Houston v Attorney-General of Western Australia

[1990] HCATrans 195

_161,r -!)h~USTRALIA,1J.!,- -_,.,,~)>~-«((('-"'

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry

Perth No P6 of 1990

B e t w e e n -

RONALD STEVEN HOUSTON

Applicant

and

ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Respondent

Application for special

leave to appeal

BRENNAN J
TOOHEY J

McHUGH J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

Houston 1 23/8/90

AT ADELAIDE ON THURSDAY, 23 AUGUST 1990, AT 10.04 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR J. MYERS:	May it please the Court, I appear on behalf of the applicant. (instructed by Shaddick Owens &
Richards)

MR K.H. PARKER, QC, Solicitor-General for Western Australia:

May it please the Court, I appear with my learned

friend, MR A.N. HOPE, for the respondent.

(instructed by the Crown Solicitor for Western

Australia)

BRENNAN J:  Mr Myers.

MR MYERS:  Thank you, sir. I have here an updated list of

authorities and submissions which I put before the

Court.

This application for special leave arises out of a decision of the Full Court of Western

Australia in which that court quashed the order of

the trial judge staying the trial to the applicant

on 95 counts of forging and uttering.

The background to the matter, Your Honurs, is

set out in my instructing solicitor's affidavit in

support of the application for special leave. That

affidavit is to be found at page 101 of the

application book. Your Honours will see that

initially the applicant:

was charged upon complaints -

under the Justices Act -

on or about the 26th May, 1988 with fifty (50)

counts each of forging and uttering -

contrary to the Criminal Code. A committal hearing

was elected and that was held on 30 August 1988.

Six of the complaints were dismissed upon the

committal:

Prior to the committal hearing -

and I understand there is no issue about this -

the solicitors for Ronald Steven Houston had

given notice in writing to the prosecution

that the defence required -

the grandmother -

Mrs Flora Houston be produced at the hearing

for cross examination.

The importance of Flora Houston is that she was the

person whose signature it is alleged that the

applicant forged.

Houston	23/8/90
BRENNAN.J:	Was there proof of evidence provided to the applicant?

MR MYERS: There was a statement provided to the applicant

but the context of the statement, Your Honours, is

to be found in the decision of Judge Healy of the

district court when he considered the application

for a stay of trial. It was a short statement and,

perhaps, I can take Your Honours to that now: it is

to be found on pages 54 and 55 of the application

book near line 30, Your Honours. It says:

At pages 69-70 of the papers which are

before me there is a statement from

Mrs Houston which has been made available to

the accused. That statement simply says that

she is a pensioner, she lives at Balingup, her

two grandsons, the two accused on the

indictment, have lived with her at various

times during 1987, that a banking was done

with Town and Country Building Society, that -

and he quotes -

"I did not authorize the opening of that

account by Ronald Steven Houston and I did not

know he and Christopher were spending my money

during 1987.

I did on occasions complete withdrawal slips

which I signed in my own name, and ask Ronald

Steven Houston or Christopher Raymon (sic)

Houston to conduct those transactions for me.

I have been told about certain machinery, equipment and a motor vehicle bought by Ronald

Steven Houston for me, but I do not have any

of those items at my house and I do not know

where they are."

His Honour then goes on to consider counsel's

submissions with respect to· that statement in

support of the application for the stay of the

trial and those are some of the grounds upon which

the applicant will refer to today. The applicant

considered that that statement, in view of the

number of the charges and, in particular, in view

of the record of interview, or the records of

interview which had been given to the police

setting out the defence, that statement by

Flora Houston was totally unsatisfactory to allow

the applicant to prepare his defence and he really

wanted her at the committal hearing for cross-

examination.

TOOHEY J: Mr Myers, the allegations, I take it, did not

turn on absence of authority; they were allegations

Houston 23/8/90

of forgery, were they? The charges that your

client faced were charges of forging and uttering,

were they not?

MR MYERS:  Yes, and the issue raised in his record of

interview was that he had the authority, a written

authority and a general verbal authority from his

grandmother to sign her name. The record of

interview is produced in the book, Your Honours,

commencing at page 4 and there are a number of

important matters in that that I would refer you

to. Page 5, in particular, question 16 onwards, in answer to questions the applicant tells how it came

about that he signed the grandmother's signature.

She was a 76-year-old lady and the applicant had

commenced living with her to look after her and, as

he answers in question 16 - the question was:

How did it come about that you start making

withdrawals.

A. It started when I came home one night and

she had fallen over arse over

head on the way to the bathroom I presume, she

had no clothes on so I bathed her and put her

to bed and the ambulance came out and took her

to hospital. She wanted to come home and they

were going to put her into a home but she

didn't want that so for her to come home, I

had to do things to the house like put up

railings in the bathroom.

Q.17 So she was in the hospital when you made

the first withdrawal?

A. Yeah.

Q.18 Is that when you opened the joint

account?

A.	Yeah, when she was in hospital.
Q.19	How did you get her authority to do
that?
A.	I just asked her at the hospital.

Q.20 After you got permission did you have to

fill in some forms?

A. Yeah, I think so, . in Bunbury. I got the

forms from Bunbury took them out to her showed

them to her and then opened the account.

Q.21 If she had given you permission to act

for her, why didn't you just open an account

as trustee for her or something so you didn't
need 2 signatures?

A. That's the way the bank wanted it the way we did it, that was the way they suggested it

should be done.

Then he goes to refer about a cheque account.	The
next relevant passage is question 24:

Houston 4 23/8/90

Q.24 You said earlier you were given a

written authority to act, when did you get

that?

A. Well, it was a long time before I opened

that particular account, I don't remember the

dates.

TOOHEY J: .But that sort of questioning really prompted me

to ask what I asked you. That might suggest

arguments about authority to, perhaps, fill in

amounts on some sort of withdrawal or apply money

for particular purposes, but the allegation here is

of actually forging the grandmother's signature not

merely acting contrary to her authority and that

seems to only start to emerge at the bottom of that

pages when the applicant is asked why he kept

signing her name. Was the suggestion that somehow

that the bank had indicated that the applicant's

signing the grandmother's name as opposed to

completing documents that she had signed was some

means of operating this account?

MR MYERS:  There was no evidence at all from the bank or the

Town and Country Building Society at all at the committal hearing. Their requirements or how they

would act upon the presentation of any document was

simply not a matter of evidence at the committal

hearing. The question of whether the signing of
her name on the withdrawal forms constituted a
forgery was considered in the first appeal in this

matter before His Honour the Chief Justice of

Western Australia, Malcolm CJ, and His Honour there

found that the lack of authority was something that

the prosecution had to prove to establish the prima

facie case and His Honour found that they had

failed to do so and that the committal should be

quashed - sorry, that was the second appeal in

relation to this matter before the Full Court. The

Full Court ruled, and it was conceded by the Crown,

in the second appeal that the Crown had not

established lack of authority which was what they

had to establish to prove a prima facie case and

that the committal should be quashed.

TOOHEY J:  You mean lack of authority to sign somebody

else's name?

MR MYERS:  Yes, to sign the grandmother's name and that was

an essential matter that the Crown had to prove in

order to establish the prima facie case and that

was conceded by the Crown before the Full Court of

Western Australia in the second appeal to that

court relating to this matter.

McHUGH J: But how is it unfair to your client? You know

the case you have got to meet. She is going to

Houston 5 23/8/90

deny that she gave any authority so you know the

case you have got to meet.

MR MYERS:  Well, in general terms we know the case that we

have to meet, Your Honour; that there is a lack of

authority but in relation to the items that were

. purchased with the moneys obtained, firstly,

Your Honour, I would say there were 95 counts that

the applicant faces of forging and uttering so

there is a large number of counts. From the

materials that have been presented to the
applicant, it is quite clear that a great deal of

the money and a great number of the cheques related

to items that were purchased for the household of

the grandmother. Now - things like a washing

machine and dryer, the fact that her bathroom was

retiled, her bedroom was renovated and her lounge

room was painted, a septic pump was bought for her

septic system. Now, all she says is that there is

a lack of authority for the applicant to sign her

name but we say, well, she must have been aware of

these items having been purchased and it is

certainly relevant to ask her questions then about

her knowledge of the purchase of these items, where
the money came from and how it was financed.

McHUGH J: Yes, but how does it make it unfair? You know

the case you have got to meet. I mean, the

profession is really perverting this whole concept

of abuse of process. Case after case is brought to

State trials on flimsy grounds. It really calls

for some criticism that these applications are

brought and people are stopped from coming to

trial.	I cannot see anything unfair at all about
these proceedings.	You have had a committal

proceeding and it appears to be conceded that

without this formal evidence of lack of authority

there was not evidence to support the 95 counts,

but you know what the case is you have got to meet.

Your only complaint is that you have been deprived

of an opportunity to cross-examine a witness at the

committal proceedings.

MR MYERS: Well, Your Honour, with respect, we have been

deprived of the opportunity to cross-examine the
only witness who can prove a prima facie case

against the applicant and as I understood the

authorities, Your Honour, the purpose of a

preliminary hearing or a committal hearing was to

see if there was sufficient evidence to put a

person on trial and I would have thought,

Your Honour, I would submit, that the minimum

requirement of fairness to the accused is that the

person required to prove a prima facie case should

be at least presented at the committal hearing.

Houston 6 23/8/90

Now, on the question of unfairness,

Your Honour, I concede that there may be different

views on it, but it is our submission that it is

not good enough for the prosecuting sergeant in a

case where there are 95 counts, there is a personal

relationship over a number of months between the

applicant and the grandmother, there are questions

of her authority, the question of authority is

~aised in the record of interview, the applicant

has given a detailed record of interview in which

he makes a number of allegations which have never
been answered and could quite easily have been

answered before the committal hearing by a further

statement from the grandmother as to her statement

as to what she says about those matters.

Now, they are important matters, I would

submit, that the applicant should know about before

he goes on trial otherwise he faces the prospect of

cross-examining his 76-year-old grandmother in the

witness box before a jury and finding out for the

first time what she says about those matters.

~cHUGH J: Well, what is the problem about that?

MR MYERS:  Your Honour, it is our submission that that is

unfair that he should have to find out first the

total details of the prosecution case for the first

time before the jury.

McHUGH J: Well then, that means that ex officio indictments

should be abolished.

MR MYERS:  Your Honour, they should only be presented, in

our submission, on the recognized grounds and this

does not fall within one of them, in our respectful

submission.

McHUGH J: But when did this concept come into the law, that

you are entitled to cross-examine all the

witnesses? I mean, until comparatively late in

legal history, people were indicted by grand juries in which they did not know anything of the evidence

against them until they were put on trial.

MR MYERS: That is certainly so, Your Honour, but the

situation is that since, at least, Barton's case

there has definitely been a suggestion that
committal hearings have wider purposes to the

advantage of the accused person and three judges of

that court thought that it was unfair if a

committal hearing was not held.

McHUGH J: That was a case where there was no committal at

all. Here, you have had a committal proceedings

and there is one witness and she denies authority

so she is asserting a negative and you want to

Houston 23/8/90

cross-examine her to suggest that her evidence

should not be accepted.

MR MYERS: Well, the applicant loses a possibility of a

discharge and in this particular case it is more

relevant than, perhaps, some of the other cases in

.	which it has been considered because if the
magistrate did not accept the only witness who could properly prove a prima facie case against the

applicant, then he would be discharged and it would

be highly unlikely that the Crown would proceed in

those circumstances.

McHUGH J: Well that may be, but the Full Court of Western

Australia has weighed up these matters and come to

the view there was no unfairness about it. Now,

that is a discretionary judgment, why should we

interfere with it?

MR MYERS:  Your Honours, I would suggest that they did not

weigh up the matters in the context of the wider

purposes of a preliminary hearing as set out in the

joint judgment in Barton's case and the judgment of

Justice Stephen. They simply took the view that

the only purpose of a preliminary hearing was to

see whether there was sufficient evidence in

accordance with the test in Reg v Epping and Harlow

Justices and they did not look any further. They

did not undertake the weighing-up exercise of what
was the detriment to the applicant against the

interest of the Crown in bringing the matter on to

trial and, really, if you take that view, they

substitute, at their discretion, for that of the

trial judge who found the other way.

BRENNAN J: Is this the proposition, Mr Myers, that the

Full Court erred in failing to appreciate the true

purpose of a committal proceeding and that it was

their duty to weigh up the advantages and the

disadvantages to the accused in allowing the matter

to proceed on the ex officio indictment?

MR MYERS:  That is one proposition, Your Honour .

BRENNAN J: Is there any other?

MR MYERS: Yes, Your Honour, there is another matter in

relation to the interpretation of section 579 of

the Criminal Code and the meaning of section 579 of

the Criminal Code where the Full Court found that

that precluded an accused from asserting that there

was any unfairness in not having a committal

hearing when there was an ex officio indictment

presented and we would submit that that is not a

correct interpretation of the section, but it

probably finally boils down to the proposition that

Houston 23/8/90

you still have to consider whether there was

unfairness and whether the Full Court is - - -

BRENNAN J: And the unfairness on which you rely is the

absence of an opportunity to cross-examine the

elderly grand.mother?

MR MYERS: .Yes.

BRENNAN J: Now, you have stated that. Is there anything

further that you wish to say?

MR MYERS: Only that, Your Honour, in relation to the law,

it would seem that on some of the statements in

Barton's case it is suggested that the accused is

entitled to a relatively precise knowledge of what

the prosecution allege against the accused and I

would rely on those statements and similar

statements found in the authorities and submit to

Your Honours that that was not done in this

particular case.

The other matter which the Full Court relied

upon was that there was no procedural method by

which the matter could get back before the

magistrate and I would submit, Your Honours, that

that was recognized in Barton's case in the joint

judgment and it did not seem to cause a problem and

I would submit that under the provisions of the

Justices Act that it could be done. It is simply a

matter of laying further complaints and in

proceeding to committal and then deciding whether

to proceed further on the ex officio indictment.

Your Honours, I do not know whether you wish

me to refer you to the material in relation to

section 579 but it does in the end, I suppose, come

down to the question of whether you consider that

the Full Court has erred in applying the test as to

what is the proper purpose of a committal hearing

and whether those purposes have been met in this

matter.

BRENNAN J: Well, the basic question is whether or not any

relevant unfairness exists in depriving your client

of an opportunity of cross-examining the 76-year-

old grandmother.

MR MYERS:  Who was the only witness who could prove a prima

facie case against him, yes, Your Honour.

TOOHEY J: You see, you put the matter in terms of authority

and that may be right, but I would have thought

that your real complaint was forgery involves not

merely the act of executing somebody else's

signature but acting - to use the language of the

Code - to the prejudice of someone else and in the

Houston 9 23/8/90

case of uttering that the uttering is fraudulent.

In other words, it is not merely the act of forgery

or the act of uttering but in both cases certain

consequences must attach and I take it your

complaint is that you have lost the opportunity to

test whether, in the one case, a document that was

forged was to the prejudice of the grandmother and,

in the other case, whether the applicant was acting

fraudulently.

MR MYERS: Yes, that is the essence of what we say,

Your Honour. Your Honours, in relation to

section 579, I feel I should put before you our

submissions as to why we say that the court took

the wrong view of section 579. It is our

submission that the purpose of the amendment in

1954 to section 579 to add the words "referred to

by the Full Court" was not to change the grounds

upon which an ex officio indictment is presented;

rather it was to establish that once the ex officio

indictment was presented, the Crown did not have to

go through the cumbersome procedure set out in

chapter 73 of the Code. It went to procedural

matters rather than substantive matters and the

intention was that the accused would then plead and

the trial would commence in the normal way and it

had nothing at all to do with the removing of the

right to a committal hearing. Support for that is

found, Your Honours, in the second reading speech

of the chief secretary who introduced the bill and

I have here for Your Honours the excerpt from the

chief secretary's speech.

BRENNAN J: What is this to show, Mr Myers?

MR MYERS:	It is to show the purpose of the amendment to section 579 where the words referred to and relied
on by the Full Court with respect to the right of
an accused to have witnesses examined prior to
trial when an ex officio indictment is presented.
The Full Court has found that the amendment has
really precluded the right of an accused person to
have a committal hearing or to have witnesses
examined prior to trial when an ex officio
indictment is presented because the words of
section 579 now say - I paraphrase - that if an ex
officio indictment is presented, the trial shall
proceed as if the accused had been committed for
trial and the Full Court has read those words,
relying on an earlier Full Court decision of Ex Parte Leopold Warrior Manifred Booy, number 5 on my
list of authorities, Your Honours. There is
reliance on that authority, a decision of
His Honour Chief Justice Burt, as he then was, which was given extempore and he found that those
words really excluded the right of a committal

Houston 10 23/8/90

hearing when an ex officio indictment has been

presented.·

We would submit that that is an erroneous

reading of the section and that it was never

intended to achieve that by the amendment and that

.is made perfectly clear by the second reading speech

_ of_the chief secretary when he introduced the

·amending legislation because he specifically

referred to the grounds upon which ex officio

indictments were presented and it is clear that he

did not intend to change the practice but was rather

directing his mind or the legislation was directed

to the procedural aspects. Your Honours, I do have

photocopies of that second reading speech.

BRENNAN J: But the language of 579 speaks for itself, does

it not?

MR MYERS:  It is clear on the face of it, Your Honours, and

I have considered that matter and I would need to

rely on sections 18 and 19(l)(b)(ii) of the

Interpretation Act of Western Australia. I also

have a copy of that for Your Honours which allows

extrinsic material to be produced and 19(l)(b)(ii)

states:

(b) to determine the meaning of the provision

when

(ii) the ordinary meaning conveyed by the

text of the provision taking into account its

context in the written law and the purpose or

object underlying the written law leads to a

result that is manifestly absurd or is

unreasonable.

Well, we do not say it is manifestly absurd but we say it is unreasonable to read the words so as to deprive an accused person of a right that has been

recognized by the courts; that is, the right to

have a committal hearing and on that basis I would

ask the Court to look at the second reading speech.

BRENNAN J:  It cannot be that there is a right to have a

committal hearing so as to exclude the prospect of

the presentation of an ex officio indictment

because the section itself provides for the

presentation of an ex officio indictment.

MR MYERS: Yes. The section obviously - - -

BRENNAN J:  If there is some balance to be struck, the Full

Court addressed that problem, did they not?

MR MYERS:  No, I would submit not, Your Honour, because once

again they approached the matter wholly from the

perspective of the purpose of a committal hearing

Houston 11 23/8/90

and the limited purpose of a committal hearing to

present a prima facie case. They did not consider

that the wider purpose that was outlined in some of

the authorities to be relevant and, therefore, it

was less material, perhaps, in the case of an ex

officio indictment, that the accused should have a

right to examine persons before trial if there was

an injustice in that not occurring.

BRENNAN J:	Very well.
McHUGH J:	Mr Myers, was the ex officio indictment only in respect of the 39 counts or in respect of the whole
95 or 96 counts?
MR MYERS:	The ex officio indictment - there were 50

complaints of forging on the original committal and

50 complaints of uttering. The applicant was

committed on 94; of those 94 complaints on which he
was committed, the Crown have proceeded to indict

him on 91 counts on which he was committed and

there are four fresh counts in the indictment.	I
do not know whether that answers Your Honour's
question.

McHUGH J: Well, Chief Justice Malcolm allowed the appeal

and stayed prosecution in respect of 39 counts, did

he not?

MR MYERS:  Yes, Your Honour. At that point of time it was

thought that - the basis of His Honour's decision

was - you are talking about the second appeal,

Your Honour. In the second appeal, that was the

only complaint at that time and the reason for that

was that the application for order nisi was made

only with respect to those 39 - or 78 - counts if

you add the uttering because the brother who was
jointly charged was involved in some of the other

counts and it was thought that on the basis of the

first decision that the application should only be

made with respect to those matters in which the

brother was not involved, but on a closer reading

now, Your Honours, it would appear that out of the 100 counts that he was originally charged with, or	the 95 counts, the only count on which the brother
has signed the grandmother's name is the count which was unfortunately chosen in the first
application to the supreme court. So, the
arguments really could equally relate to the whole
of the counts bar one and that was the one which
was the subject of the decision of the first
supreme court hearing.

Your Honours, in relation to section 579, the

chief secretary at page 1285 says:

Houston 12 23/8/90

The .next amendment seeks to regularize

and simplify the procedure concerning

ex officio indictments and to clarify the

appropriate provisions in the Code. To

understand the proposal it must be remembered

that there is a distinction between ordinary

and ex officio indictments. As members are

aware, an accused person is brought to trial

before a jury by the presentation of an

information or charge calls an indictment,

which is signed by the Minister. Where an

accused person has been committed for trial by

justices or by a coroner, and is to be tried

for the offence with which he is charged, the

Minister presents what is called an indictment.

This is the ordinary indictment - - -

BRENNAN J:	We do not need to go through the details of basic criminal procedure. Is there something in it
that - - -
MR MYERS:	Yes, I am sorry, Your Honours:

.Frequently, however, an accused person is

indicted for an offence other than that for

which he is committed for trial.

And then, he refers to the examples that were under

consideration, where a coroner has returned an open

verdict, or:

the Crown may consider that there should be a

trial for some offence disclosed by the

evidence taken before the coroner.

Then he refers to the other ground on which

ex officio indictments were presented. That is

where, on a closer study of the evidence, other

charges are revealed that were not originally

presented. Then he goes on to discuss:

Doubts have arisen whether the expression

"ex officio indictment" in Section 579 of the

Code includes an indictment which, although

not for the offence for which a person has

been committed for trial, is nevertheless for

an offence which is disclosed by the evidence

taken before the committing justices or

coroner. If these doubts are groundless, then

the rather elaborate procedure prescribed in

chapter 73 of the Code has to be followed.

What he seems to be saying, Your Honours, is that

if an ex officio indictment was presented under

section 579, there was some doubt as to whether it

proceeded in the way of an ordinary indictment or

Houston 13 23/8/90

had to proceed in the way of ex officio or private

indictments as set out in chapter 73 of the Code:

This procedure is somewhat lengthy and cumbersome and was originally intended only when an information for an indictable offence

was presented by a private person.

Then he goes on to talk about the present:

The practice has always been for the Minister to present these indictments, and generally

speaking, for the indictment to be treated in

the same expeditious manner as if the person

concerned had been committed for trial. This

practice, although fair to an accused, appears

to be very doubtful; and to obviate any

repercussions the Bill seeks to validate the

practice.

So it is our submission that the amendment was

directed to procedural matters and was not intended

to address questions of fairness or unfairness or

abuse should a material witness not be examined

before the trial. For that reason we would say

that the Full Court has wrongly interpreted

section 579 of the Code.

McHUGH J: Can I just understand in what specific way you

say it is unfair. You say you have been deprived

of the right to cross-examine, but what you want to

show, I would think, is that these moneys - most of

them at least - were spent for her benefit and

therefore, if you can get admissions from her to

that effect, you would then use that to force

admissions out of her that she gave her authority

for these signatures. Is that the way you propose

it?

MR MYERS:  we would not try to force her but it would be

very relevant to the question - that is so,

Your Honours - as to whether she gave authority.

which were obviously spent on her house and for her	house, over a period of months spending moneys If the accused was living in her house, the farm	benefit and she then says she gave no authority to
spend them, she should at least answer the question
as to where she thought the money was corning from
and on whose authority was it being spent on her
property and that is just not being done.

McHUGH J: Yes, I follow that, but I still have trouble with

seeing how it is unfair to you that you cannot do

that until you go to the trial. It is not as

though it was a case where you did not know the

real case that was being made against you, such as

in Barton, where you have got to call a lot of

Houston 14 23/8/90

evidence in great detail. Here, the issue against

you is very narrow. This witness says, "I didn't

authorize this man to forge my signature".

MR MYERS:  Yes, certainly that is a central issue and the

answer to that is, she said "I didn't give any

authority" and you can say that we know the nature of the prosecution case but we submit that that is

not fair to an accused person because quite

obviously, I would submit, the Crown, when they

lead evidence from the grandmother at the trial, is

not going to leave it at that. She will go into

more detail, I would have thought, about the

relationship and where the moneys were spent and

the allegations raised in the record of interview.

McHUGH J: But you may have some complaint then because you

are entitled to get a statement as to what she is

going to say in advance and if the Crown seek to go

beyond that, well then, the matter is in a

different dimension.

MR MYERS: That is so, Your Honour, but then the

accused -

McHUGH J: But am I right in thinking that at the present stage, all that is being put against you by this

witness is a denial of authority and nothing more?

MR MYERS:  That is so and the fact is that the accused

person, the applicant, has disclosed his hand quite
freely in two lengthy records of interview which

were available well before the committal hearing

and one would have expected as a matter of fairness

that if the Crown was going to answer those

allegations made in the record of interview that he

had authority and that he had spent money on her

property, that the accused person would have some

detail about what she is going to say about those

matters.

BRENNAN J: Mr Myers, you have made that point, I think, on

several occasions. Is it going to add anything to

elaborate it in any way?

MR MYERS:  No, Your Honour, I was answering your brother

Justice.

BRENNAN J: Yes, of course.

MR MYERS:  Your Honours, those are my submissions.

Houston	15	23/8/90
BRENNAN Ji	Thank you.	The Court will adjourn briefly to

consider what course it should take.

AT 10.48- AM SHORT ADJOURNMENT

UPON RESUMING AT 10.59 AM:

BRENNAN J:  We need not trouble you, Mr Solicitor.

In this matter, the Full Court has determined

that the applicant should be dealt with on

ex officio indictment in the manner described in

section 579 of the Criminal Code of Western

Australia. We are not satisfied that there are

sufficient reasons to doubt the correctness of that
decision. Accordingly, special leave will be

refused.

AT 11.00 AM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED SINE DIE

Houston 16 23/8/90