LMM v BMB, BG, KAS and LCW

[2012] QDC 124

[2012] QDC 124

DISTRICT COURT

CIVIL JURISDICTION

JUDGE ROBIN QC

No 15 of 2010

LMM	Applicant
and
BMB, BG, KAS AND LCW	Respondents

BRISBANE

..DATE 18/04/2012

ORDER

CATCHWORDS
District Court of Queensland Act 1967 s 85

Transfer to Supreme Court of application for compensation under the Criminal Code by rape victim against perpetrators - convictions occurred in the Supreme Court which alone had jurisdiction
HIS HONOUR: The court makes an order in terms of the application filed 21st of February 2012 that's for transfer of this application for criminal compensation to the Supreme Court. The four respondents, none of whom has appeared today although all have been served excepting the fourth respondent who is deceased, were convicted of rape against the applicant as long ago as 1987. The application for compensation is under the old Criminal Code provisions, rather than the Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995, so there's no limitation period.

The originating application seeking compensation was filed on the 6th of January 2010 and filed in this court, the assumption of the youthful practitioner running the matter being that rape was an offence tried in the District Court.  That's the current situation, which didn't arise until some years after the respondent's conviction. 

Applications such as the present have always been treated as civil matters. The case comes fairly and squarely within section 85 of the District Court Act. There are provisions in the section which would entitle the court to strike the proceeding out and order the party who started the proceeding to pay the costs of other parties. Those provisions give the court a discretion which I would not be at all inclined to exercise against the present applicant in the circumstances. One consideration is that it's unlikely in the extreme that any of the respondents has incurred any costs or will incur any costs or for that matter will be likely to be in a position to satisfy any award of compensation that the Supreme Court may make in the proceeding. It's one which, in my view, this court can transfer to the Supreme Court and there'll be an order accordingly.

Mr MacGiollari accepts that there are some complications still attending on the matter, in particular to do with the deceased co-respondent, but those can, it's to be hoped, be dealt with in the Supreme Court before the impending cut-off date at the end of this year arrives, following which the understanding is that possibilities of ex gratia payments from the Government will come to an end.  It would be unwise to permit those complicating factors to delay the appropriate transfer.

Thanks, Mr MacGiollari.

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