On 26 April 2022, I was severely attacked by a pack of 3 dogs whilst gardening on my rental property in Mt. Molloy in Far North Queensland.
This attack, which caused me very serious grievous bodily harm and nearly killed me, was either deliberately orchestrated or due to the criminal negligence of the apparent owner of the dogs, my neighbour at the time, Mr Beau Erlandsson. I have reason to believe that this attack was instigated by members of my family.
Mareeba Shire Council (MSC), who 'investigated' the attack and destroyed the dogs involved, has refused to release all but a fraction of the information that they have in relation to the attack and the Office of Information Commission of Queensland (OIC) is supporting MSC in this cover up. Despite going through the lengthy ‘Right to Information’ process, MSC has repeatedly pretended to provide information whilst actually engaging in a long, drawn out, mostly blank document dump which vaguely attempts to look a little bit like transparency and no doubt has cost a shameful amount of taxpayer’s money.
The positions of Mareeba Shire Council, the Office of Information Commission of Queensland and the Queensland Police Service has the result that a person can either negligently or even deliberately seriously attack and injure a person with a pack of dogs in Queensland with no legal consequences whatsoever.
And on top of this, if I, as the victim of this attack, should dare to question this state of affairs, I will be illegally trafficked in the mental health system with the help of Queensland Health.
Of the 104 pages of information initially provided by Mareeba Shire Council on 6 October 2023:
53 pages were completely blank;
32 pages of the documents are either blank or are generic MSC documents not specifically related to this matter, documents provided by myself or multiple full page heavily distorted photographs of the dogs involved, (when there has never been any dispute over the identity of the dogs);
19 pages of MSC documents, the vast majority of which are so heavily redacted as to be illegible.
MSC denied access to a full 40 pages of information in total.
MSC is refusing to provide any voice recordings of the multiple interviews which they apparently undertook. At no point did MSC inform me that they had recorded anything or had voice recordings that are a part of the investigation.
Mareeba Shire Council did not follow its own procedures and did allow me the opportunity to give a proper statement.
On 11 April 2023, the OIC made a decision that MSC release a further (redacted) 4 pages containing no new information in relation to the attack. (Attachment D).
On 5 November 2024, on the request of the OIC, MSC purported to disclose another 7 pages of information. However, of these 7 pages, only one page is a valid and new disclosure.
Four pages are repetitions of the heavily redacted documents 1 to 4 of the Original ‘Information Set’ disclosed by MSC on 6 October 2023. Apart from the fact that my name only is sometimes now not redacted on some of these pages, there is no new information on these pages.
Two pages are internal notes of two telephone conversations that I had with employees of MSC around the time that I filed my original application in July 2023 (over a year after the attack) and relate to the administrative procedure of the application process. These pages contain no information relevant to the investigation as MSC has stated that their investigation was complete well before the date of these documents and simply record a conversation that I was a party to.
One page is a heavily redacted ‘Infringement Notice’ issued by MSC on 3 May 2022 to a redacted and unknown person in the amount of $275.
So, after more than a year of stalling and a ridiculous amount of paperwork on behalf of both MSC and the OIC, MSC has only additionally supplied essentially no information of any consequence, which includes:
A record of my own telephone call with them which occurred over a year after the investigation had concluded; and
One page heavily redacted ‘Infringement Notice’ to an unnamed person, that it could very well have provided over a year ago, with the rest of the redacted documents.
Why is MSC purporting to provide new information, when it is not new information? What is it about the redacted Infringement Notice that deemed it necessary for MSC to exclude this document, as well as all of the other hidden documents from the original Information Set? Why will MSC not release the name of the person who received the Infringement Notice?
The conduct of both the OIC and MSC has been extremely difficult and obstructive throughout the whole process. Their legal position is that the 'public interest' demands that they protect the privacy of the owner of the dogs because he is a 'third party'. They have even redacted his name repeatedly throughout the few documents supplied. As far as I can see it is redacted from all MSC documents apart from when I have said it. Given the circumstances of the dog attack, this stance makes no sense.
These circumstances of the attack include the following details:-
The dogs had previous attacked both me and my daughter and bitten my daughter.
I had spoken to the owner of the dogs and his mother on numerous occasions.
A few weeks prior to the attack, my neighbour, and long term friend of the owner of the dogs ‘Dan’ had come and collected the largest dog after it had jumped the fence into my rental property and informed me that he had taken it to the Mareeba pound.
MSC’s own records confirm that that dog was indeed impounded by MSC.
After the attack, the same neighbour and friend of the owner of the dogs informed me that the owner had collected the dog from the pound and again allowed it and his two other dogs to roam the streets and had even gone away and left them without food.
I have been informed by at least 3 other neighbours, that in the months and weeks prior to the attack they had requested, in no uncertain terms, that the owner keep his dogs restrained as there were many young children in the street and the dogs were obviously dangerous.
I was seriously injured. I required an ambulance to be transported to hospital, an operation under general anesthetic, multiple intravenous and oral antibiotics that had strong health consequences, 18 stitches, a very long recovery time and severe PTSD. I was unable to walk properly for many many weeks, all whilst needing to move with my daughter. One of the wounds on my thigh narrowly missed my femoral artery and I am very lucky to be alive.
Mareeba Shire Council will not even release the name of the official owner of the dogs. I have guessed that the owner is Mr Beau Erlandsson, however MSC has redacted the name of the official owner of the dogs from all of the information released.
The (apparent) owner of the dogs is well known to police and a known gang affiliate. I have been advised by a great many people to ‘let this go’ as the owner of the dogs has very dangerous friends.
The (apparent) owner of the dogs has expressed that he doesn’t care at all that his dogs attacked me.
The local and only policeman, Frank Falappi refused to make a formal complaint about the attack. He tried to give the impression that he could not recall if he had even heard about the attack. I find this to be very unlikely given that the attack occurred a few hundred metres away from the Police Station which was, almost, if not directly, in the line of sight of the attack. A crowd of people gathered to help me because I had screamed as loud as I could. This crowd waited with me for the ambulance, in a small town with a population of 250 people and where everybody knows everybody’s business.
Both MSC and the OIC have taken steps to ensure that no-one can look at this matter and both organisations have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of being transparent about this matter at all.
Several neighbours, who pretended to be both mine and my daughter’s friends, I have reason to believe were involved in the grooming process both prior to and after this this attack due the following facts:
They receive(d) financial favours from Mareeba Shire Council at and around the time of the attack and in the time since the attack;
They have refused to request that the reports which they made to Mareeba Shire Council about the attack be released, despite their empty assertions of good will towards me;
They have refused to disclose the amount and nature of their financial relationships with Mareeba Shire Council;
One of their number made a false report to Queensland Mental Health instead of reasonably answering the very reasonable questions put to him in multiple emails about his financial relationship with Mareeba Shire Council.
One of their number chased me from one end of the supermarket to the other in order to harass me despite my explicitly stating that I did not wish to speak with her.