Above: Charles Campbell Gibbons is suspected of pretending to be an ex-military policeman.
By Melissa Meehan
THE Dandenong RSL community is up in arms, following allegations of a suspected impostor in their midst.
Dandenong RSL member and resident Charles Campbell Gibbons has been accused of posing as a Vietnam War veteran for more than 30 years, despite never having served in the armed forces.
It was the Dandenong RSL’s aged-care community and volunteer co-ordinator, John Filmer, who exposed Mr Gibbons.
But while Mr Gibbons was quoted in the metropolitan media as admitting his guilt, this week he refused to speak to the Star.
Mr Filmer said outing Mr Gibbons was not a personal vendetta.
“He (Gibbons) joined this RSL after Anzac Day and volunteered his services as a hospital visitation officer,” Mr Filmer said. “He was a very smooth operator – my only doubts were that he knew too many people.”
Mr Filmer said he first seriously doubted Mr Gibbons’ claims of military service following a conversation about the Vietnam War. “I asked him where he served in Vietnam,” he said.
“And he recited three of the most known places throughout the world. But the way he said it, that’s what made me suspicious.”
Having friends who had served in Vietnam, Mr Filmer said no-one had ever spoken about the war in the way Mr Gibbons did.
“That’s when I asked my friends at the Noble Park RSL to check him out for me,” he said. “When I got the results he was immediately stripped of his membership and banned from ever setting his foot in the RSL again.”
Mr Filmer said he was personally devastated that people like Mr Gibbons tried to “gain a false reputation from the ongoing trauma that some of our boys still suffer from.”
“So shame on you, Mr Gibbons,” he said.
The Star attempted to contact Mr Gibbons. A man who answered the phone said he was not Mr Gibbons, and no comment would be made by him.
He also said he would see Mr Filmer in court.
