.................He also used union funds to crush any opposition.Among those who attended court was Paul Ford, a casual teacher, who travelled from Coffs Harbour to see Williamson being sentenced.

In 1999, Mr Ford, Mark and Janice Hardacre, and others ran on a ticket challenging Williamson for control of the union.

After taking action in the Industrial Relations Commission for permission to inspect Williamson's expenditure, they were horrified by what they saw.

Williamson had an HSU-issued American Express card which he used for Chanel perfume, jewellery, restaurant bills, a $1045 David Jones bill, $105 on Clinique skin care products, valet parking, a gas bill, a $308 bike, shoes, designer handbags, $89 on a barbecue, a mattress and $579 on wine.

Mr Ford and his team used this arsenal of blatant rorting in their campaign against Williamson.He responded by filing a $750,000 defamation suit against them for suggesting he was corrupt.While Williamson used union funds to sue his critics, Mr Ford and his team had to use their own money to fight the defamation action.

After four years of "hell", and faced with losing their houses, they settled, each paying between $25,000 and $50,000.

Under the terms of settlement they were never to say anything about Williamson and his credit-card rorts.

Outside court Mr Ford said, "Those who supported and enabled him should also be held accountable. We want our $25,000 returned, especially to the family of the late Bill O'Connor."

Mr Ford said that Mr O'Connor, the union's former state assistant secretary, was a 76-year-old pensioner at the time he had to pay $25,000 for trying to point out Mr Williamson was corrupt.

Mr Ford is also angry with the NSW Labor Party "who knew about this but still promoted Williamson to national president of the party".
After crushing his opposition with the defamation action, Williamson realised he had to hide his crimes better............