Stewart v Woods

[2002] QSC 164

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Stewart v Woods [2002] QSC 164

PARTIES:

EDNA EILEEN STEWART
(applicant)
v
ALWYN ALFRED WOODS
(respondent)

FILE NO/S:

SC No 1106 of 2002

DIVISION:

Trial Division

PROCEEDING:

Application

ORIGINATING COURT:

Supreme Court at Brisbane

DELIVERED ON:

12 June 2002

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

8 February 2002

JUDGE:

Fryberg J

ORDER:

Further hearing of the application adjourned to a date to be fixed

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – Jurisdiction, practice and procedure – Judgment and punishment – Orders for compensation, reparation, restitution, forfeiture and other matters relating to disposal of property – Compensation – Queensland – Offender dead – Proper respondent

Criminal Code, s 663B(1)
Criminal Offence Victims Act1995, s 46(2)
Public Trustee Act 1979 (NT), s 9, s 35
Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991, s 93N
Uniform Civil Procedure Rules, r 71

Re Leber [1999] QSC 177, considered
R v Callaghan and Fleming; ex parte Power [1986] 1 Qd R 457, considered

COUNSEL:

A J Kimmins for the applicant
No appearance for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Tony Bailey Solicitor for the applicant
No appearance for the respondent

1. FRYBERG J:  On 12 February 1973 Alwyn Woods shot Edna Stewart in the eye with a .22 magnum rifle.  She was nearly 26 years old, he was 33.  They were living together at Camooweal Street, Mt Isa.  He had left the wife whom he had married 11 years earlier, and who had borne his child, and had been living with Ms Stewart since 1969.  On the day of the shooting, Ms Stewart went to visit her mother at the Mt Isa Hospital.  Woods was supposed to pick her up at the hospital at about 3.00pm.  He failed to do so.  Ms Stewart went looking for him and found him in a hotel, drinking.  She was upset and told him off.  She hit him on the nose with a beer can; she thought his nose might have been split.  She then got a taxi home.  Woods also returned home – how much later does not appear.  He obtained the rifle and found her in the laundry.  She said, “Don’t do that”, but he shot her in front of her six year old nephew (who lived with them) from a distance of about 5 metres.

1. After the shooting, he did not call for help, though there was blood pouring down her face.  She walked to a nearby ice works, where a staff member called an ambulance.  She was taken to hospital.  She remained in hospital for two weeks.  As a result of the shooting, she lost her right eye and the bony orbit around the eye was scarred and deformed.  She was given a glass eye.  She also suffered an acute stress disorder and a depressive dysthymia, both of which lasted and settled over a period of one to three months, leaving only an ongoing mild chronic depression of mood.  She was, as Dr Ian Curtis subsequently observed, “a strong, robust person”.[1]

   [1]The foregoing…