Saunders v Hindley

[2010] QDC 9

DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Saunders v Hindley [2010] QDC 9

PARTIES:

LESLIE SAUNDERS

Applicant

AND

DALE ROBERT HINDLEY

Respondent

FILE NO/S:

BD3446/09

DIVISION:

PROCEEDING:

Originating application

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court, Brisbane

DELIVERED ON:

5 February 2010

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

25 January 2010

JUDGE:

McGill DCJ

ORDER:

Order the respondent pay to the applicant $6000 compensation for the injuries suffered by him as a result of the offence of which the respondent was convicted on 2 October 2009

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – Compensation – assessment of compensation – whether compensation should be reduced for applicant’s contribution

Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995 s 25(7)

Facer v Bennett [2002] 2 Qd R 295 – applied.
Geritz v Geritz [2008] QDC 309 – distinguished.
Goodwin v Whittaker [2009] QDC 167 – distinguished.
Hohn v King [2004] QCA 254 – cited.
MBA v AAD [2008] QCA 187 – cited.
MR v Webb [2001] QCA 113 – cited.
Wren v Gaulai [2008] QCA 148 – cited.
Zaicov v Jones [2001] QCA 442 – applied.

COUNSEL:

G.S. Andrew for the applicant

N.P. Hiscox for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Everingham Lawyers for the applicant

Alexander Law for the respondent

1. This is an application under the Criminal Offence Victims Act 1995 (“the Act”). The respondent was convicted by a jury on 2 October 2009 of unlawful wounding, the offence having been committed on 5 January 2008 on the applicant. The respondent was tried jointly with his brother, who was also convicted; I was told that no application under the Act had been, or would be, made by the applicant against the brother. The respondent was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

1. The circumstances of the offending were set out in my sentencing remarks.[1]  After noting that the applicant was living across the road from the respondent, who was then in a de facto relationship with the former de facto of the applicant, by whom she had had four children, and noting that there had been some previous difficulties between the parties, I continued:

“On the 5^th of January 2008 I accept that the complainant had been making a bit of a nuisance of himself and was being disagreeable earlier in the day and earlier in the evening.  The two of you had been drinking at a barbeque and probably about half past nine or around that time the complainant and his de facto came over to the front gate, the fence of your property, and an altercation occurred and there was a good deal of abuse shouted backwards and forwards across the fence.  The complainant’s de facto then pushed the gate, as a result of which [the respondent and his] de facto … fell off or jumped off the gate.  The gate then opened. … I accept the gate opened outwards and it follows that it opened as a result of something done by somebody inside the gate, and I find that the chain that was securing the gate fell on the outside of the gate…