NSW Supreme Court says prosecutor engaged in “vile” behaviour … Persecution of step-mother … False accusation of murder … Unreliable evidence … Discreditable conduct by a lawyer … Max Shanahan reports
The drama began when the health of family patriarch, Ishac Nasr, began to decline in late 2017.
Ishac, a Lebanese immigrant who had fathered nine children with his first wife, made a will in 2015 giving his second wife Nejme Ibrahim – 25 years his junior – the right to reside in their Campsie house for two years following his death, after which the property was to be sold, with the proceeds split 10 ways between the nine children and Nejme.
The will made further provision for a payment of $200,000 to be made for the upkeep of his son Antoine, who suffers from serious mental illness, and had his lower leg recently amputated “in circumstances of extreme neglect”.
The children maintained, without substantial evidence, that Nejme had agreed when she married Ishac that she would not benefit from his estate.
During the period before and after Ischac’s death in March 2018 at the age of 94, the children were at the house constantly, disturbing Nejme’s right to peaceful occupation, and rarely leaving her alone in the house with Ishac.
The siblings had come to believe that Nejme was variously either negligent, deliberately neglectful or actively seeking to accelerate death in her care of their father.
Seized by a belief in Nejme’s malfeasance, Clint Nasr went so far as to secretly install a camera, microphone, infrared sensor and wireless siren in Ishac’s room so that he and the children could be warned whenever Nejme entered the room to care for her ailing husband.
Clint with other brothers and sisters were convinced that recordings showed Nejme removing oxygen nozzles from Ishac’s nose, and serving him water from a mouldy bottle. They further alleged that Nejme was withholding food from the old man. When Nejme – herself in poor health – spent 16 days in hospital for two operations, the children believed her to be faking her illness to avoid her obligations towards her husband.
The siblings’ hostility escalated after Ishac’s death. The day after the death, Clint attended Campsie police station and handed over a dossier “with the intention of prompting a murder investigation”. The police took no action.
The children excluded Nejme from her husband’s funeral, and continued to attend the house uninvited, with Loretta – one of the children – breaching an ADVO Nejme had taken out against her following a scratching incident.
The siblings further accused Nejme of stealing $49,000 in cash from the house, a claim found to be unsubstantiated.
Nejme gave evidence that, in May 2018, Clint and some of the other children had come into the home while she was out and “broke the security framing on all the doors and windows and throughout the property … they ruined the garden … They removed all of the photos from the house, including the religious icons. They replaced these items with a photo of Clint”.
Around this time, a series of posts were made from Clint’s Facebook page (all capitals):
- “THIS WOMEN [sic] IS COMPLETELY EVIL WHO WAS HELL BENT TO MURDER HIM. SHE STILL PROTECTS HERSELF UNDER THE ROOF OF THE MAN WHOM SHE MURDERED.”
- “WE ARE COMPLETELY PURGING OUR MINDS FROM THIS WICKED WITCH.”
Ultimately, Nejme vacated the property in mid 2020, but the siblings’ attempts to remove her from the will have ensured that the Campsie property is yet to be sold.
Justice Mark Leeming made orders that the house be sold, and that a payment of $500,000 be made to Nejme from the estate to allow her financial security and accomodation.
Leeming JA found that the siblings had “unrealistic expectations” of the level of care that should be provided by an ill and elderly carer, gave “demonstrably wrong” testimonial evidence and were generally unreliable.
But the judge reserved special opprobrium for Clint Nasr, describing the Facebook posts as “vile and “calculated,” and finding that Clint “vilified Nejme over many months … in a way that sits very uneasily with the responsibilities courts place upon legal practitioners”.
“There is in my opinion a proper basis for concluding that Clint’s conduct is conduct which … is discreditable or capable of bringing the profession into disrepute.”
Nasr had appeared in the bail hearings involving the samurai sword murder accused.
Clint Nasr was invited back to make his case to Leeming JA as to whether the Court should take further steps in relation to his behaviour.