O'Mahoney v Sorrattanong

DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

O’Mahoney v Sorrattanong [2005] QDC 398

PARTIES:

DARYL O’MAHONEY

Applicant

v

VIRAXAY BEE SORRATTANONG

Respondent

FILE NO/S:

D965 of 2003

DIVISION:

PROCEEDING:

Hearing

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court, Brisbane

DELIVERED ON:

13 December 2005

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

28 November 2005

JUDGE:

McGill DCJ

ORDER:

Order that the respondent pay the applicant $2437.50

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – Compensation – whether mental or nervous shock – whether separate award for scar appropriate – compensation reduced because convicted offender had only minor role in offence.

Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995 s25(7), s26(6), (8)

Facer v Bennett [2002] 2 Qd R 295 – applied.
Ferguson v Kazakoff [2001] 2 Qd R 320 – considered.
MR v Webb [2001] QCA 113 – applied.
Zaicov and Anor v Jones [2001] QCA 442 – considered.

COUNSEL:

J. Stevenson (solicitor) for the applicant

No appearance for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Legal Aid Queensland for the applicant

The respondent was not represented

1. This is an application for compensation under the Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995 (“the Act”). On 31 March 2000 the respondent pleaded guilty to one count of assault occasioning bodily harm which was committed on the applicant on 12 September 1999. Accordingly, there is an entitlement to compensation. The application was filed on 28 March 2003, just within time under the Act, although the affidavit material in support was filed only on 14 November 2005[1].  The application and affidavits in support were served on 22 November 2005.

   [1]Apparently in breach of rule 389, although that is an irregularity only:  rule 371.

Circumstances of the offence

1. The applicant was at home on that night when he was awoken by the sound of someone trying a door handle into his room from outside.  He saw out the window someone outside who then went away.  He went out of the house himself, and later went outside with a dog lead and looked around, and saw a car driving past the front of his house a number of times.  He walked towards the car and threw the lead at it, hitting the driver’s side door.  He went back inside and heard the car driving past again, and then heard something land on his roof.  He changed and went out again, and saw two men at the front of his house, one of whom was the one he had seen earlier outside the door.  He went into his yard where they grappled and he fell.  When he got up, they both ran off and he chased them down the street where they both got into the car again and drove off.  He then realised that he had suffered an injury to his face.  He called the police and provided the registration number of the vehicle.

1. The respondent was sentenced on the basis that he was the driver of the vehicle, and that he had stopped and let the other two out in circumstances where he was criminally responsible for the assault, but where he was not one…