Giordmaina v The State of South Australia - [2004] SADC 131

DISTRICT COURT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
(Criminal Injuries Compensation Division)
GIORDMAINA v THE STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Judgment of His Honour Judge Lee
30 September 2004
CRIMINAL LAW - JURISDICTION, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE - JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT - ORDERS FOR COMPENSATION, REPARATION, RESTITUTION, FORFEITURE AND OTHER MATTERS RELATING TO DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY - COMPENSATION
Claim for criminal injuries compensation - plaintiff alleged that she had suffered psychiatric and psychological injury as result of break-ins at her home by persons unknown – common ground that she suffers from paranoid delusional disorder, but that the disorder can arise from precipitating event – held that plaintiff had failed to establish commission of any offence beyond reasonable doubt – held in any event that plaintiff had failed to establish a causal connection between an offence and her injury on the balance of probabilities – claim dismissed.
Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1978, s.8(1a) &(1b), referred to.

GIORDMAINA v THE STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
[2004] SADC 131

This is a claim under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act, 1978.
The plaintiff alleges in her statement of claim that she has suffered psychiatric and psychological injury as a result of break-ins by persons unknown at her then home at Trott Park between 1997 and 2001. Although twelve separate break-ins were pleaded, in the end only two were relied upon at the trial. The first was pleaded by reference to the relevant police report. The second was pleaded by amendment at the commencement of the trial in the following terms:
“Further, on one occasion in or about 1997 my home was broken into and my partner’s dog was physically injured and shut in the toilet. This incident was not reported to police.”
The relevant subsections of s.8 of the Act provide:
“(1a) No order for compensation may be made (except by consent) on an application under this Act unless-
(a)the commission of the offence to which the application relates has been proved beyond reasonable doubt; and
(b)a causal connection between the commission of the offence and the injury or death to which the application relates has been proved on the balance of probabilities.
(1b) Where an order for compensation is sought in respect of an offence, and no person has been brought to trial charged with the offence, the evidence of the claimant as to the commission of the offence, unless supported in a material particular by corroborative evidence, is not sufficient to establish the commission of the offence.”
The plaintiff’s evidence at the trial was that the two break-ins occurred within a period of about two or three weeks in 1996 or 1997. She was living with her then partner, Phillip Smith, but they were both absent from the house at the time.
With respect to the first break-in, the plaintiff and Mr Smith arrived home to find his dog shut in a toilet. Items in the toilet had been disturbed. There was a two and a half inch cut in the dog’s head. They took him to the vet who inserted six stiches. She reported the incident to the police. I will call this “the dog incident”.
With respect to the second break-in, the plaintiff told me that she and Mr Smith arrived home to see the blue outside light of the alarm on. She had installed the alarm following the dog incident. When she and Mr Smith went inside the house, she noticed that the manhole cover in the laundry had been tampered with. She climbed through the manhole, and saw that three tiles had lifted. She also saw a blanket and two plastic cups. Later she noticed that her bedroom suite had been scratched. She reported the incident to the police. I will call this “the manhole incident”.
Mr Smith was called to provide corroboration of the two incidents. His recollection was that the gap between the incidents was months rather than weeks.
With respect to the dog incident, he said that his German Shepherd was left in the house on its own, and was in the toilet with a gash on its head when he and the plaintiff arrived home. The door to the toilet was closed but not locked. The outside doors had been locked before they left the house. He looked for but did not find any sign of forced entry. He did not notice anything damaged or out of place. He does not think that anything was stolen.
With respect to the manhole incident, he said that he and the plaintiff arrived home to find that the alarm had gone off. When they went inside, he noticed that the underside edge of the manhole cover was marked, and that the beading was opened up on one side. They then went out the back, and he noticed that an outdoor Permapine setting was leaning against the back fence. He thinks that the incident and the loss of a ring were reported to police.
With respect to the plaintiff’s injury and its relationship with either or both of the incidents, the plaintiff called Dr John Brayley and the defendant called Dr Robert Goldney. Both are experienced psychiatrists. Both agree that the plaintiff suffers from a paranoid delusional disorder requiring continuing treatment and medication. Both formulated their views upon the footing that, over the years, the plaintiff has reported many incidents which have no basis in fact. With different degrees of emphasis, both said that, although the major symptom of the injury is a fixed delusional belief, the injury can have a nidus in reality which develops thereafter in a delusional form.
Dr Brayley became the plaintiff’s treating consultant in November 1998, following her admission to Glenside Hospital between 26 September 1998 and 14 October 1998. The doctor said that the plaintiff had reported incidents which he took to be delusional by reason of their number, their inherent improbability, and the lack of any independent verification. The doctor said that a recent example was the plaintiff’s belief that she was being followed by cars.
The net effect of Dr Brayley’s opinion is that, had either or both of the alleged incidents occurred in fact, and had there been no prior manifestation of the illness, then the incident or incidents would probably have precipitated the illness and the plaintiff’s admission to Glenside Hospital in September 1998. Dr Brayley said that a lapse of one year between a precipitating event and the admission to hospital would be consistent with a developing condition over that period. The key to Dr Brayley’s opinion is the expression “precipitating event”. If the illness had become manifest before the date of the alleged incidents, then neither could be treated as a precipitating event.
Dr Goldney saw the plaintiff in February 1999. Although he saw the plaintiff once only, he had access to the clinical notes of the Finders Medical Centre extending back to the early 1980’s. The notes show that the plaintiff attended a human relations clinic run by a psychologist between May and July 1983. She attended the Accident and Emergency Department in May 1985, having previously seen a psychologist and a marriage counsellor, and there is a reference in the notes at that time to emotional distress, domestic discord and psychosomatic leg pain. She underwent HIV tests in May 1988, April 1990 and March 1991. She attended the Accident and Emergency Department again in May 1993, and it is recorded that she was hysterical and thoroughly uncooperative. She was referred to a counsellor for matrimonial problems in May 1999.
Dr Goldney took his own history from the plaintiff. She told Dr Goldney that she was estranged from the three children of her first marriage, and that they had been badly influenced by their father. She told Dr Goldney about goods being stolen from her shed and house, about things missing from the clothes line, about been stalked, about hearing noises from her ceiling and calling a pest exterminator, about four people coming through a skylight leading to advice that she should install a grille, about scissors and books going missing, about things missing every time she goes out, and about cushions being rearranged.
Against that background, Dr Goldney’s view of the likely course of the plaintiff’s illness is that it gradually evolved from the early 1980’s without the intervention of any precipitating cause. With respect to the incidents alleged, the doctor said that, even if they occurred in fact, neither was a contributing cause.
I turn finally to my own conclusions. As to whether the incidents occurred as and when alleged, perhaps some aspects of the incidents are true. Perhaps the dog was shut in the toilet on one occasion, and perhaps the plaintiff and Mr Smith did arrive home on another occasion to find that the alarm had gone off. Perhaps the plaintiff did genuinely believe that someone had unlawfully entered her house. Dr Goldney said:
“And all of these events have simply been her misinterpretation of, you know, it might have been a creak that occurs in the ceiling or – I don’t know. All the sort of things that happen in our everyday lives that we tend to pass off but she is unable to pass things off. She attributes sinister meaning to just about everything that occurs to her.”
In the end, and with respect to each of the incidents alleged, the plaintiff has failed to satisfy me beyond reasonable doubt of the commission of a criminal offence.
If, contrary to my finding, an offence was committed as and when alleged, I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that it contributed in any way to the plaintiff’s injury. Neither offence arose from a precipitating event. By 1997, the plaintiff had already been exhibiting manifestations of the injury. Quite apart from the evidence of Dr Goldney on that topic, Mr Smith mentioned a number of relevant matters. In about January 1996, the plaintiff reported to the police that her toolshed had been broken into. He said he had no knowledge of what was in the shed at the time. The padlock was unlocked but not broken. Prior to the dog incident, he brought his German Shepherd dog to the plaintiff’s house “because she was concerned about people coming in”. Between the dog incident and the manhole incident, he had placed two slide bolts on the cover and drilled holes into the frame “because she was worried about people coming down through the manhole”. After the toolshed incident, the plaintiff told him she had seen her husband following her around. The police had visited the house more than once prior to the dog incident.
Although my conclusions do not depend upon the credibility or reliability of witnesses, I will comment briefly on that topic. There was, in my view, an element of reconstruction in the evidence of both the plaintiff and Mr Smith. Perhaps this is not surprising in view of their relationship and the passage of time since relevant events. I do not say, however, that either set out deliberately to mislead the court. As for the evidence of the psychiatrists, I consider that the differences between them were differences more of degree than of substance. In any event, in the end neither supported the plaintiff’s case on causation.
The plaintiff’s claim must be dismissed, and there will be an order accordingly.