Rabbi Glick: His solicitor speaks

By Henry Benjamin
J-Wire
March 4, 2014

http://www.jwire.com.au/news/rabbi-glick-his-solicitor-speaks/40875

Rabbi Avrohom Glick

Bill Doogue  is Rabbi Avrohom Glick’s solicitor. He talks to J-Wire following the announcement that Victoria Police are not proceeding with their investigation on allegations made against Rabbi Glick of sexual abuse on a student at Melbourne Yeshiva without foundation.

From Bill Doogue:

We do not name our clients normally. The aim is to provide them with some level of anonymity and to respect their privacy. Often they have been through the judicial system and whether convicted or acquitted, they should be given the opportunity to move on with their lives. The last thing you want is to be ego-surfing (ie looking yourself up on google) or for someone else to be looking you up and a lawyer’s website pops up.

But in this case we have asked our now former client if we can speak about him and he has agreed.

His name is Rabbi Avrohom Glick. He is head of religious studies at the Melbourne Yeshivah College. He is an important figure in his community internationally.

He has been besmirched in the media, scandalously attacked on the internet. Damned by much of the public who know him not.

No one I met who actually knows him thought there was a skerrick of truth in the allegation.

What had to occur, and did, was that the nonsense of this allegation was exposed.

The police involved were thorough and very professional. They were receptive to us providing them with a lot of material. All of which kept confirming the nonsense of this claim. In some cases you decide that the evidence is so clear that you suspend an adversarial approach and make sure that the investigators have access to everything and all of your witnesses. To be fair to the Police (not my strong point) they are generally receptive to pre-charging material being provided. Our experience is that pre-charging and pre-interview is one point at which solicitors can have a huge impact.

The press trumpeted the allegations and then once they were withdrawn wrote the allegations out again. Surely at that point they should have shown more decency?

If something is so weak it does not even get to the point of a charge why repeat it?

This isn’t even a case where it is going to Court,  it is just a rubbish allegation that has defamed a decent member of our wider community of Australians.

When was the last time pre-charging in a historic sex case a person had so much publicity? Why was that the case? Because he is the head of Jewish Studies at Yeshivah? Because he is an internationally known and respected Rabbi?

It all leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

How is it that the reporters do not explain why the allegation did not get to the point of charging?

Here is just the start of what they should have told everyone:

1 the allegation was more than 30 years old

2 it was said to have taken place on the altar (bimah) in the middle of the synagogue

3. The synagogue has a school attached to it. At that stage the wall between the two spaces was a concertina wall

4.  There was a busy admin office downstairs metres from one entrance.

5.  There were SIX separate unlocked entrances to the Synagogue

6. The allegation  was that it occurred at the busiest part of the day when dozens of parents and 100s of kids were in the vicinity, any one of whom could have walked into the Synagogue.

7. The second floor of the synagogue is the Women’s part and because of screens you can never tell if someone is there or not.

8. The synagogue was a thoroughfare to get between a number of admin and school areas

So why wasn’t this published by those so happy to damn him?

Picture this – a person makes an allegation that a sexual assault occurred on a busy Friday in the middle of Bourke Street mall (with no attempt at hiding it) and not one of the thousands there noticed it or called the Police. Would you do more than snort and say “what a load of rubbish”?

It leaves me with one final question. How, in reality, does a person ever recover their reputation from this sort of outrageous attack?

Bill Doogue

Partner

Doogue, O’Brien, George…Criminal Lawyers