Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Guest Submission: Colin Ector on Dan Andrews





by Colin Ector 


Read Colin's work at 


https://lensofstatementanalysis.blogspot.com/2021/06/dan-andrews.html?view=sidebar


Dan Andrews

 

On the morning of 9 March 2021, Dan Andrews is reported to have slipped and fell on wet stairs while holidaying on the Mornington Peninsula. No legitimate photograph or footage of Andrews has been published anywhere in Australia since his alleged accident.

 

 

He returns to work this week after three months off with full pay, whilst Melbournians suffer repeated lockdowns, business closures and some of the strictest enforced Covid regulations in the world. During this time rumours have circulated, including in the Cairns Post that he was involved in an incident at a high-flyers party with a seventeen-year-old girl and was beaten up by the father of this girl’s friend. 

 

 

Shadow treasurer, Louise Stayley has received backlash for calling on Andrews to answer questions on the matter.

 

 

With his return to work this week Andrews has now finally spoken on the incident. What can we learn from his words through Statement Analysis? He is the one who knows what happened. We must listen to him. We do not interpret. We believe the subject and we allow them to tell us what happened. In order for us to conclude deception we must be talked out of this position.

 

Andrew’s and his wife Cat’s words are in Italics. The analysis is in plain text.

 

Andrews

 

“As I'm coming back to work ahh I thought it was appropriate to update you on where things are at but also to tell you a bit more about, my story, our story of these last few months. We’d been down the Beach ah having a family weekend.”

 

1.     Andrews (the subject) does not begin with the pronoun “I” which statistically makes what he says less likely to contain reliable information. It is to lack psychological presence.

2.     He instead begins with reason why he is talking to us now. This is sensitive to him and likely shows awareness that he has not spoken for a considerable amount of time and that many are wondering why and what happened.

3.     He does not address “where things are at” in this statement. What does “where things are at” mean to him? What are the “things”? The word “but”minimises or refutes what came before. The reason for him speaking is to address what happened to him for him to be injured and absent for three months.

4.     “my story”. He changes to “our story”.  It is about him. Is his wife an afterthought? Or was she not there? He has a need to include her in his story.

5.     A story implies a work of fiction. Often when a subject tells us they are going to tell us a story it will be a story.

6.     “we’d been down the beach” When? The subject does not say this is the day of the incident. This would be true if it were a different day. It elongates time. The addition of “having a family weekend” elongates this time period again. We cannot say he is talking about the specific day of the incident.

 

 

“ It was a bit of a bit of a chance to have some time together and to make up for the fact that summer had been really busy and a holiday that had been planned hadn't happened.”

 

1.     This is passive. Who planned the holiday? Who’s holiday? To where. Passivity is used to conceal either identity or responsibility. This is unreliable language. We cannot say if they had a holiday planned.

2.     Is this the reason why he was where he was? Does he have a need to persuade us that this is why he was there. This may indicate another reason for being away.

 

“And I'm making my way to the car to head off to work and ahh it had been raining not sure it was raining at the time, but it had been raining.”

 

1.     When someone is telling us what happened, we expect to hear the account in past tense. A slip into present tense can be an indication that the subject is not speaking from experiential memory. There are some exceptions. Some will habitually speak in present tense and we also hear it in the language of those who are suffering from PTSD.  Andrews does not appear to fit into either of these exceptions.

2.     We then have the unnecessary reason why the subject was making his way to the car. This makes it sensitive to him in that he wishes to beat us to the question we may not have asked. Why he was going to the car is of no consequence in the context of having an accident, yet he has a need to tell us.

3.     If he was on holiday as he says why was he going to work? Is he trying to make himself seem conscientious? This need to portray himself as “the good guy” often indicates the opposite. 

4.     “head off” is noted. A common phrase perhaps but if the rumour were true, could someone have told him they were going to knock his “Head Off”.  Potential leakage like this is noted but we do not put too much weight on it until after we discover what happened and then revisit the statement.

5.     “raining” is repeated 3 times making it important to the subject yet he unwilling or unable to tell us that the steps were wet. If he cannot say it, we cannot say it for him.

 

 

“ As I put my foot onto the first step, I knew I was in troubleI didn't really connect with the step. It just slid straight off.”

 

1.     What slid straight off? The subject wishes for us to interpret his words into him putting his foot onto a wet slippery step and then his foot sliding off. It is a mistake to interpret people’s words. Truthful sentences are usually straight forward and somewhat boring to analyse. This “story” reads like an account of fiction with suspense as the subject intuitively knows he was “in trouble”. Deceptive accounts often use this “story telling” method. He narrates as a story because he is not speaking from experiential memory.

2.     “I didn’t really connect with the step”. This may be an embedded admission that his injuries were not caused by the step? Sometimes a subject will embed within their words a confession of the truth. 

3.     I believe the subject when he says, “I knew I was in trouble”. This may be leakage. The brain knows what it knows, and words leak out sometimes revealing the truth. For what he knew he was in trouble for is not so clear.

 



“I became airborne almost. So I'm hor, horizontal with the stepAnd then all I could hear was just this Almighty crunch.”

 

1.     The addition of “almost” negates the assertion that he became “airborne”

2.     Again, the subject goes into present tense “I’m horizontal with the step”. This is unreliable language that is common in deceptive statements.

3.     The words “And then” are an indication that there is missing information here.

4.     The word “just” is comparative meaning the subject likely has something else in his mind as he is thinking of this part of his story.

5.     It is worth noting that both times the subject says “crunch” he punches his fist into his hand. I am no body language expert but considering the accusation that he was beaten up it is interesting.

 

It is worth considering what you would say if you had fallen down some steps and broke your ribs. What would your account sound like? Would you take three months before you were able to speak?

It is likely you would say something like “I went to go down the steps to the car and my foot slid off the step and I fell down breaking my ribs” From Andrews we have this vague story with unreliable language. 

 

 

“ And that's when I knew. I knew that when I heard the crunch, I thought that’s This is serious. We're in trouble here.”

 

1.     The element of time has been prominent throughout the subject’s statement. This raises the question of whether the timing of this account is important or different to how the subject is telling it.

2.     “crunch” is repeated making it important. 

3.     Who is “we”? The subject does not want to be alone with this account. Those who are deceptive often have a need to linguistically hide within a crowd.

 

“Cat must have heard me groaning in pain. I couldn't yell out she comes and finds me. A few moments later. It felt like an eternity because I sort of couldn't breathe I could only the most shallow breaths in and out.”

 

1.     Does the subject not know if his wife heard him groaning? Has she not said? We cannot say that Cat heard Andrews groaning. He does not say she did, and neither does she.

2.     Anything in the negative is doubly important to the subject. Why does he have a need to tell us that he couldn’t yell out? If he had yelled out would neighbours have heard and been able to corroborate his story?

3.     This is the third instant of unreliable present tense language.  We cannot say Cat came and found Andrews. If they cannot say it, we cannot say it for them.

Cat
“It was awful cause you were going blue and we were looking at each other and I was thinking, you're gonna die, here in Sorento at this holiday house and you were looking at me and you felt the same.” 

 

Andrews

“Ahh Cat called the ambulance ahh and she called my close personal protection detail er the Victoria police detail the Two guys that are with me 24/7, they were parked just a few houses down the Street waiting for me to drive out.  Ahh I can remember the Ambos getting there and they gave me one of those green whistles, but because I had broken ribs, they knew I had broken ribs.”

 

1.     Notice how now there is no present tense language. The normal reliability of normal past tense verbs returns.

2.     Why the need to tell us that the two close personal protection officers were waiting for him to drive out? This is unnecessary language. Is there another reason?


“They said, don't breathe on that too hard or it'll make you cough. But it wasn't until I got the line into my arm and into my hand and gave me ahh some pretty significant pain relief that things kind of settled. 

Look, the ambos did a fantastic job and I'm proud of them and I'm grateful to them. Ahh But I've never experienced anything like this. I've never really been injured. I've never been admitted to hospital in all my life. I've never broken a bone. 

Everyone who's taken care of us from Coppers, the the guys that are with me 24/7 who are are great. They're part of our family, basically. They do an amazing job. Physios to ambos ahh all of our doctors.”

 

Cat

“Nurses in ICU”

 

Andrews

“Nurses in ICU just well amazing.

There's something very special about those people. They are the best of us. As painful, as difficult, as traumatic as it was, we were very lucky, very, very lucky. And we've seen some really vile stories being put around about what happened. Politics isn't always like that.”

 

1.     After the subject tells us that they have seen “some really vile stories being put around about what happened” he tells us that “politics isn’t always like that”. This is an indication that for the subject, in his verbal perception of reality, sometimes politics, is like the vile stories.

2.     The subject does not address the “vile stories”. It is noted that he does not deny anything. 

 

 

“ And I got one of the most touching and most important messages that came to me in a text message from Ted Baillieu, on the day of this accident, the evening of that Tuesday, where he shared his experience having injured his back 40 years ago, having not taken the time to recover properly. And still today, living with that injury. And he made it really clear to me and to us that we needed to take our time and heal properly.” 

 

1.     Considering the unanswered allegation of sexual assault “most touching”, is an interesting phrase and may be another instance of leakage from the subject.

2.     What does the subject’s wife need to heal from? She did not fall down any steps. Has he caused her pain? Does she need time to forgive him for something?

3.     This is a reoccurring theme from the subject “my story, our story” and now “to me and to us” This may speak to the subject’s personality. Does he see himself first and then add his wife as an afterthought?

4.     The subject has not spoken to the press or been filmed or photographed for three months. Is he using this message from Ted Baillieu as an excuse for this? He could have still taken the time off to heal and spoken earlier.

“To, to everybody, To every one of you who sent a Facebook message, a card and note, an email, a text message uh wishing us well. I'm deeply grateful. We're deeply grateful. I think there's tens of thousands of them, literally tens of thousands. And the kindness of strangers. 

It's a it’s a beautiful thing. It's the best medicine in some ways. Well, being the premiere of this state is the greatest honour of my life, and it's an important role. When you have a traumatic moment in your life, you kind of reassess things. You work out, and you remind yourself of the things that are really, really important. 

Family is important. But so, too, is delivering for every family, working hard for every single Victorian family that's the Oath I swore. That's the job I've got.”

 

1.     He does not say he is going to work hard for every Victorian family.  It may seem trivial to an average reader but there is no psychological commitment from Andrews to do this.  This is political language.

2.     He tells us of “the oath I swore” and “the job I’ve got” without linguistic commitment again to actually working hard for the Victorian families.

 

“ I'm I’m coming back this week. I'm fit, I'm strong, I'm healthy. I'm on the ballot next year. I'm running, and I'm running to win. There's unfinished business, and I'm determined to get it done.”

 

1.     Now he has the strong linguistic presence of the pronoun “I”.  He is psychologically present and linguistically committed, but to what? 

 

a.     Coming back this week.

b.     Being fit, strong and heathy.

c.      Determination to get “unfinished business” done.

 

Conclusion

 

1.     This is an unreliable account.

2.     The language used is consistent with a subject who demonstrates no linguistic commitment to his words regarding what happened to him for him to become injured.

3.     It is not reliable that the incident happened at the subject’s holiday home or that it happened the way the subject has said. 

4.     From the language used and the focus on the element of time it is possible that it happened elsewhere and then the subject moved to the holiday home.

5.     The subject language is indicative of a person who is comfortable being deceptive and is well practiced. He has likely learnt this from an early age and was not corrected properly.

6.     The subject is well practiced in political speech. His deceptive language flows easily as is common with many politicians. He does not tell what we call a “true lie” in this statement. 

7.     The subject does not linguistically commit to working hard for Victorian families.

8.     The subject does linguistically commit to getting “unfinished business” done. 

 

What is this unfinished business that Dan Andrews now speaks of? With him back to work Melbournians are likely to find out soon enough.