Remembering Desmond Filby: Sovereign Citizen and accused child flasher

Desmond Filby, the man commonly called by the media "Dezi Freeman", was shot by police, but should instead be remembered for his alleged child sexual abuse, argues Tom Tanuki.

I naively assumed that after seeing Desmond Filby shot dead by police officers in Thologolong, some seven months after he first escaped arrest, we might see the press stop referring to him by his Sovereign Citizen (SovCit) movement cosplay name "Dezi Freeman".

I suppose the gripping theatre of it all is just too thrilling to abandon just for a bit of restraint.

But I’ll never understand why we’ve all helped scrub the man of the stain of accusations around historical child sexual offences.

I know SovCit ideology is very thrilling. I admit to having been thrilled myself. In 2022, I created a two-hour, two-part YouTube documentary on all aspects of sovereign citizen (or pseudolaw) ideology locally. (I’m surprised to see my work may remain the most effective starter resource in Australia for anyone trying to really understand how it all works.)

In that work, I covered all sorts of novel individuals with all sorts of wacky alt-identities. I enjoyed the process, and it’s evident in the video that I did; it’s a fun deep-dive into the weird excesses and bizarre mavericks one used to find around the Australian sov cit fringe.

One thing that has really dated is my tone in the documentary. Back then, we were still enjoying the "ominous warning" phase of the local sovereign citizenry’s potential for violence. Toward the end of Part One, for example, I covered an armed police raid on the farm of a couple who were reported to have guns on the property. Nobody got hurt. I warned about the potential for more of that.

It seems quaint in 2026. We were still some way away from the Trains’ shootout. Or the appearance of SovCit child kidnapping rings. Or the murders by, and later of, Desmond Filby.

Nowadays, as the violence and impact of the political and conspiracist fringe has risen, so has the preponderance of "specialists" and academics ready to provide comment for mainstream media pieces. They often furnish the scene for further laws and police or surveillance resources allocated to studying this fringe.

Salacious video documentation of the latest strange act of a SovCit is frequently blended nowadays with comment from media ring-in and friend of the column Josh Roose, for example. Roose, in this context, keeps himself busy repeating things he learned from my SovCit documentary or repeating things ASIO Mike Burgess and the cops usually say about extremists. None of it adds any value. But it keeps your average Rooses in the public eye, which is good for their jobs and it gives the media an excuse to entertain their audiences with interesting SovCit videos.So, Desmond Filby’s documented history of increasingly conflict-oriented SovCit conduct, culminating in an attempted "trial" of Daniel Andrews in the months before he shot and killed two police officers in Porepunkah, was always going to make for gripping media after the shooting. It supplied a steady drip-feed of months’ worth of mainstream media articles, "exposés" into the ideology of sovereign citizenry and countless "expert" ring-in comments.

But we never learned to call him by his actual name. It seems strange in the context of his sov cit alter-ego turning toward killing people.

A cursory check of the ABC archives reveals there’s 159 ABC articles with "Dezi Freeman" in the material, and just three with his real name.

In a rare bit of excellent restraint and reflection from the ABC, 'What’s in a name? The media has a duty to avoid making a martyr out of Desmond Filby', academic Jessica Wilson (choosing to label him "DF") considers:

I want to stress that the media coverage of the shooting and subsequent manhunt has contributed to the construction a kind of subversive mythology surrounding "DF". Despite being charged with historical sexual offences and allegedly killing two police officers, DF was not made a pariah by the Australian public. Quite the opposite, in fact. DF wasn’t some wacko religious nut – like the Trains at Wieambilla – but an outlaw, a bushman, a rebel. Australia’s cultural sympathy toward the underdog, aversion to government institutions and glorification of the masculine “skilled bushman” archetype helped transform DF from a lone mass killer into a folk hero. His long time on the run seemingly did nothing but elevate this anti-hero status.

Filby has blossomed into our SovCit Ned Kelly. Mostly because we appear to really want one of those.

Any news about Filby is an invitation to consider what opposite scenario might actually have played out. Did he kill cops? Well then, he didn’t kill cops and they’re just saying it to target him. Are they telling us he’s dead? Well then, he’s not really dead. Did he die by cop? Well then, he died another way. While also not having died.

Such is the conspiracist "anti-hero status" Filby enjoys, like Wilson observed.

Filby shot police after they arrived at his home with a search warrant, as part of an investigation into historical child sexual abuse accusations — namely that he, an adult man, had taken his clothes off in the presence of a little girl who was "traumatised" by the experience.

So in short, Filby shot and murdered the police who were trying to investigate whether or not he was a child flasher. Even I, generally abolitioninist in my opinions about police forces, think that’s an excellent example of cops making themselves useful.

I have found general consideration of this fact taking a confounding backseat in the Filby narrative ever since it came out. Either that, or it has been subject to the conspiracist myth-making denialism discussed above:

“Skinny dipping is sexual assault now, is it?” (Sourced from Facebook.)

I have seen Filby described online as a "Martyr of Resistance Against State Tyranny". (Again, sourced from Facebook — where else?)

I continue to dwell on whether the proliferation of deep-dives, exposés and think pieces ominously warning around the "rise of Sovereign Citizen ideology" has helped to fuel this anti-hero culture. Naturally, the SovCit networks that aided and abetted Filby must be scrutinised. But I wonder at how, while the ABC taps Roose for another borrowed warning, the Facebook comments section seems to bloom with more and more layperson defences for the deceased, accused child flasher.

Should we consider whether this culture of mainstream media scrutiny and layperson fascination helps make predators look like martyrs?

It reminds me of former NSN members, such as the recently-bailed Joel Davis. Davis hitched a free ride to near-constant tabloid press coverage, simply by virtue of his vocal membership of the White Supremacist group he was a part of. But in a more sane world, what he’d forever be known for would be his documented staunch advocacy for child marriage. In a more sane world, the press would remember his paedophilia decriminalisation advocacy before deciding to pass him the mic again.

Alas, we live in clown world. And apparently, in clown world, the best way to have everyone forget you might be a child abuser is by also telling them that you’re a SovCit or a Nazi.

But I will never forget Desmond Filby’s child sexual abuse accusations. I don’t think he shot them out of existence. In my unpopular worldview, they are what I think he should be remembered for.

Tom Tanuki is an IA columnist, writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist whose weekly videos commenting on the Australian political fringe appear on YouTube. You can follow him on Twitter/X @tom_tanuki.