Following is a letter from Bruce Francis, an independent investigator and former Australian cricketer, which was sent to numerous Australian Senators and in October 2019. It reads: 

Senators and Members

Since 2013, I have sent you and your former colleagues, irrefutable proof that the 34 Essendon players found guilty of being administered Thymosin Beta-4 were subjected to the most unjust treatment in Australian sporting history. As a fanatical Sydney Swans supporter, I do not have any skin in the game. Nevertheless, I have spent over 15,000 hours pro bono collecting the proof in order to correct a grave mistake.

To your collective shame, none of you did a thing to redress the injustice. Tragically, former prime minister Turnbull and sports ministers Ley, Hunt and McKenzie were conned by their advisors. And the Senate Community Affairs committee led by Senator Jonathan Duniam either covered up ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt misleading Parliament on 17 occasions on 3 March 2016 or was dumber than the village idiot on the Binet scale. In my view, being aware of corruption and doing nothing about it is the same as pulling the trigger. I believe you are just as guilty as the ASADA staffers who changed evidence; omitted evidence; and fabricated evidence.

In April this year, I obtained access to about 25,000 pages used in the various hearings and communications between the various parties. I spent 15 to 18 hours a day for the last four months dissecting every word. The corruption by ASADA, WADA and AFL, and the incompetence, arguably bias/corruption of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, was mind-boggling and without precedence.

Fortunately, for today’s exercise, I need only address one issue to prove the players were the victims of an incompetent CAS panel.

Inter alia, to find the 34 players guilty of being administered Thymosin Beta-4, the CAS panel had to be comfortably satisfied that Essendon sports scientist Stephen Dank and/or an Essendon official, took possession of Thymosin Beta-4, and comfortably satisfied that each player was administered Thymosin Beta-4.

Res ipse loquitur, if Dank / Essendon didn’t receive Thymosin Beta-4, the players could not have been administered it.

There isn’t a scintilla of evidence that Dank took possession of Thymosin Beta-4.

Tragically, for the players, one of our greatest jurists, panellist Jim Spigelman AC QC, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, made what arguably was the biggest blunder of his illustrious career when he determined, without any evidence to support him, that Dank took delivery of Thymosin Beta-4. No wonder he told one journalist he didn’t want to talk about the hearing, and to never, ever dare to ask him again! This is a man on the metaphorical run. He must not be allowed to get away. He should be pressured to revoke his guilty findings.

Spigelman said: “I don’t think it was an issue that he got it [Thymosin Beta-4]; it was a question of where it went.” (page 814, lines 14 & 15 of the CAS transcript).

There wasn’t a skerrick of evidence indicating that Dank “got it”. The absence of evidence that Dank ever received Thymosin Beta-4 was the vital missing link in the chain, one of 16 missing strands in the cable and the vital missing piece in the jigsaw. Without it, WADA’s case was non-existent. It was terminal. But Spigelman’s inexcusable, horrendous mistake enabled CAS to unjustly find the 34 players guilty.

There were only two deliveries of substances from China to Dank’s compounding pharmacist Nima Alavi. The first delivery contained five substances and arrived in Melbourne on 28 December 2011. One of the substances was labelled ‘Thymosin’. As the Thymosin was never tested, no one, including Dank, Spigelman, ASADA, WADA, Gill McLachlan, Nick McKenzie or Caroline Wilson knows whether it was Thymosin Alpha-1; Thymosin Alpha-2; Thymomodulin; Thymosin Beta-4; Thymosin Beta-10; Thymosin Beta-15; Thymosin general; or any one of about 27 varieties of thymosin.

The second delivery from China allegedly arrived on 18 February 2012. Como Compounding Pharmacy lab assistant Vania Giordani notified Dank on 11 May 2012 that 15 vials of Thymosin were ready to be picked up. Dank never picked them up. The fact that Dank was grilled by the Australian Crime Commission for a number of hours the day before on the 10 May 2012 may be the reason, he didn’t pick them up. Whatever the reason, sinister or otherwise, neither Dank nor an associate picked up the 15 vials. Dank never took possession of the vials, which is the only issue.

There is no evidence that anyone picked up the Thymosin vials. No invoice was ever raised for Dank, Dean Robinson, Essendon or Dank’s company’s MRC or ICB. The Como dispensing records indicate that over a two-year period that no Thymosin of any variety was dispensed. Como’s courier records indicate that the vials weren’t sent to Dank or to Essendon. As stated above, there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that Dank took possession of Thymosin Beta-4, which poses the question:

How could Spigelman make such a mistake that severely damaged the careers and lives of the 34 players and officials James Hird, Mark Thompson, Danny Corcoran and Dr Reid?

A second very important question that needs answering is what do you members of parliament intend doing to clear your consciences and wash the blood from your hands for failing to do anything over the last six years.

Your answer should be driven by what you would do if it were a son or daughter or nephew or niece or grandchild of yours.

Would you accept the unjust decision?

Would you fight to the bitter end to prove their innocence?

Or would you say “let’s move on?” If you choose “let’s move on”, you are a rotten family member, a moral vacuum and a person lacking the obligatory integrity to be a member of Parliament.

I have attached articles written by Michael Warner and Graham Cornes

Yours faithfully

Bruce Francis

Justice for the 34 renews its call for an Independent inquiry into anti-doping with wide ranging terms of reference which allow all sporting bodies, all athletes, and all interested parties to make representations.

This is in the national interest, and it will help all athletes, not just the Essendon 34.

Please support our petition and an independent inquiry to sort this mess out.

More info at: https://www.facebook.com/justiceforthe34/