The most recent rape charges facing Bruce Lehrmann followed an alleged sexual encounter in Queensland in October 2021. The matter was first listed in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in January 2023. Lehrmann’s TV strategy … Publicity please, but not for Toowoomba … London lawyers still coining the Bell fallout … More cases of judicial foot-dragging … Law Society CEO mystery … Tickle up … Candles on Frosty’s cake … Theodora reports
The most recent rape charges facing Bruce Lehrmann followed an alleged sexual encounter in Queensland in October 2021. The matter was first listed in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in January 2023.
Lehrmann has yet to be committed for trial and fought a strenuous but ultimately unsuccessful application to have his name suppressed.
Whatever happened in Queensland was a matter of weeks after Lehrmann appeared in court on the charges relating to Brittany Higgins.
The charges relating to the alleged rape of Higgins were dropped in December 2022 after juror misconduct resulted in an aborted trial.
Following the listing of the Toowoomba case, Lehrmann did four patsy TV interviews, with Channel Seven and Sky News, the latest in August.
He complained that the conduct of his trial in the Higgins case was unfair; that he wants a large amount of compensation from the ACT government; that Shane Drumgold shattered his day-to-day life; that he has got to get “justice”; that he intends to lead a “normal life” and get on with things; that he has lots of support, including from his PR man at Channel 7, Liam Bartlett, who has been like “a dog with a bone with this stuff”.
At the time he was spinning his story to Seven and Sky, Lehrmann knew the Toowoomba’s Temple of Justice was waiting for him.
In an earlier round on the Spotlight show (June) he said that “everything needs to be out there, in the open, so people can access this for what it is”.
“Jaws” Albrechtsen at The Australian has also been banging the drum for Bruce, insisting he should never have been prosecuted and that there’s too much unhelpful “victim centric”, #MeToo language being bandied about.
His claqueurs in the media have gone guiet since he was outed in Queensland – see Justice Peter Applegarth’s judgment here and the summary here.
Bruce complained before his Canberra trial commenced that there was too much publicity and Lucy McCallum CJ issued takedown orders.
The pre-trial publicity now is inescapable. Even the drug crazed citizens of Toowoomba would know most of the prior details.
Could it be that the TV interviews are part of a strategy that helps his defence and gets him a judge-alone trial?
Meanwhile, the fees are mounting and without more paid sympathy-milking interviews it’s going to be harder to meet the bills.
The Supreme Court in the Land of the Strangled Vowel is grappling with the same issue – application by an accused for a suppression order in a criminal case.
It must be catching.
In F v The King, an appeal bench of the NZ Supremes said on October 30 there should be an order that the applicant’s name, address, occupation and identifying particulars should not be published until the full thing is thrashed out in another session.
Sounds fetching.
The Great Bell Group Lawyers Picnic continues amid merriment in London.
The Chancery Division of the High Court in the Old Dart has grappled with an application by the trustee under three bond deeds.
The bonds were issued by Bell Group NV (Netherlands Antilles) and guaranteed by The Bell Group (WA).
Bell Group NV defaulted on payments under the bonds and the amount received by the trustee in the final distribution following the liquidation of the companies was $US81,176,562.60. That was on May 9, 2023.
The trustee’s claim is for $US471,568,733.86.
Some of the loot has been distributed but the trustee retains other amounts because some of the bondholders can’t be located.
The court was granted declarations so that the bonds belonging to “unknown bondholders” can be declared void on specific dates.
Ka-ching.
Madison Pacific Trust Limited v Squaretwo Capital Limited & Basil Vasilou
We have a couple more contenders for the Snail Slalom.
Judge Mara Barone of the WA District Court turned in a judgment about a finance facility agreement 19 months after the last of the hearing dates in February 2, 2022.
On September 21, 2023 there was correspondence from the parties about an agreement on the applicable rate of contractual interest. Following that the judgment was published on October 20.
The delays seems a puzzle since HH said at various points in her reasons:
Judge Barone was appointed by AG Quigley in May 2020 and hailed for her criminal law credentials:
“Ms Barone has shown that she is prepared to, and is capable of, dealing with the most difficult and complex matters in our criminal law system; her skills will be of great benefit to the District Court and I congratulate her most warmly on her appointment.”
It seems commercial law is not her thing.
Australian Securities Ltd v Ehrenfeld
Judge Allyson Ladhams, climbed into the saddle of the Perth registry of the Federal Circuit Court in August 2021 – appointed by Madam Cash.
She came from the AGS where her specialities were administrative law – including migration, citizenship, social security and FOI.
In November and December 2021, approximately three months after starting at the court, she heard Reynolds v Harrier Group Pty Ltd – an employment law dispute.
The judgment arrived 22 months later on October 20, 2023.
In May, we had the sorry duty to mention Judge Ladhams, who took a relatively speedy 17 months to turn out her decision in another employment law snafu – Mullan v Calold.
Reynolds v Harrier Group Pty Ltd
There was no messing around at the Qld bar council elections for the big wigs.
The president, the vice-president, and the employed member were all elected unopposed. No opposition in sight.
The NSW Law Society had its AGM last week (October 26). It was also the last day for the society’s CEO Sonja Stewart.
A cryptic announcement was made earlier in the month saying she “will resign”.
Stewart was appointed in August 2020 on $700,000 pa or thereabouts and now departs before the end of her contract.
No explanation has been offered, although we know from prior reports that throughout the Phillip Street Solicitors’ Shrine tensions were mounting and staff were bailing out.
At the AGM the year the constitution off the society was contentiously altered, which gave the president up to three years tenure, on full pay, and reduced the size of the council.
See the gory details here and here
In April this year, we reported that two councillors had departed in protest over the way the Regional Women Lawyers group and Michelle Meares had been treated.
This is not to say that unravelling these problems was entirely up to Sonja, only that the solicitors’ HQ was going through a fractious time – and here she is gone without proper explanation.
Ms Stewart was on our Couch in September 2020.
The Law Society’s chief operating operator Kenny Tickle is the acting CEO.
Praise be to Judge Sophie Given for her strenuous attempts to uphold the rectitude of the FCFC.
In a matter involving the timetable for directions hearing in a bankruptcy case, the judge’s chambers received this from a “Law Clerk” employed by solicitors for the second respondent:
“Dear Associate
We refer to the above mentioned proceedings listed for 2 November 2023 before Judge Given.
We attach signed short minutes of order shared with the Court concurrently.
The Applicant and First Respondent’s solicitors have consented to the Orders and have been copied into this email.
Please have the Directions hearing relisted in accordance with the Orders.
Kind regards …”
That set the judge off on a treatise about the “duty of formality before the court”.
This sort of chatty correspondence with judges and their associates is happening with “increasing frequency” – and up with which they will no longer put.
For the court to be directed to rubber stamp consent orders is intolerable.
Madison Lodder from the Queensland law shop Romans & Romans, appeared for the second respondent and agreed that the email was “not appropriate”. Everyone was truly sorry.
Given J was incensed:
“There is arguably nothing so informal, or possibly arrogant, as to approach a court with orders which have been agreed among the parties and simply presume, or in the instant case direct, that they will be made …”
Further, “kind regards” is not appropriate and “falls foul of the obligation to avoid informality”.
And submissions to the court should not be made by people employed by law shops who have not been admitted to the jam roll.
The advent of hearings conducted by online technology has “deprived a generation of young lawyers from exposure to proper court etiquette”.
“Lest there be any doubt, parties and practitioners should not interpret the use by courts of a medium which can also be used for meetings and entertainment, as somehow informalising the solemnity of court proceedings.”
Amirbeaggi (Trustee), in the matter Billiau (Bankrupt) v Billiau
Birthday cake and champagne purveyors in the Gunning-Crookwell area are preparing for the birthday of T.E.F. Hughes, who turns 100 on November 26.
“Frosty” was admitted to the Grill on February 11, 1949, at a time when everyone at the bar knew everyone else and what they were up to. His has been a life of family connections, war service, big cases, politics, personal dramas, great loves, grazing and eye watering fees.
He has been mentioned in Justinian’s dispatches on innumerable occasions.