Update #16 Statement by Ken

38 days into the year and 5 current and ex servicemen have taken their own lives, thanks for taking up the cause of Veterans welfare Mr Morrison. ------------------------------------- Hello everyone, I am the “Ken” that has been referred to by Miranda et al. I was a Lieutenant Colonel in Command of a Unit at the time of this matter. I appreciate the mainly positive support for the plight of others and myself on this Jedi Council issue. I can assure you that the AOTY did not afford justice to any of the Army personal caught up in this matter both from a Military Justice and Military Administrative action. My own ADFIS (military police) interview lasted all of 10 minutes with only one question “what do you know of the Jedi Council?” My answer was “I do not know anything about it.” At that point the investigators took a statement from me as a Witness. One of the investigators at one point said “Sir, I don’t even know why we’re here.” I then went back to commanding my military Unit knowing that I had not done anything contrary to Defence Orders. The AOTY then made his famous speech and while doing this asserted that a LTCOL was involved. This immediately identified me as there was only one LTCOL who had his office raided in Townsville. This news spread quickly through the Army and I quickly began to feel betrayed and hopeless. Because GEN Morrison had no evidence to apply Military Law he switched to Military Administrative Law. Once again GEN Morrison failed to follow the CDF’s own directive on Defence Inquiries by not conducting a proper Senior Officer led inquiry. GEN Morrison then issued Notices to Show Causes for why we should not be discharged from the Army to all people who received an email from Fredrickson. This was done without having asked the accused their version of events, showing them the evidence against them or applying human factors. The bias was demonstrated to me when I heard GEN Morrison tspeak in Townsville the day after his speech to Army. He said in front of all the senior officers and soldiers at Lavarack Barracks when referring to the accused Jedi Council, “these alleged individuals, and I use the word alleged because I have to, I will remove them from the ADF.” This was said before he had issued Show Causes to the alleged Jedi Council members and heard each person’s story. We never had a chance when the AOTY was biased, unfair and most importantly, did not care about many soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan on multiple tours of duty. There is no excuse for the email that caused this issue and my heart goes out to the poor lady. However, consideration could have been given to the affect of war, PTSD and mental illness before casting out soldiers. Let me finish by saying once again: There was no Jedi Council!! It was just a small group of men sending crass emails. There was only one email that was deemed inexcusable and the person who sent it has been rightly charged and convicted. Also please note that many, many people did not open or even ignored the emails. Thank you for listening to the real version of events.