6. Jim Soorley - Fraud, Theft & Suspicion of 'Foul Play'.
Billy was a 'larger-than-life' character who had a huge impact on many people's lives, including my own.
He was also the most outspoken person that I have ever met about hypocrisy and corruption in all forms, especially within the church, legal and political systems. He wrote and was very passionate about his many self-published books on these and other issues.
Billy Soorley died on Christmas Day in 2013 after many years living in a nursing home, diagnosed with a type of early-onset dementia. Billy was my uncle and the elder brother to Jim Soorley.
Billy's last book, ‘A Long Road to Nowhere’, was an autobiography that exposed much family history. It put quite a few family members ‘noses out of joint’.
Billy worked hard as a ‘brickies’ labourer most of his life. He had little respect for his famous little brother Jim's way of life, who was the 'golden child' of the family and had been given all the advantages in life.
Jim Soorley was categorically not Billy’s favourite or even a respected family member, to put it politely.
To say that it was a ‘surprise’ to everyone in the family when Billy’s will was read and his entire estate was left to Jim is quite the understatement.
Please see the document purporting to be the last will and testament of William Robert Soorley dated 10 June 20210 (Attachment E). This document was created when Billy was in a nursing home in Kingscliff, N.S.W. with severe dementia, with no test of competency as far as I am aware.
There is no way that Billy Soorley, in his right mind, left any of his estate to Jim Soorley.
Anyone that knew Billy (and had nothing to gain by stating otherwise) would attest to this fact.
Billy would have put all of his money into a brown paper bag and given it to the nearest homeless person before he would have left anything at all, least of the rights to his beloved books, to Jim and his partner.
Billy really was that sort of person. Although Billy had no wife or children, he did have close relationships with some of his many nieces and nephews and was beloved by all of them.
The idea that Billy would have given anything to Jim’s partner over his own nieces and nephews is beyond outrageous.
Billy would be rolling around in his grave if he knew what had happened.
The facts below will show that I was clearly a beneficiary of Billy's true will and several members of my family worked together to hide this from me and attempt to prevent me from ever discovering this fact.
The Byron Bay Mental Health Unit, New South Wales Health, the New South Wales Police Service and the Australian Federal Police have become accessories after the fact in this fraud and theft.
The amount of resources spent on trying to silence me gives me reason to believe that there must be further evidence in existence which would shed further light on this matter.
Due to the fact that I was heavy manipulated by multiple members of my extended family, it is now very obvious that I was defrauded out of (at least) the Intellectual Property Rights to Billy’s books and perhaps more than this.
This is a fair and reasonable legal conclusion given the pattern of correspondence from Jim Soorley and his solicitors, the multiple lies by Jim Soorley and his solicitors, and the refusal of Jim Soorley and his solicitors to answer simple questions which they are legally obliged to answer and/or the refusal of Jim Soorley and his solicitors to provide a document which they are legally obliged to provide.
Despite the fact that it was clearly Billy’s intention that I should have access to his books, no-one in my family will allow me access to even read them.
I am particularly interested in the books ‘The Legacy of Whispering Breeze’, ‘Discourse with the Nephilim’ and ‘The Sexuality Theory of Value’, although I really want to read all of them and there were quite a few.
Before I get into the actual legal nuts and bolts, I need to set the scene by discussing the role of Kerry Soorley in this matter as it is clear, on the facts, that she worked worked together with Jim Soorley to defraud and steal their brother’s estate and to gaslight and abuse me to the point where I would not look into the mater.
Kerry Soorley is the youngest sister of Jim and Billy Soorley. She is also my aunt and the only member of my family that I have been in contact with and have had a close relationship with for the last 10 years.
She acted incredibly distraught and angry at what had happened around Billy's estate and has informed me of the following facts on many occasions:-
Billy was often very distressed in the nursing home when she went to visit him and that he would 'tell anyone who would listen' that "Jim is stealing my money."’
Billy was taken away from his solicitor's office in an ambulance due to extreme agitation, with Jim in attendance.
It was understood by everyone that Kerry's son, Brendan Duggan, who had lived with Billy for a number of years, was to be Billy's heir.
Billy had informed Brendan that he was was to be his heir. Interestingly, Brendan Duggan, Kerry Soorley's biological son, was forcibly adopted out, to the infamous organised crime boss, Frank Duggan. Frank Duggan turned informant for the Australian National Crime Authority against organised crime networks in Australia. Information in relation to Frank Duggan and his role as a whistle-blower/informant for the National Crime Authority can be found by a google search as it was widely reported in the media at the time.
Kerry said on many occasions that agitation was compounded because Jim Soorley (her much older brother and Catholic priest at the time) had played a large part in forcing her to give her to give her son Brendan up for adoption against her will when she was only 16 years old. After reuniting with Brendan when he was 18 years old and then developing a relationship with him, Kerry expressed to me, on too many occasions to count and in the strongest terms possible, that it felt like a massive 'slap in the face' for Jim to then 'steal' an inheritance that was obviously meant to go to Brendan.
That she definitely intended to challenge Billy's will.
Jim's oldest sister Francis Byrne, had confirmed that Jim had a gambling problem and that she could understand Kerry's distress at the situation.
Kerry was very clear that I was expected to stay out of the situation. She strongly discouraged me from attending the reading of the will as I am much younger and unimportant to the extended family.
That the fact that Jim had suddenly decided to become actively involved in making decisions about Billy’s care towards the end of Billy’s life amounted to Jim simply “protecting his investment” in relation to the theft of Billy’s estate disguised as care for Billy.
That nothing was left to me, nor should it be. That the whole situation had nothing to do with me.
Time lapsed and neither Kerry Soorley nor any other member of my family challenged the will within the legal time period. This is the case, even though Kerry's husband, Carl Edwards, is a solicitor working in Tweed Heads and said that, given the circumstances, he would easily be able to do this for her.
If Kerry Soorley had not played this charade with me and lead me to believe that she will challenge the will, I most certainly would have challenged the will. Everyone in the family would have reasonably expected this.
Kerry's son Brendan Duggan was living in the U.K at the time of Billy's death and has expressed to me on a number of occasions that, as he was the child that was given away, he did not feel comfortable challenging ‘the all powerful Jim’ and the other surviving 3 matriarchal sisters, including my mother, who loudly proclaimed how great it was that Jim had received all the money.
I was informed by Kerry, that Jim had granted two small gifts of $20,000 from Billy’s estate to her son Brendan and her grandson Sunny and that the Intellectual Property rights to Billy's books had been granted to all of the cousins (myself included).
I believed my aunt Kerry to be the most appropriate and resourceful person to rectify the situation.
I have concerns about the nature of Billy's illness and death.
Kerry Soorley informed me many years ago that Billy’s health had began to decline after a medical doctor had ‘purportedly inadvertently’ prescribed Billy a medication that contained alcohol. No-one who has any experience and understanding of alcoholism would underestimate the the effect of such a ‘mistake’ on a very severe alcoholic who had managed to stat sober for so many decades. My own experiences with corrupt human traffickers within the medical profession (including having my own medications tampered with with by pharmacists. Please see the other evidence in this document in this regard), and
Kerry Soorley is an experienced palliative care nurse. She informed me that she was dismissed from her last position in this role from a hospice named "Wedgetail' located outside of Murwillumbah for acting inappropriately amidst allegations by a woman that she had inappropriately euthanised or accelerated her mother’s death.
I attended Billy's death bed a few days prior to his death. Jim was the only family member present at the nursing home at the time. He was in-explicitly hostile and nervous at the time and refused to allow me to enter the room in order to say goodbye to Billy. It didn't make any sense to me at the time, as I had not had much to do with Jim for many years (or ever really) and could think of no reason for the hostility at the time.
Billy died at noon on Christmas day 2013. All the family has marvelled about the 'co-incidence' of the timing of his death as Billy never enjoyed the drunken family Christmas lunch and never stayed long as he was a reformed alcoholic. I now view all such 'co-incidences' with a lot more skepticism than I ever used to.
The amount that my family members had to lose if Billy had continued to ‘air the family’s dirty laundry’.
The amount that my family members had to gain from stealing and defrauding Billy and his estate.
The Role of Kerry Soorley played the main role in preventing me from looking into the obvious illegality of the actions of Jim Soorley in relation to his brother Billy’s will.
I moved to Far North Queensland shortly after Billy's death, partly in an attempt to get away from my family, and concentrated on being a mother and trying to keep a roof over our heads. I was dealing with chronic illness, zero family support and extremely limited support from my daughter's father.
So ten years down the track, in 2022, around the time of the dog attack, I decided to investigate what had happened in relation to Billy's will because of the following reasons:-
My daughter was now an adult, my health had improved and I had the time.
I wished to honour my beloved deceased uncle Billy’s wishes and memory.
I wished to obtain some justice for my cousin Brendan.
I wished to expand my work after becoming aware of and helping other people to find ways to deal with the complexities of toxic family dynamics. I could not do this without addressing the massive 'elephant in the room' within my own family.
I had and still do have serious concerns about someone such as Jim Soorley, with such obvious problems and lack of integrity, being repeatedly given 'jobs for the boys' such as at UnityWater and thereby having such a prominent role in the control of the entire water supply of the Sunshine Coast and other powerful positions that have the ability to effect many innocent people.
I believe that if people knew exactly who is having a say in the water supply of their children, that they would have serious concerns and may be able to effect some change in the way things are run in that part of the world.
Basically, I could not just sit silently by when I could see the very real possibility that Jim’s influence could be affecting the health of so many people when there might be something that I could do to shed light on the situation.
Kerry Soorley and her husband Carl Edwards, solicitor, are the only members of my family who I informed of my intentions to look into Billy’s will, as I sincerely believed her to be a close and supportive friend. However she began to behave in an increasingly hostile manner towards me. The emails and text messages between Kerry Soorley and myself clearly illustrate this hostility.
On 20 November 2023, Kerry sent me an email in response to a question that I had asked her about my interest in the IP rights to Billy’s books and requesting written evidence of her story that this was only granted to her and her sisters. She states "You r totally delusion in a lot of ways but esp about bills books. Just ring Brendan he will set u straight about it" Attachment K.
Her aggressive tone in this matter raised and still does raise serious questions. I did have a telephone conversation with Kerry's son Brendan shortly after this email. He informed me that he had the same memory as myself, that the IP rights were left to all of the cousins, which would include both him and myself.
Given that Jim Soorley, his solicitors and my cousin Brendan cannot agree or provide evidence of the legal status of this IP, I fail to see how my inquiries attempting to clarify the situation make me 'delusional' nor the reason for this to be expressed in such a strong and abusive manner.
Interestingly, many weeks after my request for a copy of this document, my mother Mary Saul (nee Soorley) said that she would provide me with a copy of this document, of which she said that she had the only copy, and tried to blackmail into a position where she could more easily try to get me to emotionally react and therefore call be ‘crazy’ by insisting that she would only give me a copy of this supposed document if I would meet her in person. I declined her request as I believe her as I have good reasons to believe that she is a psychopath with strong sadistic tendencies towards me and I see no reason why this document cannot simply be sent to me.
No family member or CJM Lawyers, has produced any evidence at all that the story which I have been told about how Billy's assets were dealt with by Jim for the last ten years, in terms of gifting to other family members, is true. Brendan Duggan has refused to provide me with a copy of his bank statement evidencing the supposed $20,000 being deposited into his account. He has also refused to give me the contact details of other family members, who I now realise, I have deliberately alienated from.