A Victorian farmer was raided by police and had his guns seized after asking his local MP about a list of high-profile alleged paedophiles, and is now thousands of dollars out of pocket despite being cleared in court of any wrongdoing.
Dean Lampard, 49, approached Nationals MP for Mallee Anne Webster at a public event in Mildura on April 18, Good Friday, and gave her a document that included well-known allegations about a list of 28 prominent Australian paedophiles, an issue he had also raised with her on March 1 at a farmers market.
At 10pm that night a team of about eight armed police raided the rural property where he lives with his 92-year-old father, placed him in handcuffs, seized his firearms, suspended his gun licence, and slapped him with a personal safety intervention order with strict conditions.
Mr Lampard was ordered to face court the second business day after Easter, but was unable to obtain a solicitor and Ms Webster and her GP husband Philip succeeded in obtaining an interim personal safety order against him.
The Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office (VSGO) then represented the Websters at a second court hearing in May where they applied for a full personal safety order, and the matter was adjourned despite Mr Lampard’s lawyer Jamie Griffin arguing there was not enough evidence to support the order being continued.
Mr Lampard appeared in Mildura Magistrates Court again on June 20 where the VSGO suddenly dropped the application, but when Magistrate Patrick Southey asked government solicitor Nadia Deltondo why it had been withdrawn she refused to explain.
“There’s a number of reasons subject to privilege that I can’t announce in court unfortunately,” she said.
Local media applied for a copy of the affidavit outlining the Websters’ reasons for the personal safety order application, but were denied on the grounds the files were “protected information unable to be released”.
Mr Lampard was never charged with or accused of assaults or threats, and his lawyer Jamie Griffin told the court the only physical exchange was Mr Webster pushing his client at the April 18 car show.
But when Mr Griffin asked for Mr Lampard’s costs to be paid, Magistrate Southey went on a rant about “conspiracy theories” and accused Mr Lampard of making “defamatory and crackpot” claims about the Websters, which Mr Lampard denies.
“It’s exceptional that a matter like this is first of all prosecuted by a senior detective, when there is no crime alleged here, and then brought on by the Victorian Government Solicitor, not a police prosecutor,” Mr Griffin told the court, and said that if the matter had gone to hearing the application would have failed.
“My client has a right to approach his local member and to engage in critical discourse if democracy is going to work.”
Magistrate Southey told the court that because the interim order was brought by police and signed by another “very experienced magistrate” that he would not award costs.
“The learned magistrate was satisfied it was appropriate to make an order. Victoria Police, I’ve no reason to think they’ve brought it to this court in anything but good faith,” he said.
“But it seems to me that I should be able to take into account, and I do, when deciding whether or not to order costs, that Mr Lampard’s allegations against the member were offensive, defamatory, crackpot, conspiracy allegations that hold not substance whatsoever.”
“There’s no basis on which that can be put,” Mr Griffin responded.
“What he’s actually said on the day has not been the subject of any information from the Websters, it’s not part of this application, there are questions of corruption, there are questions of paedophilia raised, that’s the extent of my instructions.
“The matter before the court does not go anywhere onto first-hand accounts of what was said, why it was said or what came of those discussions, so to say it’s ‘crackpot’, with respect, sir, I suggest that that’s a bridge too far without knowing what was said.”
“If there was a shred of truth in any of it, [Anne Webster] wouldn’t be a member of parliament, and [Philip Webster] wouldn’t be a doctor,” Mr Southey replied.
“The temerity he has to ask for costs … it can’t be countenanced. He needs to pull his head in – I expect that if he behaves like this again Victoria Police might serve him with another order.”
Mr Lampard told Noticer News that his firearms, which he needs for farming, have still not been returned by police more than a month after the application was dropped, and his licence has only been reinstated for two out of three firearms categories.
He also said that police are holding onto the receipts for his firearms, meaning he has to re-register them, and said the “licensing regulations division of the police force is being extremely uncooperative”.
“I intend to fight this further to see justice for my aging father,” he said, adding that what upset him most about the raid was police handcuffing him and separating him from his phone and his “nervous and confused” father, even though he is the 92-year-old’s only carer.
“The only reason I can imagine for the police behaving like this is to aggravate the situation and stir up my father to send me a message. He’s been having nightmares ever since and is very upset at the sate of affairs.
“Whilst justice has been restored partially it is worth noting that Anne Webster is a federal National Party member and the National Party runs on a campaign of backing farmers.
“She is also a federal politician who used the Victorian state solicitor’s office against me while I funded my own legal costs of many thousands of dollars to defend my innocence.”
Ms Webster, who is shadow minister for regional development and regional communications, said in her maiden speech in 2019 that she was was committed to consulting with her electorate.
“My aim is to provide reason for the people of Mallee to respect and trust politics and politicians again,” she said.
The document Mr Lampard handed to Ms Webster, seen by Noticer News, is titled “Proof of elite paedophile rings in Australia” and outlines a claim made in parliament by Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan in 2015 about a list of “prominent” alleged paedophiles that is “under a 99-year gag order”.
Mr Heffernan told Parliament in 2016 that the list included a former prime minister, political party heavyweights, senior judges, homosexual retired Supreme Court Judge David Yeldham (who killed himself in 1996 after being interviewed by police over untested allegations of paedophilia), businesspeople, magistrates and top lawyers.
Noticer News has been unable to verify the existence of a gag order, but a number of petitions have been made to the government on the subject, including one presented to parliament by independent MP Andrew Wilkie in 2020 after it was found to be in order by the petitions committee.
Ms Webster was contacted for comment but did not respond.
Header image: Dean Lampard outside Ms Webster’s office, left, and the police station, right (supplied).
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