VEXATIOUS LITIGANTS

A personal legal anecdote. A few years ago I was the victim of a vexatious litigant. A malicious user of the courts to prove some misguided point.

His name was James R. French. A nutter who had at times sent me up to ten abusive letters a day. He sued me for defamation. For things I had said on this radio station and on the Hinch programme on Channel Seven about a fraudulent Workcare claim.

He didn’t sue until about six years after the so-called defamation. By then the ownership of 3AW had changed and the new owners hung me out to dry. Refused to pay my legal fees.

We eventually got to court. A seven-day trial. In the witness box this nutter claimed that God had talked to him through a hole in his head. French testified that in a taxi in Adelaide he heard God’s voice telling him to go to Melbourne and destroy Derryn Hinch.

Sounds goofy but I had to sit through a lengthy expensive trial. A jury found me Not Guilty and ordered French to pay my costs. He was conveniently bankrupt -- so the whole exercise in which I was totally innocent cost me around $60,000.

I thought of that case, slightly obtusely, today when I read about another vexatious litigant, the Hoddle Street mass murderer, Julian Knight.

He has cost the Justice Department about quarter of a million dollars in the past two years to fight his repeated legal forays and FOI requests.

It is a sick joke. Especially when people who deserve legal assistance cannot get it.

Knight’s most recent case ran for eight days and cost about $20,000 a day before Justice Philip Cummins dismissed the action as

“unmeritorious”.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls is considering shutting Knight’s legal avenues down by having him declared a vexatious litigant. He should. He must.

This mass murdered has exploited the system relentlessly. He has been caught with illegal scissors, makeshift knives and illegal computer discs in his cell.

Justice Cummins acknowledged that prisoners have legal rights but has described Knight’s complaints as “ unjustified, and at best nit-picking”.

Julian Knight killed seven people and wounded 19 others in 1987.

He should be declared a vexatious litigant and deprived of such luxuries as a TV set and a computer every time he breaches prison rules. Lock him away to serve his time. And may he rot in there.

Monday, November 10, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002