Venetia Louise Storry Applicant v Commissioner of Police First Respondent Jonathon David Weir (RACQ) Second Respondent

[2024] QCA 66

[2024] QCA 66

COURT OF APPEAL

DALTON JA

Appeal No 604 of 2021
Appeal No 319 of 2017

VENETIA LOUISE STORRY  Applicant

v

COMMISSIONER OF POLICE  First Respondent

JONATHON DAVID WEIR (RACQ)  Second Respondent

BRISBANE

TUESDAY, 16 APRIL 2024

JUDGMENT

DALTON JA:  The application before me today came about because Ms Storry filed an application by way of an interlocutory application in CA 604/21, which was an appeal previously dealt with and finalised.  That appeal concerned a traffic accident which happened many years ago.  There was a decision of the Magistrates Court in relation to that and appeal to the District Court in relation to that.  There was apparently also a traffic infringement notice and fine that arose out of the same set of facts.  That matter came before the Court of Appeal and was dismissed.  There was a separate application at a later date before Justice Sofronoff, who struck out an amended notice of appeal and dismissed an application for leave to appeal.  That decision was made on the 16^th of February 2021.

Essentially, the application which Ms Storry has now filed in 604/21 is to reagitate matters dealt with by President Sofronoff.  In particular, she wishes to attack something he said in his reasons.  In his reasons, he said that there was audio evidence in the Magistrates Court and that the content of that audio evidence was transcribed and the subject of argument in the District Court on appeal.  Ms Storry has come to the view that that is unlikely to be so, because the audio evidence would not normally have been transcribed without a special order, and she is unaware of the special order.  So I think, essentially, she wants to proceed on the basis that President Sofronoff proceeded on a wrong factual basis.

The registry brought this application to the Court’s attention, and I made unsuccessful attempts to have the parties agree to orders essentially of a timetabling type, to make a time for Ms Storry to file and serve affidavit material and a written outline of submissions and a time for the Commissioner of Police to do the same thing.  My attempts to have that done on the papers between the parties were unsuccessful.  Amongst the things that Ms Storry responded with were that she wanted me to recuse myself for bias.

So the matter was set down before me as an application this morning, and she has explained to me why she wants me to recuse myself for bias.  The scope of that argument, I think perhaps unsuccessfully, I have tried to confine to today’s hearing rather than any other hearing.  That is, Ms Storry persisted in saying I should recuse myself even from a timetabling hearing in the matter.  Her basis for doing so really relates to another litigious matter that she has before this Court, that is, the Supreme Court.  That matter relates to – well, again, it is of some age.  It relates to the Office of Fair Trading beginning an investigation into her activities, dealing with a trust account in the name of a company which conducted a real estate agent business.  The business was predominantly run by her father, but when he became ill and subsequently died, Ms Storry – – –

APPELLANT:  Can I stop this for a second?

DALTON JA:  No, sorry.  Ms Storry – – –

APPELLANT:  It’s going to be – going have errors in it.  I’m sorry.

DALTON JA:  That is okay.  It can have errors.

APPELLANT:  It’s not – – –

DALTON JA:  It can have errors in it.  Ms Storry – – –

APPELLANT:  No, it can’t.

DALTON JA:  – – – please be quiet.  Ms Storry used the trust account of the real estate business while her father was ill and after he died. And it is alleged that in that respect, she infringed various statutory provisions.  The Office of Fair Trading complained to QCAT, and QCAT is dealing with, or attempting to deal with, those matters.  Ms Storry recently ran an appeal in the Court of Appeal challenging one of the decisions made in that QCAT litigation.  She challenged an interlocutory decision, on appeal, of Member McGill.  Her challenge to the decision was unsuccessful.

Although she did not quite say it, I suspect that the real objection to my involvement is that as part of a three-member unanimous Court which dismissed that appeal, the decision went against Ms Storry.  That in itself, of course, is not a reason to assert bias.  Also relating to the hearing of that appeal, Ms Storry said that in relation to a particular issue of bankruptcy law, I expressed one opinion in Court, but when she showed me case law on the matter, I changed my mind and conceded that she was right on that point of law.  Again, that is no basis to allege bias.  In fact, the fact that I was able to change my mind in accordance with her submissions rather demonstrates the opposite of what she alleges.

More tenuous than any of that, is a complaint that some four years ago, apparently, in making directions for her judicial review of the decision of Office of Fair Trading, I made a timetable which she now considers to have been too lax and which caused delay which she says contributed to her bankruptcy.  Nothing substantive is put before me about that matter which would indicate anything which any reasonable person could understand as bias.

So for all those reasons, I am against Ms Storry on her application to have me recuse myself from hearing this directions hearing, at which I aim to make directions facilitating the exchange of material to allow the application filed 23 February 2024 to be heard.