SERIAL letter writer Scott Neylon's horror run of getting caught out for being misleading continues, as an ongoing Newcastle Herald investigation uncovers more letters to the editor appearing under his name throughout NSW.
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The letters, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Illawarra Mercury, continue the trend of supporting causes associated with, and attacking critics of, Mr Neylon's close friend City of Newcastle CEO Jeremy Bath.
The letters also continue the trend of twisting the truth and distorting reality to strengthen Mr Neylon's arguments, by again claiming he has the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.
According to the latest letters discovered, Mr Neylon claims he was living in Bomaderry and Nowra on the NSW south coast in 2010 and 2011, and that he previously lived in Narrabri in north western NSW and was a member of the Narrabri Golf Club for six years.
When asked this week how this was possible and if he wrote the lastest three letters uncovered, Mr Neylon responded by email saying "while the majority of my years since 1998 have been in Japan, I have spent many years at a time, living back in Australia in several locations".
"I don't keep a tally of letters I have had published, but I certainly include the SMH and Illawarra Mercury among them," he said.
A work history of Mr Neylon's obtained by the Herald, details that he has been teaching in Japan since 1998, including at the prestigious Zushi Kaisei Junior and Senior High School since 2006.
A website used to promote Mr Neylon's Japanese-based English teaching studio states that "he has lived in Japan for a long time and loves Japan".
"Scott lives permanently in his home in Fujisawa with his Japanese wife," it reads.
The latest letters were published in 2010 and 2011 when the Gillard government was at war with the powerful clubs movement over proposed poker machine reforms.
The letters again raise more questions than they answer about Mr Neylon and the motivation behind his misleading letter-writing campaign.
At the time they were written, Mr Bath was working as media relations manager for ClubsNSW and Clubs Australia, steering an aggressive campaign that eventually crushed Ms Gillard and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie's attempts to reform the industry.
Mr Neylon said via email on Friday that since the Herald revealed the letter-to-the-editor writing controversy, he was re-focusing his "attention to other areas of life".
"There are many national and local issues I feel passionately about," he said.
"I have always enjoyed contributing to debates, sticking up for my friends, and having my opinions published due to my apparent insight and deft writing skills."
The only letter by Mr Neylon to appear in the Sydney Morning Herald was published in December 2010.
"As a former Narrabri resident and member of the Narrabri Golf Club, I laughed out loud at Andrew Wilkie's description of clubs being 'powerful and wealthy organisations'," it reads, stating Mr Neylon lives in Bomaderry.
"The golf club has maybe a dozen poker machines, which make barely enough to pay for the water bill to keep the 18 holes playable."
When the Herald contacted the Narrabri Golf Club and Narrabri RSL this week, now run under the umbrella of Club Narrabri, they were unaware of Mr Neylon.
If the most recent letters to surface are accurate, they would indicate a return by Mr Neylon to his old stomping ground on the NSW south coast.
Old friends confirmed Mr Neylon grew up in the region before moving to Queensland with his family after leaving high school, where he studied at Griffiths University and then moved to Japan.
Mr Neylon attended Bomaderry High School and his mother was from Nowra.
But one old friend said Mr Neylon had not lived on the south coast for decades, and he did not believe the long-term expat was living in the area in 2010 or 2011.
"I don't understand why he would say he was living here then, it doesn't make any sense to me," he said. "He's been in Japan for ages. I do know he comes back for visits."
Mr Neylon said on Friday that he lived in Bomaderry for eight years, but did not indicate when. He added that he used to be listed on the electoral roll there. He is now listed on the electoral roll at Mr Bath's Lake Macquarie address.
Echoing the 18 contributions submitted by Mr Neylon to the Newcastle Herald in more recent times, five of which were published, the latest letters not only champion the cause of the organisation Mr Bath works for, but seize the opportunity to publicly attack critics.
The first pro-clubs letter discovered under the name Scott Neylon, of Bomaderry, was published in the Illawarra Mercury in February 2010.
It extols the virtues of clubs and turns the blowtorch on the "anti-gambling lobby".
"As someone who has spent the majority of the past 10 years of his life living overseas, I appreciate just how fortunate we are to have so many clubs in the Illawarra," it reads.
"I have come across nothing even remotely similar anywhere in the world to what registered clubs provide.
"Friends overseas can barely believe me when I tell them that, for just a few dollars annual membership, I can relax at a club, often with beach views, enjoy a great meal and a drink and play a round of golf, surrounded by salt-of-the-earth people."
The letter then goes on to criticise the "anti-gambling lobby" for being on "their high horse, telling me how I can and can't spend my money".
"Now they are telling parents to keep their children away from clubs because seeing a poker machine in the corner of the building will fry their brains and create an adult problem gambler," it continues.
"Enough is enough! Why do we tolerate this minority group?"
Ten months later the Sydney Morning Herald letter, which references Mr Neylon being a member of Narrabri Golf Club, was published.
"In the six years I was a member of the club its biggest profit was less than $3000," the December 2010 letter reads.
"Perhaps Mr Wilkie is confusing clubs with the online gambling operators who somehow slipped his attention when he struck a deal with Julia Gillard."
The third letter appeared in the Illawarra Mercury three months later and Mr Neylon was listed as living in Nowra.
"Reverend Sandy Grant of St Michael's Cathedral, Wollongong, blames gambling for 'helpless spouses and children whose food is stolen from their table and who are put at risk of repossession and eviction'," the February 2011 letter reads.
"He wants wholesale bans and limitations. Here's a simple question for the good pastor: if the bans on personal freedoms that you so righteously advocate (which will do nothing to assist problem gamblers) come into being, what happens to the thousands who lose their jobs as a consequence?"
The letter then goes on to raise concerns about the job security of people working for ClubsNSW.
"Let's start with the 11,500 in NSW clubs alone - and you can multiply that across other industries around the nation," it continues.
"Can we expect the church to ensure these many thousands, their spouses and children, have food on the table and a roof over their heads?"
Last month, Mr Neylon told the Herald via email that he loved a "punchy letter" and was "chuffed" when they were published, he said Mr Bath, who he has known since before university, never asked him to write letters.
He has declined to answer questions about the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the letters.
Mr Bath, who has denied any involvement in the letter-writing campaign, said on Friday he had been "completely upfront about my decades long friendship with Scott Neylon".
"Scott's been writing letters to various newspapers as far as I'm aware for more than a decade," he said.
"I don't go out of my way to keep track of them all."
The Herald has previously reported that Mr Neylon's letters and comments have followed Mr Bath's career progression for more than a decade from ClubsNSW, to Hunter Water to City of Newcastle.
Mr Neylon regularly misspells his surname as Neylan, which he said on Friday was due to 'fat fingers' typing on a mobile phone.
In the letters, the 47-year-old has claimed to be everything from a father of a teenager to a grandfather, to having lived in five different suburbs throughout the Hunter in the past nine years.
At the request of NSW Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig, Newcastle councillors unanimously voted last month to support an independent investigation into links between the Mr Bath and the Scott Neylon letters.
Do you know more? Donna.page@newcastleherald.com.au
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