Brody's Notes... Australian Defence Force Psychologist Says Career Is Over After Death Threats & Hate Speech Online

By Brody Levesque | Sydney, Australia -- An army psychologist  whose service in the Australian Defence Force was threatened by a series of homophobic attacks via online services says his career is pretty much over.

Major Paul Morgan, who's Gay, told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper that he was subjected to death threats and hate speech online by other soldiers, which Morgan claims were not investigated properly for over a year by ADF authorities.  

Major Morgan, while working as a psychologist in March of last year with soldiers from the 3rd Royal Australian Army Regiment in Iraq, East Timor and the Solomon Islands, allegedly received an email from one disgruntled servicemember, Marcus Andrew Georgiou, in which Georgiou threatened to break every bone in his body. 

In court charging documents against Georgiou, it was disclosed that he threatened Major Morgan saying:

''If the weather permits it I will cut your homosexual carcass into one hundred pieces to feed you to thee [sic] marine life in Botany Bay."

Major Paul Morgan via
the Sydney Morning Herald

Morgan says that Georgiou also set-up a Facebook page which was soley designed to drive LGBTQ persons out of the ADF via intimidation tactics, a charge that the ADF tacitly acknowledged in an article on its internal newsletter, which the Major claims was written regarding one of the anti-gay web-site's contributors he complained about to the ADF:

"Right now, because it seems that so many of my colleagues conspired with Marcus Georgiou to start a gay hate website to drive gays and lesbians from the army and because so many watched until one person stood up … it may seem that there is a culture of gay hate in the army,'' he said.

According to the Herald, Major Morgan said that when he saw the alleged webpage, he instantly knew that his capacity to act as a psychologist, building rapport with soldiers and their teams, was ''probably at an end''.

''Harassment in the army has caused young men to kill themselves … But I am here to say to you that you can be in the middle of mass mob hate, mutiny and inaction, but if you hang on and don't kill yourself it gets better.''

Georgiou is facing felonies of using a carriage service to menace harass or cause offence at along with uttering threats of physical harm. Besides Morgan,  Georgiou  allegedly targeted two other Gay servicemen, members of the Sydney-based 2nd Royal commando regiment.

An attorney for Georgiou told the Herald that Georgiou will plead that he is suffering from mental illness and has asked Downing Centre Local Court for an extension of time to obtain a medical report.