I think anyone who does a search on him will rapidly turn up both the Cambodia440.com madness and the Cambodian Children's Funds complaints about harassment from Ricketson as well as a litany of other stuff. The problem is that he is being charged with violating a law which doesn't seem to relate to any of that. So either there is something we don't know or it's just another trumped-up charge. This Charles Waterstreet who was supporting him in that article seems quite an amazing character, I hadn't heard of him before:
From his chambers opposite Hyde Park in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, Charles Waterstreet – author, barrister, film-maker and one-time man-about-town – does not have a view to speak of. But he does have an attractive young assistant, Becky, whose presence suits Charles Waterstreet, a man who is nothing if not an adolescent boy raging against an old man’s lot. “I get these fan letters,” he says, “but they’re always from people with names like Esmae, Edna and Violet. In my mind’s eye, I see myself appealing more to Nick Cave groupies – twenty-somethings with names like Kylie and Susie. It’s very distressing. Because, in my head, I’m still 20. Baby boomers are like that. We feel we’re young-minded and still wonderful lovers but, in reality, we’re all dementia patients but for five or six years.”
Memory is a big issue for Waterstreet – in particular, its readiness to be hijacked by “quacks, psychologists, mediums, psychotherapists and various other bullshit artists” in the name of some lesser purpose. “What it comes down to is middle-aged people asking themselves ‘Why is my life fucked?’ and searching for a reason. So, conveniently, they remember that Daddy, Uncle Fester and Father O’Reilly were mean to them. Suddenly, it’s like: ‘That’s it! I was fine until then! If only Father O’Reilly hadn’t brushed my bosom as I was walking down the corridor, my life would have been entirely different. That must be why I love the liquor!’”
Though he claims the central character, barrister Cleaver Greene, is based upon “all the good bits of me and all the bad bits of someone else”, it is clear that Greene, as played by Roxburgh – complete with the ex-wife and son, the drinking, the gambling, the philandering, the shameless part-time tenancy of brothels and the relentless propulsion of financial distress – is vintage Charles Waterstreet.
Full text here:
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/201 ... d-old-days