Capilano Honey Ltd, which is now known as Hive and Wellness Australia, has been awarded $25,000 by the NSW Supreme Court after spending $millions trying to silence journalist Shane Dowling for allegations Capilano sold poisonous and toxic honey. But allegations by large media companies that Capilano sold fake honey, poisonous honey and polluted honey are all over the internet and will be there forever.
Capilano Honey failed to take any action against Robert Costa, the ABC and Fairfax media who published allegations in 2018 that Capilano Honey sold fake honey via their Allowrie brand which was 90% Chinese imported honey. What Capilano Honey did do was to stop selling their Allowrie branded honey in January 2019 and are now selling other imported honey via their Cloverdale brand which is also 90% imported honey.
I have only quickly read the judgment and I can see holes in it all over the place which I will expose over the next few weeks (Click here to read the judgment and click here to read schedules A, B and C)
Capilano’s former CEO, and now Hive and Wellness Australia COO, Ben McKee was awarded $150,000 for being defamed. Why does he get $150,000 and Capilano only get $25,000? Their lawyers admitted dragging the preceding out and Mr McKee admitted in his witness statement that Capilano Honey contains poisons. In 2019 I wrote the next 2 paragraphs in an article but Capilano took legal action to make me take the article down on a technicality because they claimed McKee’s witness statement had not been sworn in court at that point but in reality, they didn’t want the public to read it and know the truth:
Capilano Honey CEO Ben McKee confirmed that Capilano’s honey has poisons such as glyphosate (Roundup), alkaloids and antibiotics in the honey they sell. Ben McKee argued that the poisons, Alkaloids and antibiotics in Capilano’s honey are within the legal amount but if that is the case why have Capilano been running a SLAPP lawsuit against me for almost 5 years? Their lawyers admitted in court they put the go-slow routine on the court case which even shows up in 2 judgments.
Ben McKee’s witness statement is mind-blowing for how dodgy it is and raises more questions than it answers and he is the only employee from the company who has filed a statement. (Click here to read Ben McKee’s witness statement)
Capilano Honey (parent company is now known as Hive and Wellness Australia) failed to provide testing from 2016 which is the period they had to provide testing for to prove their honey wasn’t poisonous when the articles were written by me accusing them of selling poisonous and toxic honey. Instead, Capilano provided testing from 2018 which Justice Button allowed which is scandalous.
Even though I lost with Friday’s judgment what we achieved played a huge part in forcing Capilano to stop selling Allowrie Honey which was 90% Chinese honey and for which Capilano Honey provided no testing which they should have. And others had tested the Allowrie honey, and the results found it was fake honey and Capilano didn’t sue them which is very telling. Capilano Honey only sue small independent journalists.
I publish a judicial corruption website and Chief Justice Tom Bathurst has been trying to stitch me up for years which is outlined in my book published last year “Australia’s Paedophile Protection Racket” which has a picture of Chief Justice Tom Bathurst on the front with Scott Robinson and others. So, it should be no surprise I am denied natural justice almost every time I have a matter in the NSW Supreme Court.
Robert Costa testing found Allowrie to be fake honey
In September 2018 media started reporting on testing that Robert Costa had done in a laboratory of Allowrie Honey which was owned by Capilano Honey as it was then known. Allowrie was 90% imported Chinese honey and the testing said it was fake honey which was disputed by Capilano Honey’s management. Given Capilano sued beekeeper Simon Mulvany for saying they were selling fake and poisonous honey and sued me for writing about them suing Simon Mulvany, why didn’t Capilano sue Robert Costa and the large media companies that ran the stories about them selling fake honey? Admission?
If you do an internet search “Capilano Honey fake” 2 of top results will be the ABC’s article “Capilano, Australia’s biggest honey producer, and supermarkets accused of selling ‘fake’ honey” published on the 3rd of September 2018 and an article published on the same day by the SMH titled “Capilano, supermarkets accused of selling fake honey“. Those articles, and others like them, will be there forever as Capilano Honey failed to take legal action against them in the required time limit of 12 months and their combined readership is many times this website and the damage they do to Capilano’s brand is many times whatever this website could ever do.
Channel 7, which is owned by Capilano Honey’s largest shareholder Kerry Stokes, accused Capilano Honey of selling poisonous and polluted honey
Channel 7 also broadcast stories in 2008 and 2011 accusing Capilano Honey of selling poisonous and polluted honey but Capilano never sued Seven and the stories were still on the Seven website until about the end of 2018 when they disappeared about the same time Capilano were exposed by other media for selling fake Allowrie honey. One of the Seven stories is below.
Failed to move the matter to Queensland – No jurisdiction
The matter should have been transferred to the Queensland Supreme Court as all the parties are based here. Capilano Honey and Ben McKee are based in Brisbane and I am also in Queensland and have been since 2019. I applied to Justice Sackar in February 2020 to have the matter transferred to Queensland but he refused and I published an article titled “Justice John Sackar recorded corruptly acting as counsel for Kerry Stokes’ Capilano Honey” (Click here to read) and I never seen him again after that.
I also applied to Justice Richard Button to have the matter transferred and he also refused and he made it clear he was going to stitch me up which the judgment shows he did. (Click here to read the judgment)
Justice Richard Button overruled the Court of Appeal
Justice Button in his judgment has overruled the judgment of Justice Lucy McCallum (Click here) and the Court of Appeal (Click here and here) who in 2018 found in my favour to lift dodgy suppression orders and said: “the evidence of damage or likely damage was scant”. I won’t go into all the details, but Justice Button is fully aware he has ignored their judgments when he shouldn’t have.
Looking at appeal options
I am looking at appealing and I have started the initial process with a hearing on Monday to have the court orders stayed until appeal. Although an appeal is not certain at the moment as there are a number of hurdles to overcome before any final decision is made on whether or not to appeal. But whatever happens with the appeal I can and will write a book about the matter and that has always been to ultimate goal as that allows us to expose the corruption that has gone on in this matter in the court of public opinion which we control, not the courts. The courts cannot stop the book as most of the content will be the published judgments, the articles about Robert Costa’s testing of the Allowrie honey and the media reports about that went unchallenged in court by Capilano Honey (Hive and Wellness Australia).
Capilano Honey, and their new trading name Hive and Wellness Australia, have suckered punched themselves and no matter what happens moving forward many Australians will never trust them for good reason. I will have a lot more to say on the matter over the next few weeks and some of it is explosive for the stupidity and admissions that have in effect been made by Capilano, their lawyers and Justice Richard Button.
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Categories: Capilano Honey, Kerry Stokes
Thankyou. You have confirmed for me that Capilano Honey and all its subsidiaries should be boycotted, which I do anyway. I only buy and consume Australian honey from reputable local sources, and urge all your readers to do the same.
Capilano, delisted from the ASX, is now a private company exporting pure Australian honey to China, at the same time offering blends, often with imported honey to the Australian consumer.
https://www.change.org/p/imported-honey-must-be-banned-or-labelled-with-country-of-origin-eg-china-argentina/u/23776018?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_update&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=facebook
Will be a bit easier now that covid restrictions are easing , but raw honey from a local beekeeper you can actually speak to is the best bet for pure honey. Honey from the bush has the best chance of avoiding any nasties, commercial honey is from a mixture of sources, including the bush.
Even some expensive manuka honey from nz has been pinged for high levels of toxicity , so the problem is not one purely of low prices although that contributes. The long term solution? , testing of all honey sold in australia to the highest international standards and prices that reflect the effort that goes into the production of pure honey.
I buy Beechworth Honey now since being informed a few years ago about the toxic syrupy blends of China and Capillano, Allowrie, etc.
Buying Australian Pure honey from Aussies is not expensive as a jar goes a long way, and it supports decent people rather than these ****ing ****s.
Taking legal action where time and money are used to smash the little man immediately tells me who is in the wrong. Go Shane, decent people are behind you.
History clearly shows the NSW legal and Political systems are corrupted, apathy allows these shameful matters occur.
Perfect timing with this article. Just this morning I heated up some synthetic fake honey I bought at a supermarket because it was totally crystallized after just a few months. Brand new and unopened. And yet another 1 litre tub with a little left on the bottom was still perfect after a year because it was REAL honey sourced from a handyman who is also a beekeeper.
It astounds me that they can get away with selling fake stuff and not a single government entity does a thing about it. Then again, knowing the depth of criminality throughout business and government, and also the courts, it does not astound me.
Oh well. All we can do is vote with our wallets. I must stock up on the real stuff next time I can. I know someone who ordered a dozen tubs. None of the supermarket stuff can be trusted.
One suspects a little silver may be crossing palms 🥴
Keep up the good fight, there are many, many of us who appreciate your efforts which are for all of us!
Thanks, for your courage – I hope costs were not awarded against you! I have ordered your book.
I would not & do not trust Capilano, nor its new name with the air i breathe. Thanks Buy only Australian Honey, and to me the best Australian honey Is LEATHERWOOD HONEY FROM TASMANIA.
I agree the best is Leatherwood honey, it’s truly Australian (Tasmanian) and has a unique and distictive taste which cannot be beaten!
For the record, I purchase my honey direct from a local apiarist who has 100 hives and he sells his bulk to a commercial brand, where it is mixed together with other local honeys. He wouldn’t sell it to them otherwise. He is able to tell me exactly where the honey has come from (range, coastal, type of tree, grasslands, etc) and the flavours are definitely distinct. I prefer to put my money and faith directly into “the workers” hand. Thank You for the article and expose-ay on this unscrupulous behaviour. I think it was Dan Chipp that said “Keep the bastards honest”. Good on you, KCA!!!
I could not find any of the 11 articles listed in the Court judgement against you. I assume the articles were deleted as per the Court orders. Does this mean your application to stay the court orders until appeal was not successful?
Yes, that is correct.
That’s quite a blow. Is this the end of the road as far as any further Capilano articles and commentary is concerned? Hopefully you can still write about the holes you saw all over the place in the 45-page judgement? And also write about where and why McKee’s 66-page witness statement is dodgy? It would be a great shame if these two documents could not be discussed.
Stay tuned