Sydney academic Dianne Jolley’s big admission caught on police phone tap, court told

Phone taps reveal a big admission in the case of a Sydney professor accused of a bizarre fake hate mail campaign, a court has been told.

A Sydney professor accused of sending herself pairs of her own underwear amid a stream of fake threatening letters was caught on a police intercept admitting to penning two pieces of hate mail, a court has been told.

The NSW District Court trial of Dianne Jolley is nearing its end as the former University of Technology Sydney dean of sciences fights allegations that she was responsible for a bizarre intimidation campaign directed at herself.

Ms Jolley has been found not guilty of nine charges but is still facing another 11 counts, including fraud and conveying information likely to make a person fear for their safety.

She has pleaded not guilty, and her barrister Leah Rowan on Wednesday attacked her alleged motive as “nonsense” and claimed that Ms Jolley was the “victim” in the ordeal.

Crown prosecutor Roger Kimball used his closing address to highlight several key pieces of evidence, including CCTV and phone taps, which he said supported the argument that Ms Jolley was responsible for authoring 10 threatening letters and cards sent between July and November 2019.

Ex-UTS professor Dianne Jolley has pleaded not guilty. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Christian Gilles

In her testimony, Ms Jolley admitted to writing one of the letters, explaining at the time that she found the stress of the real intimidation campaign against her too great and she wanted to be fired from her job.

In text messages sent to a colleague on November 18, five days after her arrest, she admitted: “I know I have cracked under the pressure.

“As a result I’ve done a couple of things to piggyback on events ... things I’m not proud of.

“Obviously recently sabotaging myself. I guess as a subconscious need to make it stop.

“Ironic because I love the job, but the weight was too heavy for too long. I’m so sorry couldn’t take it, but now I’m the only suspect.”

The letter which Dianne Jolley has admitted writing to herself. Photo: Supplied via NCA NewsWire.

The jury was also played a police phone tap in which Ms Jolley was overheard telling her personal assistant that she had admitted to sending two letters.

“What’s happened in the stream of things, as things have gone on, I’ve found it really hard,” Ms Jolley is heard saying.

“The various things have happened, the pressures that have happened and the threats that have happened. I found it very hard.”

She goes on to say that after initially receiving support following the first flurry of hate mail, that soon “disappeared.”

“I made some bad judgment calls and two of the letters that were sent were sent by me because I wanted some more support,” she said.

“I should have gone to a psychologist and now they’re accusing me of everything.”

Ms Jolley was recorded on a police phone tap, a court has been told. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

She testified that at the time the university was planning to close its traditional Chinese medicine course, and as the face of the proposed change, she was experiencing angry resistance from members of the community.

This included receiving a letter – prior to the first one for which she was charged – that threatened to send her picture to the “Chinese mafia”.

When the threatening letters began trickling in on July 31, 2019, the university went to great lengths to put security measures around Ms Jolley, spending more than $127,000 on installing CCTV cameras at her home and office and providing her with a personal bodyguard.

She argued that the stress became too great when someone broke into her backyard, sliced up pieces of her clothing and stole pairs of her underwear, which were later sent to her alongside a threatening letter.

She said after reviewing her contract, she resolved the only way to get out of her $320,000-a-year role immediately was to incur a misconduct charge. She decided the best way to do that was to be caught red-handed penning a fake threatening letter, the jury was told.

She admitted to typing up one of the letters and printing it off inside her office at UTS’s Ultimo campus but said she was otherwise innocent of sending any of the notes.

But Mr Kimball said Ms Jolley’s fingerprints were found on the back of a stamp that was used to send one of the letters, arguing she was responsible for all of them.

Some of the letters allegedly sent by Ms Jolley to herself. Picture: Supplied

Ms Jolley has denied penning 10 threatening letters to herself. Picture: Supplied

Ms Jolley says she does not know who is responsible for sending the threatening letters. Picture: Supplied

Ms Rowan attacked the crown case and her supposed motive.

She said Ms Jolley did not need to muster sympathy or support to push through the closure of the traditional Chinese medicine course, considering the decision had already been made by others.

“The accused doesn’t have a reason to send a threatening letter to herself,” Ms Rowan said.

“I don’t know if the crown proposition is that Professor Jolley is some sort of drama queen despite the fact she has never shown any sort of behaviour which would be consistent with it.

“I don’t know if he’s suggesting she’s some sort of Machiavellian creature using counterintuitive behaviour to try and get through (the closure of) a course that is already going through.”

Ms Rowan also criticised the police investigation, saying several key witnesses, including potential suspects, weren’t interviewed or called to give evidence.

She also said the jury should reject suggestions that Ms Jolley would send herself her own underwear given she knew other people would view the clothing items, describing it as “humiliating”.

“At her level, at her age, why on earth would she commit these sorts of offences? No reason at all,” Ms Rowan said.

“Where is the evidence that she lied to you about anything? Where is the evidence she lied to anyone about anything?

“She was the victim in this case. That’s a word that hasn’t been used. She was the victim.”

The trial will continue on Friday with Judge Ian Bourke’s directions to the jury, which is expected to retire to consider its verdict early next week.