False claims
online against wildlife conservation icon, The Snakeman ® Raymond Hoser ® including that Snakebusters ® and reptile parties ® maybe unsafe.
Because Snakebusters are rated Australia's best reptiles, and have been for many years, unsafe imitators, including trademark infringing thieves and scammers seek to undermine our impeccable reputation and industry leading, perfect safety record for what are ultimately their commercial purposes.
That is they seek to illegally divert our clients to their unsafe alternatives.
There have
been a number of false claims made by Snakebusters imitators and competitors, including via numerous fake online accounts and ID's and including officers of the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) (more recently known as DELWP) working on
behalf of their associated comepting business entity, “Zoos Victoria”.
This has
resulted in a string of hateful and adverse reports about Raymond Hoser and Snakebusters, online (mainly), occasionally erroneously repeated in the taboid media and elsewhere, including numerous erroneous and defamatory accounts of legal proceedings finalized in favour of Snakebusters. False reports that Snakebusters have been permenantly closed down and are "out of business" have been corrected, but these corrections are not always made known.
There has also been an improper misrepresentation of the content of a video that shows devenomized snakes biting the snake man's 12 year old child who herself suggested she get bitten.
This was to prove that the snakes posed no risk to anyone and refute false claims that the snake man's ability to survive multiple bites from the same snakes was because he was a "freak". The video had been used successfully to quash $21,000 in fines in the County Court in mid 2011. Those fines, successfully appealed, had been imposed in the Magistrate's Court on the basis of false DSE claims that the snakes were in fact venomous and a risk to children. In that court, this was ostensibly proven in the absence of any videos of children taking bites and surviving, necessitating the production of the child-bite video for the successful appeal.
Claims that the video was of an attempted murder are pure fantasy!
As a result, commencing July 2011, Snakebusters
took legal action against several people for defamation related matters. Consequences of false statements made in media reports in August 2011, have been added to a bill of damages issued to the State Government of Victoria.
For the record, News Limited has already both apologised for (in writing) and corrected false reports published.
(In 2018 one of the main defamers, Mr. Michael Alexander, calling his unsafe imitation business, Black Snake Productions, pled bankruptcy (including with well-timed divorce number 2) and an unwitting ally of his ended up paying his costs and damages as a result).
In the meantime the
following points should be noted by all existing and potential clients of Snakebusters ® and Reptile Parties ® / Reptile Party ®:
·
Snakebusters
have never put the safety of their staff or the public at risk.
·
Snakebusters
have never been convicted of any safety related offences by any authority.
·
All
Snakebusters imitators in Victoria have had incidents where staff or public
at their events have been rushed to hospital for venomous snake bites and
required life-saving anti-venom. Details
can be found here:
·
Snakebusters
are alone in Australia with the expertise to have vet certified, surgically devenomized deadly snakes,
used for all venomous displays, which means safety of all is guaranteed.
·
Formal certification of the fact our venomous snakes are devenomized and harmless is seen here: microchip records and Certificate of Expert Evidence for court.
·
Any
display using venomous snakes that are not devenomized is illegal under Section
32 of the OH and S Act, Victoria, 2004. If it's not Snakebusters displaying venomous snakes, then it's illegal and people are at risk.
·
As a
result of a false complaint against Snakebusters by an inexperienced imitator,
Worksafe Officer Phil Fisher did an undercover inspection.
·
He
cleared Snakebusters as safe.
·
Worksafe
have never prosecuted Snakebusters.
·
In 2006,
persons associated with DSE Manager of Compliance Ron Waters paid $29,500 to Snake
Man Raymond Hoser for illegal use of his trademark “Snakebuster” after being
sued in the Federal Court for trademark use.
·
DSE
officers have corruptly chosen not to prosecute several companies breaking Wildlife
and OH and S Laws in Victoria and there have been several near fatal venomous snakebites
as a result. Some
examples are here:
·
On 9 August 2011, Worksafe Officers stated they were aware of venomous snake shows conducted by four Victorian companies (not including Snakebusters) in breach of the OH and S Act 2004.
·
On 23 August 2011, Snakebusters successfully took out a (contested) court order against the DSE and associated entities to prevent similar attacks and lying in their media releases in future. This follows a similar order against several other persons working for other less experienced displayers, taken out in July 2011. Both orders are legally enforceable and should prevent further attacks on Snakebusters and their customers, either by way of attacks, harassment or media releases that contain known lies.
·
On 8 June 2012 and again on 5 September 2014, a total of five judges at the Victorian Court of Appeal found that all relevant adverse claims made against Snakebusters were fabricated and false. An order was made by the Court of Appeal on 5 September 2014 that the DSE (now known as DEWLP) must pay costs to Raymond Hoser.
AS of 2020 these had not yet been paid.
All previous court judgements made against Raymond Hoser and Snakebusters (dated prior to 2014) were formally squashed and both were cleared as both being safe and alone among venomous snake displayers within Victoria in doing displays that fully complied with the law at all times. Raymond Hoser is therefore unusual among wildlife demonstrators in having no criminal past of any sort. For examples of criminal histories of others in the wildlife display space in Victoria, including scammers illegally marketing fake reptile parties see the Reptile Party Scam Warning.
·
If it’s
not Snakebusters displaying venomous reptiles, then it’s a risk!