Muir v Hunter

[2011] QDC 290

[2011] QDC 290

DISTRICT COURT

CIVIL JURISDICTION

JUDGE ROBIN QC

No 138 of 2010

NORMA VIVIENNE MUIR	Applicant
and
HUNTER	Respondent

BRISBANE

..DATE 11/11/2011

ORDER

CATCHWORDS

Uniform Civil Procedure Rules r 116

Substituted service of application for criminal compensation - service permitted by post to the address where respondent year after year registered his vehicle and another which a resident of the former confirmed was currently being used - a resident at it confirmed its appropriateness, stating that the respondent was living there but frequently absent for work - process servers enjoyed no success in repeated visits to the premises - sending of a text message to the respondent's known mobile telephone number advising of court's orders also required.
HIS HONOUR:  As so often happens, this application for criminal compensation has turned into one for substituted service.

The applicant's legal representatives and their inquiry agent/process servers have succeeded in tracking him down through an address recorded in connection with the motor vehicle registered to him.  A relative was located there who advised that the respondent, who is a carpenter with a birth date recorded which conforms with that given to me on the sentence in Bowen in August 2008 was staying at a Toowoomba address..

The attempts which have been made to effect service at the Toowoomba address have produced confirmation that the respondent uses it but is often away; that's unsurprising if the information given on the sentence that he's completed a carpentry apprenticeship and works in the building industry is correct.

This isn't the common case of a respondent to such an application who has disappeared but it's a case of one who's proving elusive, perhaps not intentionally.  In applications like this I think the Court ought to avoid being too officious about insisting on personal service so long as that appears to be a theoretical possibility, whatever the trouble and costs involved in achieving it might be.  What's been done so far,

on the material before the Court, is considerable

The Court feels satisfied that service by post to the address recorded in Transport Department records, which is renewed year after year, and also at the Toowoomba address given by the resident at the earlier one will bring the application to the respondent's attention.

The information before the Court establishes that he has a particular mobile telephone service at which the process servers have been able to contact him.  It's for that reason that the Court's order includes a requirement to make use of that additional connection which has been established.

Ms Muirhead informs the Court that on at least one occasion in the past Judge Brabazon QC permitted service of an application like this by those means, apparently settling the communication to be sent himself and stipulating that it be sent from a particular mobile telephone number associated with the Legal Aid Office.  I see no need to be as prescriptive on this occasion, leaving it to the judgment of the lawyers as to how much material ought to be included in the text message over and above that indicated in the order the Court makes today.

It may be considered advisable to add advice of the adjourned hearing date of the application and also that, if the respondent should happen not to receive material posted to either of the addresses, he may obtain copies with a view to looking to his interests by approaching lawyers.

The order is in terms of the initialled draft which permits rather than requires service of the originating application and supporting affidavits by the taking of all three of the following steps, namely, posting copies together with a copy of the order and the letter advising the adjourned hearing date to each of the addresses; and, further, sending to his identified mobile telephone number a text message advising that the Court has authorised service by post to the two particular addresses of an application for compensation arising out of his conviction in Bowen on 28 August 2008.

Service is deemed to be effective 14 days after the completion of those steps.

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