On September 30 2016, US anti-vaccination activist Sherri Tenpenny re-published an April blog post, from her Truthkings conspiracy theory blog, in which allegations of domestic violence – first published on a GoFundMe page – against an individual were repeated. Tenpenny broadcast this blog post to her more than 200,000 Facebook fans:
Tenpenny had previously posted the defamatory blog post, to her more than 200,000 fans, on April 4 2016:
The anti-vaccination organisation, the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network (AVN), had published the GoFundMe fundraising page – containing the defamatory claims, on which the Tenpenny blog post is based – to its almost 12,000 fans, on April 3 2016:
The president of the AVN, Tasha David, had published the GoFundMe page in the rabid anti-vaccination group, Vaccine Choice Australia, containing almost 4000 members, on March 29 2016:
AVN president Tasha David also published the GoFundMe page to the No Jab No Pay No Way Protest page, as an admin of the page, to its almost 4000 fans, on March 29 2016:
A PDF of Tenpenny’s defamatory Truthkings blog post can be found here.
A PDF of the GoFundMe fundraising page, including all of its updates, can be found here.
The text of the GoFundMe page has remained unchanged since March 29 2016:
Anna Stancombe has continued to publicly make false and defamatory accusations of domestic violence against her ex-husband, Mr Anil Patel, since March 28 2016, the date on which the GoFundMe page was set up. Stancombe has raised money based on the claims made on that GoFundMe page:
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Two central claims from the GoFundMe page will be addressed.
1 “Due to ongoing domestic violence issue and harrasement…”
FALSE: allegations of domestic violence against Mr Patel were found to be unsubstantiated, in the Caboolture Magistrates Court, on September 15 2016.
2 “He is now trying to force me through Court to get the Children vaccianted. :-(”
FALSE: Mr Patel is not demanding that the children be immunised. It is noted as concerning that the children are not immunised. At this stage no one is being forced to immunise anyone.
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Of course, this behaviour from Anna Stancombe appears to be consistent.
Anna Stancombe – a high school teacher from Caboolture, Queensland – has featured on this blog a number of times for her anti-vaccination activism, including her trolling of the Light for Riley Facebook page. From my earlier post about Stancombe we can see we’re dealing with a class act with a history of attempted rorting.
Further information on the appalling 2011 behaviour of Stancombe/Patel can be viewed on the Ripoff Report website, in which it is alleged that Stancombe/Patel attempted to defraud an airline of damages for a baby stroller. When a baby store proprietor would not go along with her alleged fraud attempt, she attacked him and accused him of being a paedophile, along with the website administrator of the Ripoff Report website. The collection of Ripoff Report posts on Stancombe/Patel can be found here.
In more recent times, Stancombe bragged about undertaking a rort against Centrelink, in which she misled the government agency in order to access benefits to which she was not entitled. Some weeks later she repeated her claims.
I hope that Mr Patel will be seeking damages for the harm done to his reputation by all of the above individuals and organisations who have assisted in the publication – to potentially hundreds of thousands of readers – of defamatory claims made against him.
I hope Queensland Police will be investigating any perceived fundraising irregularities in Anna Stancombe’s fundraising campaign.
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