Fire is a natural part of the Australian environment, particularly the bush environment. We will experience it again and you have to expect if you live in a rural environment that you will be impacted by fires. It's not a maybe, it's a will be. Perhaps not to the extent of the Black Sat Day fires, God forbid that's a one in a hundred year event so I'm told. But it can and it will happen again and we will certainly experience wildfires. You shouldn't put people off, you simply need to make plans and be aware that it will happen and make those plans viable for your survival. We believe that the mental preparedness is just as important as the physical preparedness for fires and by mental preparedness I mean having some expectation of fire behaviour, what the fire is going to look like, what will happen with embers and wind and the heat, the radiant heat and the size of the flames, how long it will take for the fire front to go through, all those sorts of things and it's important to have a mental picture of what is likely to happen.  You can't panic, if you panic you are basically lost.  Our long term planning ever since we lived here over the 24 years is involved looking at what we call both dry defence and wet defence preparation. So dry defence is things like vegetation management so making sure the grass is reduced and before summer raking loose mulch off gardens and reducing the flammable material close to the house. What we call wet defence is defence relying on water. We wanted to rely on a secure water supply and gravity feed water supply to us was the most reliable.   They'd be elsewhere protecting other communities and so on and not at our place. Because of their knowledge of what embers can do and where they can go and how fine they are and considering that they're wind driven what I did was lift the ridge capping on the roof and place rock wall insulation. What that does is block up any gaps under the ridge capping where embers can blow into the roof space and cause fires in the roof space. Once you get a fire starting in the roof space it is very difficult to manage and to put out. That was a prime focus around the house is to block up the roof space. During summer what we do is put up shade cloth around the verandas to keep the heat out of the windows. It's a wall of shade cloth that we have around the outside of the verandas and we found that to be very effective during the Black Saturday fires. What the shade cloth did was to not only protect the windows from direct radiant heat but wind blowing embers would hit the shade cloth and those embers would fall into the moist garden below and not land on the veranda and start spot fires. Like many people in Australia I was conscious of some of the big fires that had happened over time and indeed this area had been threatened by big fires in 2003 and 2006. And so there was a consciousness in the area and we had a consciousness of fire. So Yak and Danda is a town with a lot of bushland around it and so depending on where the fire is coming whether from the north right around the west to the south we've got a lot of forest and if the fire is coming at us from any of those particular directions we're sort of very much on high alert. One dimension of our preparations for summer is that we do prepare a tub and that plastic tub has in a range of things that we feel we would need if we ended up in the situation we were having to defend our house or our lives I suppose. And that includes a range of overalls that we would use face masks, helmets, a bit of firefighting equipment by way of a backpack pressure pump for water and two Raycos. And of course we have mops and large 44 gallon drums of water which we don't keep water in and we have them available should we head into that scenario where we would be thinking a fire is on its way. In our fire plans and on Black Saturday we had some quite defined places that we were intending to go to and those places were away from the forested area that is Yak and Danda and into open country and in particular one place some friends of ours have a property next to Lake Hume and so it's in open country and it is next to a large lake and so for us represents a much more secure place to be and we're conscious too that that could be a decision not about overnight or for a couple of hours but over an extended period of time. Every summer we set ourselves up for the possibility of fire coming to our property. Some of the things we do is we bring our houses in very close to the house and we get them to graze down the paddocks that are directly around the house. Every December I'm renowned for getting out my water containers and mops and filling them up and putting them on our verandas, our gutters we clean, our sprinklers, systems that we have on our house and on our stables run through and our ability to pump up to our tanks and for them to be kept full on high fire danger days is tested. The garden is predominantly European deciduous trees and they was very well wet down on Black Saturday started about three o'clock. We had some conifers up the driveway and we lost all of those but again further down on the driveway we've got some deciduous trees and they survived. I've lived here since I was seven and so just under 50 years so it's been a long time. Probably we have never had the experience of fires here because it's traditionally been irrigation area so I've never really fought a fire at all.  Like we were pretty good, there wasn't a lot of long grass, there wasn't a lot of trees at the front of the house but at the back for here there's a lot of scrub and the heat from that was huge so I think you need to look at your individual circumstances. Talk to the CFA, they're the guys that know if you're not sure what a good fire plan is go and talk to them because they're more than happy to help. I've lived here 34 years, they're about coming up from the city into a bush area I was quite aware that bush fires could be a problem. Sort of did a bit each year, the main thing was the sprinklers on the roof and when I built the house I put fairly large areas of glass in there and it's all laminated glass, it's very thick glass and in hindsight it was one of the best things that I'd ever done with the house because talking to other people, experiences that they had, the glass was just one of those things that just blew in straight away in their homes. Every summer you clean up around the place, make sure that you've got no rubbish or the gardens are all tended to and we do a fire drill every year with the family. Took them a little while to get used to that, there was a bit of a waste of time at first, till after the fires. The amount of water that I've got here is 120,000 litres under this concrete slab here. On that day I estimate that we used about 70,000 litres of water. We had always planned to stay, we had made that decision probably two or three years before, like Saturday, we'd always thought we'd be able to defend mainly because it had been cleared at the back and the grass was kept low, we thought well yeah we would stay and defend if the need arose and the need arose. People that live along the King Parrot Creek had pumping rides, we do have a pump that sits down on the creek and it's always down there in summer, it has five outlets where we can attach sprinklers, we can attach handheld hoses and we always knew that at the time if anything did happen again especially after 82 that we did have plenty of water. From probably 2006 we also had 44 gallon drummers sitting on corners of the house.  It is green, it's watered regularly and on that day the deciduous trees filtered out embers, they filtered out radiant heat and the garden basically helped save my life, my husband's life in the house. You can't put it any other way.  Our preparation I guess has been done over a long period of time, when we built the house it's a steel-framed house, we always knew that there was with the possibility of fire and wooden verandas that was a risk for us so we had sprinklers, a sprinkler system on the house that was both on the roof, on top of the roof and under the verandas and able to keep the house pretty much wetted during a fire. We've got a couple of large concrete tanks, 12,000 gallons in one and 10,000 in another and we're pretty fortunate in that we've got about a 200m buffer between us and any significant bush so it's grass all around. For people who are thinking about staying I'd highly recommend that you think about having a generator because it just means even when you're working in the house or in the house at that point of time you've got light, you can see you're not tripping over things in the dark and so on. I've been a resident of Coligny for more than 16 years now, my property is 42 hectares and I run leaf cattle only here. I'm also a member of the police force and due to the nature of my profession I had a very extensive understanding of bush fires. I'd been through a number of very severe ones including the Warburton Complex and also the Glen Gary fires which is about two years prior to the onset of Black Saturday. It's a misnomer that you can fire to fire, you don't fire to fire.   So you need to include in your fire plan as did we, tactics to negate those primary concerns. Leading up to the day of Black Saturday we'd been watching the weather and of course had been a prolonged dry period so we were very conscious of what the landscape was doing and of course there was the very hot, dry couple of weeks leading into Black Saturday which was really alerting us to the concern and the possibility of fire and we were very alert to the dangers associated with fire on that particular day. On Black Saturday itself we had made a decision that we weren't going to stay here if a fire occurred but we were conscious we wanted to try and have the property in a condition that it had its best chance and the building that we've got out the back there had unrendered straw and so we spent a couple of hours early in the morning before it got too hot attempting to get some mud onto that building to try and protect vaguely some chance of ember attack but it started to get too hot for the render to work or indeed for us to do it comfortably and so we stopped especially in the afternoon in this area and no doubt many others reminded us of Mad Max there was a hot northerly wind. It was hot, it was dry and very little vegetation on the ground that was there was very burnt and dry. On the day of Black Saturday we were very clear we were going to leave at the first sign that a fire was in our direct vicinity. I was well aware of the extreme fire conditions on the day yeah I went to work in that morning and left the job about ten o'clock and told the site foreman that I was going home to prepare in case he was a bushfire and he said to me that he'd heard some excuses in his life and he'd never heard that one and after the fires went through it was probably a week and a half before he could get in contact with me because all the mobile tower and that was down so he was very apologetic when he actually got on to me. The first time we were aware of it was when we went out the back door and we could smell it. We could just smell it there was smoke in the area and just concerned about where was it and was it in the area or maybe was it perhaps even a little desert on fire again or we just weren't sure but we could smell it. We realised the seriousness of the situation when a friend who works for the CFA was able to call and she said that there was a fire heading directly towards our property and to give our fire action plan in place. Basically then it was panic because we hadn't actually worked on a specific fire plan so it was just trying to draw on information from friends you know my sister had a fire I was trying to remember what she had done different advice that she had given from the experience that they had trying to draw on what do we do what's the next thing to do. My role was closing windows getting things off the verandas and changing clothes to get some clothes on to be ready for when the fire arrived. For Gary's role he went straight out to the shed to get the fire pump so we were pretty well ready to to attack the fire when it arrived we were just then waiting for it to come across the paddock. From the time we noticed that the fire was coming the smoke was just relentless it's not not like you can look a lot across the paddock and see a fire coming if you're in the in the path of it the smoke it just comes and it gets thicker and thicker the ash there's ash coming there's embers coming you can hardly breathe. We were trying to get you know something to cover our noses I tried to get men's hankies but they weren't big enough then I tried tea towels and they were they were too too tight too big to try and tie so we just at the you know in the heat of the moment you just couldn't find the right thing but in a fire plan it'll be you know have masks there and have sunglasses there and have hats we didn't sort of grab a lot of those things. We didn't have enough hoses and I was basically allocated one hose which I had to run with from you know the front of the house to the back of the house and back to the front and at one stage right when the flames were here the plastic sitting gave away it snapped in my hand and on my heart just sang I don't know now what I've got I've got no hose and my son-in-law was here helping and he saw me so looking at it and he come flying in and grabbed it and went out to the shed and grabbed another fitting and was able to fit it but it really just proves on a day like that you need to have hoses basically on every tap. We did a lot of work and ourselves we had some friends call in that were going past that was very valuable to have those extra set of hands to running around you know trying to one was using the fire pump the other one had hoses we were just trying to wet things down and time pushed a fire around us. About 130 we went outside we could see the smoke through the trees and at that time we started to put in place our final preparations because we knew we were going to be impacted directly from that fire with the south-west wind change and the things we did was fill the spouting with water clear the veranda and make sure that the veranda sprinklers were going and the garden adjacent to the house was wet we'd prepared well beforehand we had overalls on we had good leather hat we had the smoke mask smoke goggles we had leather gloves so we considered ourselves to be well prepared with the right protective clothing so that sort of preparation is is vital. On the day my wife called me roughly 130 and said she'd had a call from the neighbour that there was smoke in the area she was a bit concerned so we came home pretty much straight away and started preparing on the day and those sorts of things included getting our gas bottles and moving them away from the house we had a bit of timber and stuff that was around the house tidied all that up we've got a hay shed that's about 20 metres from the house and it's not a good spot for it I guess we recognise that now. On the afternoon I got the tractor out and piled dirt around the base of the shed to keep embers out from getting in underneath the shed and we stuffed the cracks in the doors up with old truck bags and and that very fortunately and I don't know how but managed to keep the shed from catching a light. We've since moved that hay or not moved the hay shed but moved hay out of that shed and we don't use that shed for hay anymore because it's just too close to the house if it had gone up we would have had a real problem on the day. I don't think we realised how serious that fire was until it had actually been thrown but at three o'clock we started to kick in our fire plans and so our sprinklers were going by three o'clock everything was being tested we did put our horses into our dirt and concrete floor stables when we put them in we took all their rugs and their head collars off and I did close the top doors of the stables so that if they got a fright they wouldn't be jumping out of the stables and causing more harm. The domestic animals were put in the stables with the horses as well contained and we made it to priorities we made the house if we could save the house that was actually number two number one priority was saving the stables and the animals that were in it and number two was if we could we would save the house as well and anything beyond that perimeter just was not for us to worry about so that's the protocol that we followed on the day. I was asleep with and because my newborn was the first day I'd ever had a day nap at the same time as my son and my husband woke me up after having a few phone calls from friends and he was just listening to the radio because he was listening to the cricket that day before he was on the same station and he was just outside and my cousin rang to say that a friend of hers who lived in King Lake had heard that the fires are on their way and that a fire truck from King Lake West had got in trouble so that was the first time it was about 3.30 in the afternoon and he woke me up and said we're going and I just said let me just feed Billy before we go and then he asked me what I wanted to pack and I said oh I don't worry I'll just pack it after I finish feeding he's like no what do you want to pack so I just gave him a few instructions and he just threw a whole lot of stuff in the car and so by the time I finished with Billy he just made me get in the car. That particular day I was due to work and afternoon shift and I was trying to snooze in a house that got to 45 degrees I was telephoned by a friend of mine around 3.30 who alluded me to the fact that there's a huge fire that had been started on the eastern edge of the Churchill area and could I see it and I naturally looked north couldn't see anything and he said well you better get outside and have a look because it's huge. I had an extensive fire plan set up and my son and I had revisited that the previous week and it did worry me when I saw this this fire plume that just on the off chance it may end up affecting us so I've grabbed the first five things on my property list that I'd made as part of the fire plan and thrown into into my car before going into work. Well from the time that it was actually over it probably would have been maybe two or three hours because the main firefront had gone through but everything just kept flaring up all the time we had a lot of a spot fires in right through all the gardens we had bark that just kept reed nighting all the time trees and you know there's a fear of trees catching fire so it kind of put the big trees out so they didn't fall and land on the house so we were continually running and with water buckets of water hoses just trying to put out spot fires as well. Cos my cousin had rang and she said just come to my place and I just when I sort of quickly had a look around the house before we left I thought I will be back tonight will be fine and left a whole lot of stuff that I wish I had have taken because it was about 20 minutes from when I woke up to when we got in the car so as we said would meet her down at her place in King Lake sorry in Greensboro and when we drove out we went to the King Lake West CFA where there was one person there and we said where we're going and he said no the roads are closed to get down through Whittlesey so we went towards King Lake and when we got to King Lake there was just you wouldn't even be able to tell that there was a danger anywhere because we rang our neighbors say that we're leaving they had no idea people were just going about their business so we got into King Lake and thought maybe we were being a bit overreacting maybe a little bit to it all so we just thought we'd keep going anyway and just try and get off the mountain because we were packed and had our dogs with us and stuff so we thought about going down her spree but we thought no it's a bit too bullshit so we went to go through Yarra Glen and then when we got almost to Yarra Glen there was a roadblock there and they made us turn around because the fires had just gone through Yarra Glen and as we were turning around at the road block on the left-hand side as we're going back towards King Lake there was flames on the paddocks and they were going faster than our car was and we could see them really clearly they weren't very far away so that was the first sort of sign of the fire that we saw and when we left we saw the billowing smoke coming up the mountain about 430 we saw it just looked like an atomic bomb had gone off south west of us at King Lake West we knew there was a change and from that time on we just got the hoses the hoses were already ready fiber sheeting put around the house where the where we're embers could get underneath we cut down ferns that adjoin the house we cut down all the trees that were up against the house with the water on the house we had three sprinklers on three sides of the house going because during a fireguard talk we had talked about that you need to keep at least six feet from your house totally wet for embers that were falling and the pump was turned on about quarter to five and the house was starting to be drowned about an hour hour and a half before we got hit with the fire it went really really black it was as black as night you just couldn't see and if you're thinking about leaving at that time of the day that's when it's too late there's potential for the road to be blocked you just can't see it's just too dark and too dangerous to be leaving late in the day went back up the mountain and then I suggested we go back to King Lake to see what was going on and my husband just said no we won't we'll just keep going to yay so as we're driving to yay there wasn't very many cars on the road so it wasn't like it was really busy and lots of people were evacuating so we're driving towards yay and there was a tree had fallen over and there was already a tractor there pulling the tree off the road there's about four cars in front of us and then on the way to yay we stopped at a petrol station to get just some water there was just confusion everywhere there was no power in the petrol station already because as we were leaving the power went off at our house too so we had no phone no water no nothing so that was a good time to leave anyway so yeah we left the petrol station and we got up to yay and yay was pretty busy and we just sat in yay and sat in the air conditioning we could get out of the car a little bit because it was hot but there was no smoke there and then we waited in line with everyone else in town to sort of fill up with petrol to make sure that we had enough like kept the fuel tank full just in case we had to travel somewhere else that would have been at about five o'clock I think about five o'clock we probably put a gear on at about five so put our overalls and breathing apparatus not on but handy and easy to get we'd put some water bottles out you know we were ready it wasn't really an ember attack until the front was nearly honest they probably two or three kilometers away you know not even that probably by the time the wind turned outside the sprinklers were going I did have a couple of the fire hoses pointed it in different directions at each end of the house and we had of course sinks and baths and that with water in it and if we noticed any embers coming in you know we we didn't mind throwing a bucket of water over over a curtain or blind when the main part of the fire was here the whole house was just literally shaking and the three sets of double doors down the bottom and two of them blew open and flames actually come in from the garden and I'd say was a fair as a mature garden with mature trees in it but it would have had to been a good 16 meters away and at the same time the doors blew open the wall will be ran in the house and we had pets we had about seven pets in the house five dogs and a couple of cats that people have bought and I've got to tell you the wallaby was the best behave one of a lot of them that just come in put its head in the corner in the games room stayed there for about three hours before it left and didn't move the whole time but it was pretty frightening when the doors did blow open because you had to have the people there in the house at different points to be aware of these things because if we my wife and I were up upstairs here on this level and if we were the only two here we probably wouldn't have gone downstairs because it is all solid brick and we wouldn't have been particularly worried about it so yeah you've got to really be able to cover all points we had seven adults and six children in the house the dogs were here and they weren't restrained and you have people running around and on top of that when the doors blew open you get a bit of smoke in the house the smoke alarms are going off so yeah all in all it was a fairly hectic scene inside the house even though we were safe and and I was always under the impression that they would all be just sitting downstairs watching TV because the power was on we had TV on the kids with us I've seen them we're all sitting down watching TV and and that's the way they would have gone through the whole scenario but that wasn't the case they were quite aware of what was happening outside and from what I was told a couple of them were feeling panic-stricken about the whole thing you know to me it was like watching a chemical reaction going on behind the glass that the thick smoke was right up to the glass and all you could see was this red glow in amongst the thick smoke you know like there was no way you were going to survive outside and you know after the fire went through there was a kangaroo in the garden down the bottom that was fine it hadn't been burnt because it got in close to the house and it was getting wet from the spray from the sprinklers but it died anyway and that just would have been because there was no oxygen in the air that there was such thick you know smoke around the place that nothing would have survived out there anyway you know I would say that we actually got out about 20 minutes after the five main five front hit and that probably would have been about half past five 25 to six or something and get the hoses and then start you know make sure that everything was all right around the point and like I say there was three at least three of us out maybe four outside and yeah well little wasn't too much longer or outside and we knew that we'd we'd had it beat which was a great experience about half past five the sky started to darken with smoke become pitch black about about cord to six the power went out it flickered for a few times and and the power was cut at that stage from about six o'clock we could start to see the glow of the fire coming we're impacted by the first stage of embers floating embers that were starting spotfires on the lee side of the house we're on the lee side of the house here and this is the area where we considered most of our spot fires at start with our past experience living here at Coligny dry leaves and so on would all drop in this area and not blow under the house and so therefore we we thought that embers would land here so we based ourselves myself and my mate Steve based ourselves here with fire hoses I was up this end of the house and Steve was down the other end and we put out spot fires as they started and protected the house from this side at the time the radiant heat from the fire and the embers were absolutely horrific but as the fire front went by after about 15 minutes we were able to then focus more on the little spot fires that were starting up on the decking and around the the garden and the grass areas and around the swimming pool and so on but during the fire front itself there was not a lot we could do because it was just such mayhem I have to say we're pretty calm when the firestorm hit us a lot calmer than what I thought we were going to be it was just do what you had to do we'd spoken about it enough we were prepared we were ready we felt like we've been waiting for a few hours actually but yeah quite calm and when we just got about what what we'd plan to do it went very black you can't see you couldn't see a couple of meters in front of you there were times when someone was beside me using the hose and I didn't realise I was there until you actually heard the wish of the water we were lucky during the fire we didn't go inside the house we did shelter on the opposite side of the house to a lot of where the heat was coming from and I think that's partly because we had the protective overalls on gloves breathing apparatus we had plenty of water so but it was it was hot and it was very smoky the filters on our breathing apparatus when we looked at them later were absolutely black I think if we hadn't had that we would have had to go inside to give ourselves some sort of relief the front probably lasted about 20 minutes after the front came through was really the time to get really active because the front sort of barrels its way through noise dark heat smoke can't see but as that disappears daylight came again and that's when you've got to get out and start putting some of those things that my cordon fire but haven't yet fully ignited and and helped save them I was given the opportunity to return to my property in order to fight the fires and also because I knew my son was back here and my intent was to save the house and then resume duty and that certainly didn't happen I arrived here at 6 p.m. completed opening the gates by quarter past six because cattle are quite intelligent in the event of a fire they know what to do by opening up all the gates around the farm it allowed them to go where they wanted to they jumped in my big damn we were prepared for bushfires in Australian summers bushfires tend to come from the north or the northwest and it couldn't have been further from the truth I was impacted from the southwest in a cool change I was expecting that cool change to make a difference and to soften the the fire front and all it did was we had six to eight hours of extremely hot air come through from the southwest driving a 10 kilometre fire front which had been set up by the original northerly burn so you can't rely on a southwesterly change to save you the fire hit our place roughly 6 30 6 45 at night that day it had been dark for about an hour beforehand with the smoke coming over it was nearly pitch black you could hardly see anything at all then it started to get pretty smoky and we had embers an ember attack at that point in time and and my son and I were outside trying to put embers out and it got to a point where it was just too smoky and and we couldn't stay outside any longer and and headed inside and I've seen to remember a couple of minutes later the fire actually hit and came through it was smoky inside the house as well the smoke alarms were were sounding which sort of added you know adds to all the sense of urgency and panic from in the house we could see the plantation go up just a fireball of flame in the in the plantation and and then a haystack in the distance was on fire we could see out one window and there were burning embers flying past the window horizontally I guess you know blown with the wind that was pretty strong at that point in time and that went on for about 15 minutes or so we were reasonably well set up inside we had buckets of water and towels in a few of the windows and I did go outside a couple of occasions during the time that it was coming through and certainly really smoky and hard to see and breathe outside going outside was to put out bushes that were burning right up right up close to the front of the house treated pine fence posts were burning all over the place had a little fire in one of our sheds it was fortunate that I went in there and managed to to be able to put that out before it sort of got hold our sprinkler system that we had which included sprinklers in under the eaves helped us a significant amount because that really stopped stuff that was close to the house from from continuing to burn when the fire impacted on my property it was coming across the back hay paddock and it was swirling like a washing machine motion in two 300 meter wide circles and there was two of them the flames I thought were extending about 60 meters in into the air I was later told that probably close to 600 meters in into the air the time we come back up here the ember attack was full-on and rather than having a spotfire here and a little one you know 30 feet over the air which were prepared to go and put out it was just lighting up like Lucifer around us everywhere so we gave that idea up of trying to put out the spot fires we then went inside the house I was expecting the windows to go black and and fracture slightly and perhaps to start shattering when the firestorm hit us that certainly happened the you we watched the windows go brown and then black within the space of about 30 seconds and then literally the house imploded the windows exploded in ice immediately came to the realization the house is lost so then we've gone and got all the wet towels and and the provisions that we did that my son had set aside the water bottles the lanterns and we waited as long as we could inside the house because the firestorm was going over the top of us so that was the vapor fires that rolled through we left the house on the eastern side through us a glass sliding door and we sheltered in an alcove area which is there's a concrete plinth up there and sat there because at that stage the fire was around a 360 degrees in the air and 360 degrees on the ground so we sheltered on that concrete area for about five minutes and then the house had really lit up from the inside and I said Tim time to go to the concrete tank so this is where we took shelter leaning up against the wall protecting our faces breathing through the towels I had my water bottle in the lantern down here this is where the lantern started to melt so my son and I moved across burning ember beds around the other side of the tank and ended up here you can see the remains of the variegated potassium and it was quite large and then we we simply knelt behind it so we crouched there with towels over our face behind this big stump and that's what protected us from the radiant heat and when the fires were going through and I was sitting there I couldn't even see the watch face in front of my face I couldn't tell the time it was that accurate and yeah so that tree really saved their lives and the tank we knew there was going to be a southwest change we knew that the fire was the King Lake West so we knew the valley was in trouble about three hours before it hit us unfortunately for us they would hit with no smoke warning with no fire visible fire warning the noise was horrendous before it hit and then and then it basically just absolutely rain dimbers rain dimbers down on us before you could actually still either smell smoke or visibly see fire from those embers my neighbour's houses all went up in flames and still no smoke and so the sprinklers were we're going so that the house was being totally watered but also the surrounds all the gardens surrounding it was also being watered as well my husband had a handheld hose and I did as well so we watering the garden as well as the house to keep it totally wet after a spade of time the pump did fail the pump failed because it was burnt burnt out we went inside because that was when the fire front was was hitting us we went inside husband wouldn't stay inside for very long because well they say 10 minutes he lasted about three or four and said I don't know what's going on outside and I need to get outside to see he was outside putting out spot fires every five minutes I was climbing the ladder in the bathroom up into the roof and checking that there were no smoldering embers within our roof cavity with me I had of course needed torch and I also had a water pistol one of those great big water pistols that you can squirt and they go a fair distance because yeah if you needed to put out a fire within your roof cavity they were the best at the time Robert went outside after the front had gone over and he's he was putting out spot fires all over the place at that time the drums that were filled with water proved absolutely invaluable to fill up buckets and to be able to go and the water on a spot fire where it was occurring and of course when that fires gone over that's when it can be the most difficult putting out spot fires because if you're not there to put them out that's when they cause so much damage and destruction from about half past seven twenty five to eight when it actually hit us with embers and that's when I watched all my neighbour's houses burn that was before the main fire front by quarter past eight or not even that long the whole valley was basically up in flames so when the smoke began to clear and it was still coming through in ways but we could see recently well and there wasn't the ferocity of the flame so we went for an inspection around the home block could see that there was nothing left the house was gone my machinery shed was gone the hay shed was gone all infrastructure around here was gone there was nothing left standing other than the concrete tank my son had had his four-wheel drive sitting on the driveway at without anything surrounding it he did caught fire and the intensity of the flames and the fireballs that went through was enough to melt the windshield glass so that it looked like liquid river over his dashboard and running down the sides of his doors so we knew they're pretty hot fires the fire plan that we made worked my son and I are living testimony to that we survived the worst fire event in recent history that Australia's ever ever seen being a firestorm in all honesty my house couldn't be saved in that fire event it wasn't designed to last that fire event because it impacted under my house and there's no way that I could have saved it the way that I will modify my fire plan is to obviously incorporate the new house I'm building a house that will be fireproof it'll be made out of masonry in my case he will block all my garden will be English garden I'll have a shelter for the car so that I've got access and transport after the fire I'll put a fire suppression system on the roof I'll certainly have more petrol pump firefighters and put them on independent systems that are reticulated so if I need to I can pump for weeks if I had the fuel in order to suppress the fires so any infrastructure that you need to save needs to be under a fire suppression system there's lots of information that you can get not only on the internet but from your local CFA that will assist you in developing first of all a quality fire plan but also set up infrastructure on your property so that you can save your primary residence but also being farmers to take action so that you can save you the animals that you run and perhaps even the crops that you grow prior to Black Saturday we had a Virginia hedge that was about two meters tall that ran from right up the property on the southwest side which is where the fire came from and on that night the Virginia hedge acted as a barrier and and gave us a fighting chance we would stay and defend again there is one thing definitely we would do different our plan was if the house did go up and we couldn't save it we would head for the creek and we would not have survived it would have been too hot too open to try and get to it it the creek also is surrounded by bush so what we would do the next time if the house did go with a second pump you'd stay by your tank and put your second pump in and basically stand there and drain yourself in water and hope that you survive it we still struggle with the fact that we were isolated for those few days after the fires and the power was cut of course and it was out for two or three weeks phones were cut they weren't reconnected for two or three weeks so it was very isolating we have to organize generators and an alternative communication methods it meant that because of the roadblocks for a few days after the fires we'd meet our friends at the roadblocks to get food supplies and so on so it was very isolating and it was blocked for a reason because the police had declared it a crime scene because of the people that were killed some of the things that we'd improve in terms of our planning would be and some of these things we've already done is to move some of our native vegetation back away from the house native vegetation is a lot more inflammable than deciduous trees and things like fruit trees which were great barriers with the fire we would install fixed sprinklers around the veranda at the time we had movable sprinklers that we had to shift at about every 10 minutes and they did a wonderful job but fixed sprinklers might save us a little bit of time our decision whether to stay and defend or go for future fires depends very much on how our health is at the time how well prepared we are both mentally and physically if we felt as prepared as we did for Black Saturday we'd probably stay but if if our health was not so good as what it was then we'd probably leave early we did it originally say that we're going to rebuild and then I was a little bit apprehensive because I knew that there's not going to be a fire go through the year after but I thought later down the track when the kids are older and they're at school on the mountain and I'm at work and they would if if I came through and they wouldn't let me back up and those sort of things I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable during a summer so we decided to sell put the block on the market and look for a house back where we originally lived so if I live there now I'd have all my keepsakes ready to go I'd go any meetings that like the community was running about fire awareness where there was going to be places for safety to evacuation points I just have knowledge we were completely and utterly ignorant when it came to what to do because it wasn't a point that anyone really pushed on us when we moved to the area it wasn't said that oh you know that this could possibly happen you should be ready it was pretty amazed that there wasn't a thing left there wasn't a leaf left or a twig or anything and yeah and it was a very strange experience because as I was training the water out of the tank I heard this scratching going on behind me and there was three lyrebirds in the water trail scratching away and I thought they must either go into the creeks there's a couple of creeks down there or they got to go into wombat holes my ideas changed a lot if it was my choice I wouldn't stay again if another if we had another daylight that if I had the opportunity to get out I would go before the fire even got here mainly because I don't think whatever preparations you put into place you only need something small to go wrong and it could you know it could mean difference between life and death so my first option next time would be to go it's great having the house set up you've got to have everything in place everything prepared everything ready just the same but first option would be to go like everybody were faced with a decision about leaving early or staying and we had a made a decision to leave and the question is what's the definition on that day for early and I think there's a complexity there that is quite challenging to answer and that the answer is related to how dry it is on the day what the wind patterns are for the day what the projections of humidity are and so we don't have an absolute point at which we're saying if it's eight o'clock in the morning we will leave we we have a default position that we will leave and we will update that default position depending on the prevailing conditions on that day or indeed on that that week or whatever and it's also quite a challenging environment in a community sense because obviously as soon as we leave we cease to be a contributor to a community fire response so we didn't get a fire front coming through here and in fact ended up not coming all of that close but we now each year do some planning to put ourselves in a position where the either the property is most likely to survive or if we happen to be in the property we can defend ourselves and the property we've got toughened glass and all the windows we've prepared cement sheeting boards to paste over all the doors and windows we've put cement sheeting right around the subfloor area and and we're in the process of installing a fire pump and putting in sprinklers on the eaves and on the roof we haven't done that yet but it's part of the ongoing plan I don't think I would change any of our actions that we did on the day I never have to find that one out but I felt that we were very well prepared there have been some things that we have changed our independent water supplies now gravity fed rather than relying on a pump that is sitting in amongst trees we have added another petrol pump and we replaced a plastic water tank with a concrete one we haven't changed our mind about staying or leaving we have discussed it since and as a family our decision would still be to stay but that is as long as we are a hundred percent prepared and ready and we all feel capable of of doing it again so with our setup I would say yes we will be staying with each individual setup I would have to say you need to think it through very thoroughly in the few days after the fires because the the police had declared it a crime scene we were we're pretty much locked in we couldn't well we could have gone out but if we'd gone out we wouldn't have been allowed back in again and there's a group of about four or five of us in a couple of houses up the road that I guess started to work together pretty well in terms of looking after one another and so on we were lucky in that we've had a generator and we're able to to keep power going and keep fridges and and so on running our verandahs one of them did catch fire on the day so we've decided now to replace this with concrete and cement sheet as a measure to make sure that it can't burn we've also added shutters to all of our windows and sealed up the house a lot better under the eaves where the eaves meet the bricks and also under the ridgeline of the house because we did find afterwards a lot of ash inside the roof in the house that had got in under the the capping of the roof and also changed the vents on the roof of the house we had one of those whirly bird vents before which is not fireproof and we've changed those over to some fireproof vents I think we would still stay we'd be prepared to make the decision if we had to on the day we've certainly improved the the things in terms of keeping the house safe up up the sprinkler system and got rid of the wooden verandahs and and so on I think in hindsight we probably shouldn't have had the kids here on the day you know in future I don't think we'd want to put the kids through that sort of trauma I guess yeah wouldn't put the kids through that again one of the things that we've done as part of our fire plan is to add a wall into the back of the house here so stop the embers and everything we're coming right through here so it's been an important thing to try and block that off and make it a bit more fireproof for us obviously we've still got our screen pools we've got a permanent water supply we've got our pump that we now you know it's all been used so we know how to where to set it up and my husband Gary is a plumber so he's been able to put in some really good fire wheels so we we know what we need now if there's a fire coming we know what to grab Black Saturday for us at the Haven rim law and Drunk South we were the ones that copped it on the day next time it could be you you know it could be your neighbor it could be anybody you don't have to live in the mountains there's something like this to happen it could happen to anybody it's just a spark in the wrong spot and if you're in the line of it you need to be prepared for it


Russia to deploy naval base on occupied territory of Georgia. Russia planned to create a naval base on the Black Sea coast of non-recognized Abkhazia, the occupied territory of Georgia. Russian newspaper Izvestia reported this, citing Aslan Buzania, the leader of the unrecognized region. Buzania reported that an agreement on the deployment of a permanent naval base in the Ochamchaya district was signed. We have signed an agreement and there will be a permanent base of the Russian Navy in the Ochamchaya district in the near future, he said. All this is aimed at increasing the level of defense capabilities of both Russia and Abkhazia and such cooperation will continue. Buzania added, saying that there are things I cannot talk about. Buzania also stated that the current leaders of Georgia are pragmatic people. Earlier, the UK Defence Intelligence reported that the Russian Black Sea Fleet will likely be unable to maintain the same control in the Black Sea waters as before after the latest series of successful Ukrainian strikes. The UK Ministry of Defence believes that Ukrainian forces have succeeded in defeating Russia's fleet in the Black Sea.


Inborn errors of immunity, IEI, are a group of rare genetic disorders that can cause serious health complications if left untreated. Currently, newborn screening for SCID is being conducted in some countries using a DNA-based test to measure T-cell, receptor excision circles, tracts, and capital-leading recombination excision circles, cracks, which can detect babies with this specific type of SCID. However, other types of IEI are not detected by this method. Therefore, upfront, first-tier genomic-based newborn screening should be considered as a way to simultaneously screen for hundreds of monogenic diseases at birth. Next generation sequencing could also be used to identify more types of IEI, but there are many ethical, legal and social considerations that need to be addressed before such a screening program can be implemented. This article was authored by Javanka R. King, Collie Grill, and Leonard Hammerstrom. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Well it's been eight years since Cast Lake being a boys basketball last made it to the state tournament. The Panthers are hoping to end that drought this year after cruising through the regular season with a 25 in one record. They open up the playoffs tonight at home hosting Clearbrook Ganvik. Let's go to the second half already up double digits. Arnold Kingberg adds to it. Knocks down the triple from the wing and a few possessions later he tries the other side. And they're good because of plays like this. Look at Jarrell Jacob sticks with it and eventually knocks down the jumper just impressive opener all around for the Panthers. The other thousand point score Noah De La Paz money. They're on the Thief River Falls this weekend for Cast Lake being as they roll 88 to 43. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


So thank you for having me and for considering this bill and I want to thank Peggy for her help in facilitating me being here. And the three folks who spoke before Ray William and Caroline I just want to acknowledge that I heard you and heard your stories and thank you for sharing your stories. What you're going to hear from me today is going to be in one particular different than what you heard from the three folks who spoke before the break and yet perhaps very similar. In the summer of 1983 social services managed to get me out of my home. I was about to turn 10 years old, and this wasn't the first time that they had attempted to free me from the physical abuse that was my daily experience and my father and stepmother's home. They had tried before, and they had failed because I had lied to protect the silence that is an integral part of child abuse. I read about the starvation about being locked out in bitter winter weather without proper clothing about being hit. I protected my abuser hiding the nights I slept naked on the floor in the hallway.  I attempted suicide a few times, but I only did it in ways that could look like an accident because if I failed, I would get in trouble for trying to kill.  I couldn't even imagine a scenario in which I would break the code of silence that I lived under that was not even something I could picture. The only reason I got out was because I had dirty underwear and socks. Because I was eating the other kids lunch at school and their parents were packing more food because they were going home and telling them I had no lunch every day. It smelled so bad. There was no other explanation for it. I only got out because my physical condition told the truth. I was unable to speak. And so other people acted and I want to in this moment honor those folks, some of whom may be watching today.   I hike the mountains of Vermont as an adult survivor of child abuse. I raise my children as an adult survivor of child abuse. I enjoy Dolly Parton and Bruce Springsteen as an adult survivor of child abuse. It is not all of who I am, but it will forever be a part of my identity. I will always feel her nails digging into my cheek as she grabbed me always. I'm one of the lucky ones. First someone was able to get me out. Those who spoke up for me gave me the gift of naming the abuse, which has allowed me to speak openly about what happened. I do so very often, because I find it reduces the stigma for others. We are not broken is the message I bring we are changed we are molded by our abuse, but we are not damaged goods. Many people cannot speak of it as I do. I speak or write about my abuse at least one person comes forward to say to me, it happened to me to. Sometimes they say it loudly but usually they wait for the room to clear out or contact me later.   This is a false narrative that heightens the shame and the silence. For me the saddest moments have to do with the man who talked to me, man in their 40s and their 50s men who have raised entire families. They look at me and they they whisper it.  I can tell you've only heard that once or twice but I've heard it again and again the shame and the silence for man is even worth worse than for women. They have gone decades without being able to name the crime that was committed against them. And that is because the code of silence is part of the crime it's the heart of the crime. That shame and silence is a prerequisite to the hitting the starving the damage to the body. That shame and silence lives on for decades afterwards. You cannot have a statute of limitations on a crime that by its very nature silences the only witness for decades. As 99 will let survivors know that we as a society do not diminish the terrible crime that was committed against them, and we will not be complicit in the silence that was forced upon them. That is the time the time they need to say the words they need to say. Thank you so much. Thank you. Questions for Emily. Well you're very succinct and. Can we talk a little bit more about the nature of the silence night. Yeah. So, You have to build the silence before you can start the abuse. The child who doesn't understand the never even spoken rule or sometimes not spoken rule of you don't talk. We'll talk. I mean I have three kids, they talk about pretty much everything that happens in my house all the time. And so you have to build the silence first it's built in. It's a time and it's a testing thing right you it's like a frog and boiling water right you start it you start it with the silence you start it with the fear you start it with that. And then by the time the physical abuse starts. You know you can never talk about what happened. You know it in every fiber of your being. It's fear and the only reason that I was able to step away from that fear is I wasn't going back to that house for two months, because the first investigation. The social workers insisted I went to overnight camp for the summer. So they understood the removal and the fact that I mean I would go into the principal's office the first time around. And my stepmother was sitting outside the door. That silence was not going to be broken. And so I was given a gift one that I'm a very open person by nature and just the way I came out was like that. But to that I had other people break that silence and name it and put me in a position but even at overnight camp. I was able to name it when the social workers came to talk to me but when I had to be in the same room with my father and stepmother. I couldn't say it up. Silence didn't say it couldn't say it, even though I had been telling the truth up until then, and we call it disclosing a lot.  You know, when Ray was speaking it was incredibly powerful to me because he spoke about so much of what I have seen. And I have become in a lot of ways a very public child abuse survivor. I've written about it and all sorts of really public places I'm a writer and so I've had that ability. And so I become an unofficial helper where I become a place where people can talk about it safely. And it's heartbreaking how hard it is to name it decades and decades later. When you left your father and stepmother's house. Permanently, that was the state of the month that took you. No. State of Massachusetts. And Massachusetts at the time had this thing they just loved to keep the family together. It's an indicator on suffers from that too. Yeah. And sometimes listen like sometimes I get it there's a lot of factors, but it was at the time. You know, people didn't even know if they'd be able to get me out and it was extreme. And so after the state of Massachusetts to you out of the home. I went to live with my paternal grandparents for a short time and then another relative took me. In ship care. Yeah. Other questions for Emily. No, I just have to say that all of this. This and the what we were dealing with with the. The what we were dealing with with the pornography child pornography and stuff. I just, I just cannot. It is just unfathomable to me what we do to children. Senator. Emily, I don't have a question for you, but to you and all the witnesses that have come. You have all been very convincing in your testimony. But Emily, I'm going to single you out because you have a wonderful way of articulating in a very short presentation. Language that I think comes popping into my head as to how to address this and articulate it further. So while I thank all of the witnesses we've heard from over the past two days, frankly, for the passion and your courage to bring forward this conversation. I was, I just want to single you out by saying you have a gift for articulating the message. Press on. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you very much, everyone. Very unique, very unique stories really, even though the common theme but how the individual part of it is so important for us to hear. Very important that we hear this. I'm sorry that the rest of the Senate is unable to hear stories that we're hearing because they have a full understanding of impact. Some of the laws we asked and some of our efforts to prevent child abuse. We focused on child. And did to not look at child. A lot of what I heard today was also neglected. And what I heard from you, Emily, is also neglected. How you can leave that kind of a broken opportunity. Little girl was coming out of her ears. Thank you. Thank you. Keep writing. Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, just going to talk. This subject is even think that what you're doing is going to make a difference with us 99. I'm okay with that. It's the, you know, it's really about, like Ray said, it's the kids to come.  It was so re triggering for every survivor, I know, because the rest of you, the rest of you saw businesses shutting down. And the rest of you saw education interrupted. And every one of us saw doors slamming on children who were now stuck in their house with their abusers. All of us and we, the survivors, we talk about this, we all know what this year has done to those kids. You know, we, the idea that that door shut and those kids were told school has closed indefinitely you're staying home. I mean, school was the only thing that got you out. And now we've done this. And I'm grateful to the superintendents who did everything they could to try to serve the kids through this year. It was an awful year when those doors were shut and those kids were stuck in that house but it's not, I don't need legal recourse, I'm okay. You know, like Ray writing about it and talking about it and working constantly to pay it forward has has been helpful to me. But I need to know that those kids for this last year where the door was shut will have recourse whenever they find their words and, and, and I need to know that some kid is going to read that you passed this bill, and that you're willing to give them the time they need to talk about it. Thank you. Thank you. Eric. I don't know if we put aside some time next Wednesday and might be better I don't have any changes to make right now. I am. Do we know what one technical piece. Yeah, yeah, just just as a starting point. You may recall that there was testimony that I think there's been fairly consistent testimony about the possible ambiguity because you remember the, and I can pull up the bill for a moment if that would be helpful. Let's remind everybody of the language. Although actually it's it's really in, in the statute remember that the way the bill defines assault is with reference to the criminal aggravated assault statute. Yeah, remember that. And there was, and there was language in that statute regarding attempts that made it kind of ambiguous as to what that really meant. Yeah. So I think, at least from a technical, just sort of one possible amendment for the committee to think about in response to that is to redraft the language, just so that the attempt stuff is is taken out. So that doesn't doesn't preserve that ambiguity. I think that would respond to the concern that was expressed by folks. Yeah, I think you're going to go back 40 years and try to prove an attempt. Right. Exactly. It's going to be different. Difficult to know, you know, take Carolyn's case 1950s. It's going to be. I don't know how you could watch. Right. But I had a thought of how to how to reword that so that the. I'm sure you can. That's one of your, one of your many talents. Thank you. But I get that. And how does one prove I mean, I can think of somebody's whose arms broken. Maybe there's ways to prove that. Some of the other physical abuse.  That problem is proving. I think that, that, you know, absent cases where the evidence is obvious. Proof is always, always going to be an issue. And I'm sure that there's a lot you can do about that. The, but to the extent that you can have other contemporaneous witnesses. You can have the fact that somebody mentioned it to somebody else contemporaneously or even that they've mentioned it to somebody else, sometimes since then. Those, those factors can go into supporting someone's claim. You know, there always has to be some evidence that the claim happened. But I think at least by removing the statute of limitations, you've allowed that evidence to be gathered and presented in a way and now now it can't even be presented. So, you know, to the extent that there's anything available you've at least made that ability to present that to a court. What are the statute of limitations on reporting physical abuse. Well, I don't know that. Yeah, I don't. It's really a misdemeanor to fail the report. Then I think it would be the ordinary statute of limitations on crimes generally is three years. I'm wondering if. But. On the side of this. If someone could prove a pattern by an institution. Urging failure, urging to not report. Physical or sexual. Right. It sounds like current that itself, at least at some point in its history. Through the Catholic church as well. Obviously evidence. Their failure to report abuse. They established I'm trying to think of the words, but I guess the word would be a culture where you did not. I'm again, some people saying that they were, you know, if you, if you report that I broke your arm out. I'll cut you up in pieces and throw you in the current as well. Right. Right this morning. But I'm, I believe that that may have been a culture there. Not reporting. Which is. Yeah, it sounds like at least at some time at some point in its history. I think also there's a, there's a general principle with respect to statute of limitations. I think attorney O'Neill might have mentioned it last week of concealment. So the statute of limitations doesn't run while someone is concealing the wrongdoing or the claim. So it's called tolling is the legal term that's used to LL. But it's for example, a statute of limitations is told while someone is a minor. So it doesn't start running until someone turns 18. Similarly, while someone is concealing that someone has a claim or the concealing the facts underlying it. The statute is told. So it could well be that there might be a claim for failing to report. But it's based on the fact that they were concealing. Which it certainly sounds like from the testimony of the committees heard exactly what was happened. I have one other question for the committee to think about just because it's also come up a lot from the testimony and it was a drafting question. Was whether is the emotional abuse issue. And now that's it. I guess we had different one that wouldn't be covered by the assault statute, but I think that's not something to answer now, but just wanted to. I looked at some of the statutes regarding abuse. There's the vulnerable adults as some emotional abuse. But I think that would be much harder. I think that's right. Correct. And I would. I'm concerned about unintended contact. Having been sued my own life. That wasn't the thing to go through. Even if you're not guilty. Yeah, I think you're right that the proof issue that you were mentioning. Much more difficult. And on promote for all parties when it comes to the emotional side. I'm certainly happy to look at it. But I think. Is there anywhere else? Oh, do you know? On the civil arena. I know we need to tweak this to some extent just to make sure it's okay. I would like to be able to leave Ray and Emily. And Kim with the understanding that we are all moving in the same direction, even though we end up with some tweaks that have to be made those tweaks are very minor. The way we're moving forward, I sense there is unanimity in the committee. That goes along with where all these witnesses have been begging us to go so I would hate them to leave the screen wondering if we're going to get hung up on some technicality because I don't think we're gonna. We'll iron those details out. You know, at the end of the day. Proof is always a burden.  It is always up to the plaintiff to construct a case. I see this bill as simply enabling them to enter into the process and try to make that case. As a defense attorney, I'm also cognizant that there will be defense attorneys down the road who are trying to battle from the other way. But at the end of the day is always up to the trier of fact to decide who wins all that we're doing is we are opening up the door for somebody to make a case that currently is closed to them. Don't leave it there. I appreciate that. I haven't. The best of my knowledge I never physically did restraints. I may have made some mistakes. mindful that somebody. Yeah, I think though the difference is that they're going to have to be in assembling a case. Something of substance. Not just a mere allegation. Because if you don't have the substance to back up the allegation in all likelihood a defense attorney is going to convince a judge that there's no merit to the case. But at the end of the day, that that gatekeeper the judge is still there to protect interests of folks like you who may have that accusation made. And, you know, I remember one time it was a staff member who or simply removed the kit from the windows he was trying to remove himself from the building through the window and get alleged that the staff member had used him up the window. The DCF was called. They did an investigation. Just been doing his job. But, you know, that's, that's like an allegation we do have at least hopefully there's some record of that. I don't think there was any. Think about it, that nervousness that you have as somebody who could be sued is palpable. In the current situation of where our statute of limitations would allow that kind of an action to be brought. We are always going to have situations where we are uncomfortable. But should we deny someone with a valid claim to bring it beyond the present limitations of our statute of limitations. I wasn't suggesting that I would oppose. I was just reminding, you know, just thinking of my own situation. I was just suggesting the you might have some comfort in the idea that their case did not amount to abuse at the time that you initially heard about it.  I'll also mention it. I was one of the fortunate ones adopted mother who was incarcerated, you know, 18 months in series of foster homes. We do know that because I'm back to find my history. Lucky. I was never to my knowledge of an institution. Part of what drives me on this. Anyway, if we could. Take a go back to 128. We're at. 128. That's the panic defense. Oh yeah. Thank you all again for having me. Opportunity to have the survivors. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great as well. If you. Tim, if you want to stay in touch with Eric and myself on any. Suggested. I want you to take a look at. St. Joseph's. I think supporting the survivors is one thing we can do almost immediately. And I appreciate that so much on behalf of all of them. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I think that's based upon what you all are talking about and just we're talking about with respect to. Failing to report. And the pattern and procedures of that. I'd be happy to share with you. At another time. God next Wednesday. I believe. And 45. Be a great time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All the folks who testified today. I appreciate it. I know the committee does. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They were, they were powerful and brave. And I commend them for it. They were. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Dick, did you. You cut out. Did you. Say we were taking a break or not. No. Okay. It seemed, it seemed like you did. And then your voice. Oh, I'm sorry. Fuzzed out. I couldn't tell. Sometimes your voice. Yeah.  We can't hear you. Trying to be close to. What happened. You, you lower your voice when you're. I go. Yeah. I remember like that. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So one last. Quick question before I go centers. That was, are you, am I right that we're so we're going to do markup next week? You're not going to look at a new draft yet. Sort of. Markup next Wednesday. Okay. But you could do a draft. We definitely want to make sure attempts are not. Right. So I think you could do that. If you want to think a little bit about on the issue of. Manitored. Orders in an institution where it's proven that the culture is. Sure. Hope that has changed. I mean.  Not that long ago whereby you had to go through the staff rather than a teacher calling direct. And that changed too. In our education committee that got changed. We could do, you know, something in the bill to clear. I don't know. It seems like there was a culture to not report and I think we ought to address it even if it's. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right. Sounds good. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. You're. Joined by. Here. Looking back at that. 8128 again. Which I believe we're scheduled to take up again next Friday. Hopefully to. Make. Final amendments. I guess. We were. We were talking about whether or not. What impact it has to be discussing. The differences between sentencing and prosecution. Or how do you. I mean, defendants have. All kinds of. Things that a judge might take into consideration. When. Making a decision. And. The question is, should they be able to. Bring the panic defense. Is there anything else we deny the defense, the right to. Raise. Anybody. What, what do we. The example I brought up earlier. For the record, Bryn here from legislative council. The, the, what I brought up earlier was the rape shield law, which prohibits. The defense from introducing certain types of evidence. About a victim's sexual history. In a case. Is that's one example of evidence that we, that we don't allow it to be introduced. Could the defendant. Could a defendant raise. So that would be introduced by the defendant. In order to demonstrate something about the victim. As a, as a. As a defendant. As a defendant. As a defendant. As a defendant. At sentencing. At sentencing. Or at.  The criminal trial. Prohibiting that the introduction of that evidence at the criminal trial. What about the. So. My reading of that statute is that it applies to the trial. If it wasn't introduced at the trial, I'm not sure that a judge would have it at the sentencing proceeding. Since it is. It wouldn't be a partner. I'm thinking of.  A victim of rape. And you killed. Somebody. Because you were. Because they were.  Out there. Wouldn't you be able to use that as. Yes. So we, will you tell me that fact pattern again? I'm sorry. The defendant killed. Somebody whom they thought was trying to rape. Oh yes. So that. Right. That would be a self-defense. Right. And you could use all that information. Your, your history. You will rape them. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You can use all that information. Your, your history.  You can use all that information. In the sentencing phase. Right. Yes. Introduction of the evidence of your own sexual history. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody who. I'm confused. Can I. Yeah. Yeah. Senator White. So I just, I'm. Little confused here and maybe Joe can help me about how this actually happens. At a, at a trial. So you're prohibited from. Introducing certain things during the, the actual trial. And that's the rape shield. And, and in this case, it would be. The, the panic defense your, you can't introduce it at trial. When it comes to sentencing. Can only things that have been. Introduced at trial. Be permitted to be told to the judge. I'm. My. Me or my attorney. At sentencing. Can I introduce. The state of my mind or. Something else to the judge that hasn't been brought up at trial. I guess I'm, I'm confused here because it seems to me that you want the judge to have. Lots and lots of information. Yes, I did this, but I have been going to rehab now for. The six months since I was charged with this and I'm. I don't understand how that works at an actual trial and the sentencing phase. The only easy way to describe it, Jeanette is at the trial phase. You are talking about guilt or innocence. Right. Doesn't go beyond that. We have given limitations to what kind of evidence can be produced to determine guilt or innocence. And when you get to the sentencing phase, you are now trying to develop. A plan of action. To accommodate. The person who has been convicted. It's a totally different. Environment in my eyes. I off the top of my head. I cannot recall any time where I've been prevented from introducing something. I'm not aware as I'm sitting here of any law that would. Prevent me from introducing something. The judge is free to discard it and say, I'm sorry, I just don't buy into what you're giving me as an excuse of whatever kind here. But we've never limited to my knowledge. The ability of a judge to consider something or reject it. If the judge feels that's appropriate. Remembering this is no longer about guilt or innocence. It's about what do you do with this individual who has now been convicted. And when we as a legislature try to fashion legislation. That. Really ties the hands of a judge. That I'm very uncomfortable going down that road at all. That that's not just bad in this situation. It is the potential for future tying of a judge's hands. Based on emotional reactions to a given. Societal ill at any moment in time. And I find that very troubling. And if Phillip is correct that in fact, the house language. Is allowing that to be carried over into sentencing. And I'm thinking that I've got to take another look at this bill, because I'm just not feeling comfortable going down the road. We're going. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Yeah. This discussion really makes me feel like we need testimony from. Judge Greerson at least. Because I, I take Joe's experience, but I share some of. Senator White's questions about how the process works. And I would, I would be. You know, personally comforted to hear what, what judge Greerson. Thinks of this. I'm not sure. Brent, do you know if he testified in the house on this? No. I don't believe that he did testify on this bill in the house. I, I would like to share with the committee at a case. The provost case. That provides that all. All facts that. That pertain to sentencing have to be determined beyond a reasonable doubt. At the trial phase. So I would just, I would, I understand that there are certain things that come in at the sentencing phase that may not come in at the trial phase. But I think any facts that are relevant to the actual determination of all of the elements of the crime do have to be established. Beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury. So I can share that case with the community. Brian, I just want to. Caveat to that, that I'm pretty sure that case. Is what limits the prosecution. The prosecution cannot bring into. A sentencing phase. Allegations that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. So I think there's a strong difference between how that case applies to prosecutors trying to bring in things at sentencing. As opposed to the defense bringing in something. Because the defense is not required to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. At any stage. Under, under, said. The prosecution cannot bring into a sentencing phase. Allegations that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. So I think there's a strong difference. Under under said. But I would, I would go back to the point I made earlier. If you don't include the sentencing phase. As I understand it, the sentencing phase part of the, the point is to introduce mitigating. Factors. So that a judge might say, okay, I'm not going to give 20 years. I'm going to give five years because of these factors. And then we'll see. Where you might. Very likely have. Defense attorneys. Trying to mitigate the sentencing with the panic defense. So if we, if we leave that in place, I just feel like. The rationale for the bill is severely undercut. Let's think of the, can I just raise an example? And then I know we're not going much further. charged and convicted of a rape, of attempted rape, I believe, of a young girl who was unconscious and he was charged with that and convicted somebody, someone stopped him in the process of the rape. When it got to sentencing though, the judge decided because he was such a good swimmer and because he had no other convictions, I think they gave him a suspended sentence or six months or something. It was a very light sentence. It became a pretty high profile. So at that point, the judge took all kinds of extraneous information into the count in determining us what appears to be an extremely light sentence. I believe the judge lost his seat, aren't I? Yeah, I think well deserved, but I only raised that because it sounds like stuff that was never proven a trial. I'm not sure that it ever came up during the trial whether it was a good swimmer or not a good swimmer, but that made a bit of difference. Good student, bad student. I'm just curious about that. There is a great danger of trying to create legislation based on a rogue judge's actions. I will join with Philip and say that we should hear from Judge Greerson because in my mind, this is no longer determining guilt or innocence. This is what do you do with a person who has been convicted? There are many different factors that come into play, but to deny outright at the get-go the ability of a defense to present some kind of mitigating discussion, to me that's one hell of a big step. And I just can't go down that road, so I'd love to hear from Judge Greerson. Well, we're all agreed that the House bill did provide for consideration, and the panic defense is part of the defense. That's how I read the House version, yes. So for us, the question is whether or not it should, the language that was used in her amendment. I would go even farther than the House versus the amendment that Bryn did for us, because if the House bill includes the sentencing, then I would want it explicitly taken out, depending on what we hear from Judge Greerson, because I am very nervous about not being able to introduce anything from the defense at the sentencing hearing. I mean, if you find that the person is guilty, but then find that they have been, and I'm not talking here about this defense, but find out that they are guilty of doing this, but they've been in rehab now for six months or a year and haven't used or haven't done anything that might have an impact on what the sentence is. I'd be very nervous about telling judges what they can and can't look at during the sentencing, because I think we can begin to put restrictions of all kinds then on what they can hear and what they can take into account when they're sentencing, as opposed to whether they're guilty or innocent. And I see what you're saying, Jeanette, but I guess my way of looking at it is this bill wouldn't in any way say you can't take into account somebody's history in a substance abuse program or other relevant data. What it would say is that if someone is convicted of violent assault or murder against a person, and then at the sentencing phase, they say, well, I've been convicted, but I did it because I found out they were gay, and a judge agrees that that should mitigate the sentence. That's inherently bigoted. It's inherently... I just view it as something the system shouldn't allow at any phase. It's a qualitatively different thing than information about somebody being an otherwise good member of the community or completing a program of treatment or something like that. I would just say that judge would end up in the same situation as the swimmer case that Dick was talking about. Maybe. Depends where they're sitting, you know? Well, in Vermont, I think... We're sitting in Vermont. Yanked out of the retention committee in the heartbeat. Vermont has different attitudes in different places. That's our jurisdiction. Right. Just saying that, again, we're back to there are all sorts of bias and levels of bias. What this bill is trying to do is take that bias out of the picture. But I see what you guys are arguing, and I think Judge Greerson's perspective would be real helpful. The problem here is that this is a particular bias, and it is a particularly obnoxious bias. But if we try to limit things that can be presented that have any bias by a judge, I mean, I don't know where else this would go. I'm sorry I shot him, but I really live in fear of politicians doing bad things to our world and to me. And so I shot him because he's a politician. And then we say, well, you can't introduce that. I mean, I think this is... And the other thing I would... I think that what we're doing here is... And I think this is an obnoxious thing for a judge to do to base it on that. But we're looking at these three really high-profile cases. And I thought what we heard from Rebecca Turner was that all the cases, if you take the totality of the cases in which this has been used, oftentimes the sentences were higher. But we're looking at the three really high-profile cases and kind of basing it on that. And that always makes me very nervous when we do that around particularly high-profile cases that we find repugnant. And so we should... If it's true that there are many, many, many, many cases out there where it didn't work in that direction, we should take that into account as well. That's the final word.