On April 18, 2019, Julia Zhu commenced proceedings against a GP and a dermatologist over a condition called extramammary Paget’s disease, a chronic eczema-like rash of the skin around the genital regions. Zhu also complained about the treatment of her bunions.
In October 2023, Justice Richard Weinstein ruled that a tutor be appointed, as Zhu was not capable of managing her affairs. Her son Norman Zhou was initially appointed but, due to living in Shanghai, he stepped down.
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In August 2025, Bar-Mordecai – who had accompanied Zhu to some of her medical appointments – applied to be appointed Zhu’s tutor on the grounds that, as a former practitioner, he had “relevant expertise and insight into the subject matter of the proceedings”.
Bar-Mordecai also said that a 2004 Court of Appeal judgment was “ultimately resolved in my favour … recognising my de facto marriage and overturning prior rulings”.
Justice Peter Garling said this claim was “entirely misleading” and dishonest.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said the judge, who said Bar-Mordecai’s litigation in that previous case was hopeless and unsuccessful.
Garling went on to quote some of the previous findings against Bar-Mordecai. Justice John Bryson had said: “Some things he has asserted seem like fantasies from the travels of Baron Munchausen.” Bryson also said he did not believe that Bar-Mordecai “is in truth a person whom fate and malignity have exposed to an astonishing number of improbable circumstances, lies and hostilities”.
John Neville as the titular character in the 1980s comedy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.Credit: Columbia Pictures
In the current court proceedings, Zhu’s son was acting as his mother’s tutor when documents were sent to the defendants making wild accusations, including that medical records had been falsified and that a medical expert had “knowingly relied on false instructions to produce a fabricated peer review report”.
The defendant’s solicitor was accused of being “part of a broader conspiracy to conceal negligence, mislead the judiciary and defend the plaintiff’s claim through deceit and misuse of court process”.
Norman Zhou told the defendants that he had not written or sent these documents. Instead, they were sent from an email address of a person using the title of “Associate to Mr Zhou”.
Garling said “extravagantly phrased claims of fraud, conspiracy, deception and criminality” alleged against the doctors, their lawyers and a medical expert were very similar to the language used previously by Bar-Mordecai in his failed court actions.
The judge concluded that the struck-off GP “was dishonest in his application to be appointed as tutor”.
“The very fact that Mr Bar-Mordecai is the subject of a vexatious proceedings order, which has been maintained for 20 years, during which period it has been broadened and varied, is itself and without more, a very good reason why he would not be appointed as tutor to conduct any proceedings,” Garling said.
The plaintiff was ordered to pay costs, and the matter has been re-listed for a status hearing on December 10.
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