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July 3, 2004

Serial Complainant Gets Comeuppance

by Red Wolf

Australia: Mr Fricke isn't a fan of physical contact. Especially when other men are involved. So he's made something of a career for himself as a serial sexual harassment whinger.

Talk about being a devil for punishment. Sydneysider Randolph Fricke has such a phobia about physical contact with other men that he's made five official sexual harassment complaints, including an unsuccessful one against a lawyer whom he claimed molested him by placing a hand near his groin during a mediation conference on a previous harassment complaint.
Fricke wants people to behave in a way that's conducive to the Christian Judaic ethic, which is all that has ever concerned me in my entire existence.

Christian Judaic ethic this would be as opposed to the obsessive religious nutjob ethic?

But holy Moses, it's not that simple. In Fricke's ideal world blokes shouldn't brush past him, put their hands on his arm or shoulder, and God forbid if they come anywhere near his genitals.

His latest complaint runs to 19 handwritten pages detailing 21 incidences of supposed sexual harassment, including one instance where a colleague called Bob stands accused of shoving an electric kettle towards Fricke's genitals.

The Administrative Decisions Tribunal considered each incident before dismissing the "misconceived" complaint. On the kettle caper, it found that even if Bob did move the kettle towards the complainant's genitals there may have been any number of reasons for this ... such as ... he may have stumbled.

After five trips to the tribunal, the authority decided it was time for a signal to be sent that the legislation should not be subject to inappropriate if not abusive applications. In a rare move, it ordered Fricke, who represented himself, to pay his former employer's costs.

Nice to see the courts booting the silly sod out of court. I can only assume that perhaps Mr Fricke doth protest too much.

Fricke out - Sydney Morning Herald, 3rd June 2004.

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Posted in Rare Common Sense at 08:58. Last modified on September 28 2006 at 23:42.
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Comments

1: Posted by: Feòrag | July 3, 2004 10:50 AM

This man's New Zealand equivalent was covered nearly two years ago: Bugger off. Must be something in the antipodean water.

2: Posted by: Red Wolf | July 3, 2004 11:44 AM

I'd like to look on it as such a freakish and unusual occurence that it rates a mention in the press, rather than the culteral institution it seems to have become in the United States. At least I can take comfort in the fact that the only lunatics like these blokes are talkback radio callers and they've just been outed as faked.

3: Posted by: A Voice of Sanity | September 6, 2008 7:15 PM

"Fricke wants people to behave in a way that's conducive to the Christian Judaic ethic, which is all that has ever concerned me in my entire existence." Really?

Didn't they take oaths in Judea by holding on to each others' balls (bowdlerized to 'thigh' in translations)?

~This means "put your hand under my testicles," which is the manner in which oaths were taken at the time; "testament," "testify," and "testicle" have the same root.~

Wax lyrical

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