementioned entry as a harassment of Cluse and Gibbons. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Australians_in_international_prisons&diff=24934445&oldid=24227584 for a rather grievous offence.

Cluse and Gibbons only want to help Stephen, not deal with harassment and abuse. The vandalism of Wikipedia entries and interference with the real purpose of Wikipedia by falsely motivated requests for deletion of this article is an intolerable abuse of Wikipedia and its fine users, some of whom have been sucked in to this dispute without knowing all the issues behind it. Now they know.

Now, can we please set about the business of helping Stephen live more comfortably until we can get him home? That's why I'm here. --Diana Elgar 03:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

AFD debate link
IN RESPONCE – the above post in the public arena on Wikpedia is suspicious in that instead of assisting & promoting Mr Suttons case, it seeks to slander the Foreign Prisoner Support Services (herein known as FPSS), Mr Fox, Mrs Danes, the FPSS Advocates and Members. Diana makes unfounded & ill-informed allegations and promotes only one side of the story without bothering to fact check her information or verify it’s content.

The FPSS has been in operation since 1995 and has assisted many hundreds of prisoners, their families and friends from all over the world. It is a self-funded group that operates with a core group of advocates and several thousands of volunteers & members around the world.

This information, and the information that follows is well documented in the public domain and has been the subject of formal legal submissions.

Ms Cluse approached the FPSS to promote the cause of her brother Stephen Sutton. In good faith the FPSS spend much time & effort promoting the case of Mr Sutton on his sisters behalf. I have been provided with date stamped email dialogues of the supposed 'conflict' which Diana mentioned above that allegedly occurred between a member of the FPSS, and Ms Cluse. The supposed 'unacceptable behaviour' which the FPSS was alleged to have undertaken was a suggestion by one of the FPSS advocates, in a private email conversation with Ms Cluse and another volunteer that the family should determine what level of compensation would be payable to authorities in order to effect the release of Mr. Sutton from custody. This comment was suggested as one of many dozens of options being discussed, and was well founded in such environments. This suggestion was at no time inappropriate and was certainly not suggested as a primary course of action nor as a bribe which is a federal offence in any country. Ms Cluse for some unknown reason took offence at this suggestion and a request was made to the FPSS to discontinue its support of Mr Sutton.

Around this time the FPSS received information directly from Mr Sutton that he did not wish his sister, nor anyone else to speak for him, as per his direct instructions the FPSS removed his case information from it's site. The FPSS has indicated that this is not an uncommon situation and can cite several situations where inmates have found their cases being promoted by well meaning, but ill informed family members, only to ultimately make their situation more complex and difficult. Indeed in some cases the actions of family members has seen prisoners severely punished for the information which has been published in the press.

Around the time of Mr Suttons case being featured on the FPSS website the FPSS were approached by one Kate Gibbons. Many people offer their assistance to the FPSS and as such the FPSS welcomed Ms Gibbons assistance. It however quickly became apparent that Ms Gibbon’s motives were not so well meaning. It was discovered that Ms Gibbons was representing herself as the FPSS in communications with officials without any formal permission from the FPSS or its Advocates. Ms Gibbons was asked to cease her emailing people falsely representing herself as working for, and speaking for the FPSS. Ms Gibbons was never a member of the FPSS, nor was she accepted as an Advocate at any stage. In conversations with the FPSS it has become apparent that Ms Gibbons had ulterior motives for aligning herself with such an organization. Ms Gibbons very quickly became very hostile and the FPSS formally notified her of its wish to have no further contact with her whatsoever.

Much to the surprise of its advocates Ms Gibbons then launched a concerted attack upon the FPSS and its members. I have personally seen legal documentation showing that Ms Gibbons send hundreds of emails to government officials, media outlets, indeed anyone who would listen. The content of these emails were mundane in the extreme and had nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than Ms Gibbons wish to see the FPSS and its Advocates discredited, and the organization shut down. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the FPSS, or its Advocates, no actions taken by them that harmed anyone or affected anyone’s case in a negative manner. Most all of the recipients had worked with the FPSS, had known of their service, had interviewed their advocates and could vouch for their integrity and the good work that they have done for many years. Copies of these posts by Ms Gibbons were forwarded onto the FPSS and were recorded for use by their lawyers. The FPSS instructed their legal team to contact Ms Gibbons to ask her to cease and desist with any further attempts to discredit the FPSS or its Advocates. Unfortunately Ms Gibbons continued to harass, bully and intimidate the FPSS Advocates until she was finally threatened with immediate court action. Mr Fox from the FPSS has reported to me that the FPSS made the legal request to Ms Gibbons only after several emails by himself seeking to console Ms Gibbons and ascertain what her grievances were. The irrational and mundane nature of Ms Gibbon’s attacks, time constraints and the massive workload of the Advocates of the FPSS prohibited Mr Fox from spending much more time on the matter. "Never before have we ever seen anything like it" Mr Fox related to me, "we simply could not understand what she wanted, what she thought we had done wrong, or indeed what we could do to placate her, it was simply an irrational act of unfounded personal hostility and finally we had to simply leave it to our legal people to sort out".

Ms Gibbons ulterior motives in seeking to infiltrate the FPSS became clear when she set up a website of her own and misappropriated much of the FPSS content which was copyrighted. This website operated for a period of months before it became stagnant and was not updated again. To this day the website remains a static entity and correspondences with the FPSS by people contacted by Ms Gibbons have indicated that Ms Gibbons was personally able to do little to assist them in their cases. One of the reasons Ms Gibbons was unable to assist a family member of a prisoner which was reported to the FPSS indicated that Ms Gibbons had not only sought to attack the FPSS but had been threatened with legal action by the Australian Government for defamation against its representatives, and as such had no cooperation or assistance by DFAT. Unfortunately through her agents and associates her attack on the good name of the FPSS and its Advocates continues to this day. No factual information has ever been provided regarding any 'unacceptable behaviour' by the FPSS, or its Advocates, but yet the echoes continue to resound in the public arena.

References are also made to other persons, namely Robert Frost from OSE Prisoners Dispute Services U.K. and Diana attempts to make a tentative connection between Mr Frost and the FPSS based on the fact that Mr Frost uses a Telstra account, and that the FPSS is based in Brisbane Australia. This connection is tentative at best and does not stand up to the scrutiny of anyone with even a basic knowledge of the internet. To attempt to forge a connection between the FPSS and any person solely based on the many thousands of Telstra internet users in Queensland is senseless and can only be construed as a further attempt to connect the FPSS with some conspiracy or misappropriate behaviour. I suggest that Diana Elgar seek legal advice on making such unfounded allegations prior to publishing any further material in the public domain regarding the FPSS or its members.

The FPSS continues to this day to assist prisoners, their families and friends in campaigning for their freedom, appeals, amnesties, prisoner treaties, human rights and better conditions. Through the goodwill of its core group of Advocates many prisoners are provided with much needed medical assistance, and their family members are provided with assistance to attend court cases in countries far from home. The FPSS works with many similar such organizations around the world and fosters a spirit of cooperative collaboration. Although sometimes at odds with policies and the expedient assistance of persons in trouble with the law in foreign countries the FPSS has fostered much needed working relationships with Governments and their representatives in many countries around the world and a mutual respect has grown amongst these people engaged in the fight for human rights of prisoners. The many years of it's operation, and the testimonials of the many people the FPSS has assisted speaks for itself.

In protecting the integrity and good name of the FPSS, as with other such organizations that the FPSS has worked with, it at times must speak up to 'put the record straight', and unfortunately even take the matter to the courts. The FPSS has a dispute resolution policy and does not wish to waste time & resources fighting defamation cases through the courts, however it will not hesitate to do so if unfounded allegations are made about it in the public arena.

Dr Peter Williams Legal Advisor & Lecturer

This article has been kept following this AFD debate. Sjakkalle (Check!)  08:58, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

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