McLaughlin v Leokava-Taani

[2009] QDC 358

[2009] QDC 358

DISTRICT COURT

CIVIL JURISDICTION

JUDGE ROBIN QC

No 1674 of 2009

IN THE MATTER OF SECTION 24 OF THE CRIMINAL OFFENCE VICTIMS ACT 1995

and

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION BY MARK MCLAUGHLIN THAT ERUERA REIVITI LEOKAVA-TAANI PAY HIM CRIMINAL COMPENSATION

BRISBANE

..DATE 13/10/2009

ORDER

CATCHWORDS

Uniform Civil Procedure Rules r 116

Substituted service of application for criminal compensation - newspaper advertisements the only feasible means of service

HIS HONOUR: The Court makes an order in terms of the initialled draft for substituted service pursuant to rule 116 of the UCPR of Mr McLaughlin's originating application seeking compensation under Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995 from the respondent.

The respondent has been convicted on his own plea of assault occasioning bodily harm, in respect of which he king hit the applicant at Friday's Night Club.  The sentence was one of imprisonment wholly suspended.  In retrospect it is regrettable that advantage could not have been taken of the sentencing occasion to serve the respondent with proceedings of the present kind, or at least to get an indication of an address for service from him.  Although the process server engaged has been on the tail of the respondent, he has had no success - the respondent having, it seems, disappeared from everyone's ken, after leaving his last rented accommodation when the premises was sold.  Mail for him has been accumulating in the letter box there.  But there is no forwarding address.  He has been terminated from his last place of employment.

Mr Fortheringham has conducted all the usual searches, even one to confirm that the respondent is not in custody in Queensland.  This is not one of those cases in which some other person has been identified on whom service could be effected with even limited confidence that the respondent would hear of the application.  In those circumstances the relatively costly alternative of advertising State-wide in the Courier Mail and nationally in the Australian, has been adopted. 

If the application for compensation is to be entertained at all, a gesture towards service has to be made.  What Mr Fortheringham proposes is as much as could be expected in the circumstances.

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