This is a long story to understand but is extremely important as it affects all women and their right to complaint of sex discrimination without being subjected to public defamation and victimisation. Even more importantly, women should be able to rely upon a Federal court system free from corruption.

Please read our story and support us in our fight to ensure no other woman suffers in the same way as Stephanie Coady and, no other family suffers the public defamation for supporting their daughter's rights.

Stephanie has spent the last 5 years trying to seek justice for the discrimination and victimisation she suffered in the sport of sailing simply because she is female. She waited patiently for 5 years for her Federal Circuit court hearing. In the meantime the sailing authorities fabricated evidence through an onslaught of illegal retaliatory kangaroo courts to defame and discredit her and her father Paul.

Stephanie finally had her day in court only to have all her expert witnesses thrown out and the retrospective kangaroo courts accepted as facts. Her father Paul was her only witness left. The judge ignored all of the evidence in support of Stephanie and defamed Paul as a liar for no reason whatsoever.

We have now found out, unfortunately too late for an appeal, that the court appears to have been corrupted. Chief Judge Alstergren communicated with witnesses and intervened in the decision. He was Vice President of the Victorian Olympic Committee and Board Member of the Australian Olympic Committee while the case was with the court.

Due to this decision, despite being fully compliant with all IOC and World Sailing rules, Stephanie has been told she does not comply with the Olympic gender rules.

We would like the Attorney General to order a retrial and, to refer William Alstergren, John Coates and others to the Federal Police for investigation into conspiracy to defeat justice.

We would also like the the Minister for Women to refer the case to the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to investigate why the victimisation provisions, in s94 of the Sex Discrimination Act (Cth), that are designed to protect victims from retaliatory abuse, are unenforceable (Chen v Monash University [2016] 244 FCR 424).

Background:

Stephanie was 16 years old in 2014 when she competed in the Sailing World Cup in Melbourne Australia with her father Paul in the 49er class. On the second day of racing she was aggressively told she could no longer compete as she did not comply with "Olympic Gender Requirements". Her entry was deleted without notice.

Women had always been allowed to compete since the class was introduced for the 2000 Olympics and, no announcement has ever been made stating otherwise. 

Paul lodged 3 formal complaints about the treatment of Stephanie. A retaliatory protest was lodged by Race Management a day out of time. Stephanie was also charged with gross misconduct for violation of the Olympic gender requirements. The misconduct hearing was conducted without either Stephanie or Paul in attendance. Paul did not attend the hearing as the Jury Chairman had chased and physically hit him before confirming they would not be affording him procedural fairness as "we are in charge here not you" and "that's for sailing in the regatta". The jury introduced numerous false claims against Paul which included a ridiculous claim of abusing members of the public. Paul and Stephanie were banned from any further participation in the regatta despite their entries already being deleted.

The Jury Chairman then referred Paul for further disciplinary action by Australian Sailing for arguing with the Chairman. They did not take any further action.

Not happy with the outcome, juror Bill Bell contacted his friend from World Sailing (WS) David Tillet to organise a WS disciplinary action. A disciplinary panel was organised (which included Tillet). The disciplinary panel took no action and was subsequently disbanded.

Stephanie and Paul lodged a complaint of discrimination and victimisation at the Australian Human Rights Commission. Upon receiving the complaint, Tillet told Paul he was going to take retaliatory disciplinary action.

Tillet organised another disciplinary action against Paul. The reasons were clearly stated due to the AHRC complaint. Paul was banned from sailing for one year.

Paul appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Appeals division against WS and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). CAS Vice President Goran Petersson was the IOC member in charge of the Appeals division. Goran was also President of WS when the alleged gender requirements were introduced. The panel consisted of an IOC member, a director of the company that was the registrar for the disciplinary action and a chairman appointed by the appeals division.

IOC Legal Affairs argued the IOC did not approve Olympic events or gender requirements. Australian Sailing (AS) and WS supported this argument. This statement was clearly false although accepted by the CAS. This also prevented Stephanie from taking action against the IOC in the Federal court for approving the 2016 Olympic sailing program. John Coates is Chairman of IOC Legal Affairs.

A complaint of corruption was lodged by Paul to the IOC Ethics Commission. This included not only corruption in the CAS and World Sailing, but also evidence of serious criminal links of Dieter Neupert. Nieupert is the Chairman of the highest court of WS and currently Head of the WS Ethics Commission. A complaint was also lodged to the CAS attention John Coates.

Paul was denied whistle-blower protection by the IOC and the CAS. The CAS appeal was completely corrupt and dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

Stephanie’s case proceeded to the Federal Circuit Court. In 2017 AS was unsuccessful in having the case summarily dismissed. Judge McNabb found discrimination had occurred and that AS needed to prove it was necessary under the strength, stamina and physique exemption.

In 2018 McNabb completely changed his view on the case and was forced to disqualify himself due to comments that amounted to pre-judging of the case.

Judge Mercuri was appointed to hear the case. On the first day, all of Stephanie’s witnesses were thrown out on a technical issue with the format of the affidavits. Mercuri refused the request to resubmit the affidavits in the correct format.

The courts have found the exemption not to apply to sports such as harness racing, ice hockey, rally driving. Notwithstanding this, Judge Mercuri dismissed Stephanie’s case.

We have now found out that the Federal Circuit Court Chief Judge William Alstergren had intervened in the case. Alstergren was appointed to the court late 2017. In 2017 and 2018 he was on the executive board of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and Vice President of the Victorian Olympic Committee.

CEO of the AOC is Matt Carroll. Carroll was CEO of Australian Sailing when Stephanie was disqualified from racing. John Coates is the President of the AOC. All knew of the appointment of Alstergren to the court.

Alstergren knew Australian Sailing’s witnesses personally and Stephanie’s expert witness.

Late 2019 Stephanie entered in the 2020 49er World Championships.

In 2015 the IOC published gender guidelines that state women can compete against men unrestricted. In 2019 the WS 49er Class Association published legal advice (http://womeninsailing.org/2019-49er-AGM-Pulbished-Document.pdf that stated no Olympic gender requirements exist and that it would be discriminatory to prevent women from competing against men. Notwithstanding this, she was told by WS (http://womeninsailing.org/email_kendall_harris.pdf she did not comply with the gender requirements of the Olympic qualification system. No further information was produced other than a list of Olympic events in the WS regulations.

In retaliation for entering the regatta, Australian Sailing attempted to serve a Federal Circuit Court writ on Stephanie at the Coady residence to sue for “indemnity costs”. These are costs above court awarded costs designed to punish claimants. The WS Jury refused to clarify whether they would issue gross misconduct charges against Stephanie if she attended the regatta. Stephanie was forced to withdraw her entry.

For more information:

womeninsailing.org