The Personal Destruction of Dr Robert Fleet
The NSW police along with RSPCA officers and some media representatives from the Daily Telegraph, all let themselves onto Dr Fleet’s premises and removed Jason, later than day a RSPCA veterinarian (Dr Godfrey) determined that the only humane treatment was to euthanasia Jason and the next morning put him down.
Dr Godfrey examined Jason and noted that the dog was in ill health, was emaciated and could not stand, he had hair loss with chronic flea allergy or similar severe chronic skin disease. Additionally had 10cm diameter tumour on his abdomen, and a 3cm tumour on his right hock. X-rays showed severe spondylosis of the whole spine, advanced and server arthritis in both hips, increased heart size. A post mortem examination showed nodular tumours on the spleen as well as froth in the lungs. Jason aged as estimated at over fourteen years and close to his natural life span. Dr Godfrey admitted that Jason was suffering symptoms common to German Shepherds of that age and there was no evidence that the dog had not been fed properly or was dehydrated. The reason why he formed the view that the dog should be put down was that the diseases observed were ultimately untreatable.
Several days later the RSPCA officers attend Dr Fleet home and asked him provide his full name and address – although they obviously already knew, he refused and slammed the door. Some 3 weeks later, Dr Fleet was handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station where he was charged for failing to identifying himself and aggravated cruelty to an animal. These charges were heard in the local Court at Blacktown by Magistrate Milovanovich, no conviction was recorded in regards to the aggravated cruelty charge, but was convicted and finned $500 plus costs for failing to identify himself.
Dr Fleet’s legal representatives (Mr Solomon) appealed the decision to the District Court, which was heard before Her Honour Judge Karpin, who affirmed the Local Court decision. Before the District Court handed down its final orders, Dr Fleet without any legal representation appealed to the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal, who found in his favour permanently staying the charge for failing to identify himself and remitted the aggravated cruelty to an animal charge matter back to the District Court to be heard by the court in according to the law.
During the original District Court appeal, Dr Fleet’s main defence was his evidence about his love for the dog and his treatment of it and his personal and philosophical reasons for having been opposed to putting the dog down. This was not accepted by Her Honour Karpin DCJ, presumably because there was no evidence of palliative care for Jason. Dr Fleet dismissed his legal representative during the proceedings and used this fact as his first grounds for appeal. Quoting the judgement “the first ground, which was based upon a miscarriage of justice due to the incompetence of his former legal representatives.”
Dr Fleet’s first case brought in the Supreme Court in which he was now self represented, was a success and managed to get the Supreme Court to order a direction to the District Court to apply the law and quash the charges against him. This point also represents the high in Dr Fleet’s story, as he seems to have misunderstood what is meant by word remitted and just what the orders given by the Court. For some reason Dr Fleet sought leave of the High Court to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision even though he had for all intensive purposes had won, but to no avail. When the matter was relisted in June 2000 at the District Court where Dr Fleet did not attend and as such Nield DCJ reinstated the original decision for the aggravated cruelty to an animal charge. It’s hard to know just what was going on in Dr Fleet’s personal life, if he only attended, or if the RSPCA had the decency not to press for the aggravated cruelty charge – it would have ended there and then.
In 2002 Dr Fleet ran a second Supreme Court appeal against remitted District Court decision, but was not so lucky this time to get the President of the Court of Appeal in Justice Keith Mason. Court of Appeal Justice Meagher summed up Dr Fleet’s situation as:-
This was largely due, I think, to the understandable distaste which Dr Fleet had for the whole litigation. He had been accused of two offences one of which he did not commit, he genuinely felt that his beloved dog had been destroyed without reason, he had been arrested by the police when he should not have been, the RSPCA had organized publicity to accompany his arrest, his house had been ransacked, and he had failed to be treated with justice by either the Local Court or the District Court. Nonetheless, he hardly seemed co-operative in getting his second trial back on the rails.
Reading through Dr Fleet’s letter to the District Court for why he felt the need to appeal, he has referenced to s5B of the Criminal Appeal Act, obviously without reading the entire Part 3 of the Act in order to gain context of the section. Reading the case Dr Fleet has relied upon (Ex parte McGavin; Re Berne) reference to s5B is used to during a matter before a lower court, and before any decision has been made, a party may apply for a ruling from a superior court on a question of law. This was examined in detail in paragraphs 40 to 52 of the 2008 Judgment by Campbell JA.
It’s interesting to note that Justice Hodgson in the 2002 appeal suggested “that the RSPCA give careful consideration as to whether or not to enforce those costs orders. I do not know the claimant’s financial circumstances, but it is possible that enforcement of these orders could cause severe financial hardship.”
A little after a year from the second appeal, Dr Fleet files a third action in the NSW Supreme Court in October 2003, in regards to malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, wrongful arrest, trespass to the person, trespass to goods, illegal search and seizure and misfeasance in public office. Although the aggravated cruelty to an animal charge would have still remained as the second appeal to overturn the District Court’s remitted judgment was not concluded in Dr Fleet’s favour – preventing most of his claims in Tort.
The action which listed District Court as a party was summarily dismissed by the Registrar and the remained of the Statement of Claim was struck out and was ordered to file an amended Statement of Claim that complied with the Uniformed Civil Procedure Rules (UCPR). It is worthy to note that Dr Fleet attempted to claim the District Court vicarious liable for the actions of Nield DCJ even though his is an independent judicial officer.
The action against the District Court was for the tort of ‘Misfeasance in public office’. This tort has defined by Jim Davis from the ANU College of Law in an article “Misfeasance in Public Office, Exemplary Damages and Vicarious Liability” as:-
The tort of misfeasance in public office permits an individual to recover for the loss or damage suffered consequent upon action taken by the holder of a public office, if the officer acted maliciously or knew that the action was beyond power and was likely to harm the plaintiff. The action is not confined to positive conduct by the defendant, but includes a deliberate failure to fulfil a public duty cast upon him or her.
It must be stressed that this action requires, as one element, some form of intention to cause harm to the plaintiff.
Additionally this action was a combination of an appeal from the Nield DCJ decision affirming the conviction of the aggravated cruelty to an animal charge from the Local Court, and an action in Torts for damages. These obviously should have been separate actions against separate defendants, in separate courts. Additionally he is asking the Supreme Court to reappeal the second appeal of the Supreme Court, which could have only been done by the High Court.
Some 2 years later in 2007 the third appeal to the Supreme Court is still tracking through the court. As part of the further amended statement of claim, Dr Fleet claims “the plaintiff was tortured (including in relation to the plaintiff’s hand or hands, and the invasion of the plaintiff’s body by foreign particles.” Dr Fleet also claims to have been searched and a bag of groceries and a bag containing an assignment for his theological studies seized. During the short hearing, including at the commencement of the proceedings, he objected (although to what he objected was never quite clear). When asked whether he had been served with the noticed of motion, he declined to give a clear answer, reiterating repeatedly that he was: “…not aware at the present time of the defendants’ documents.”
Some 6 month later and 10 years after Jason’s death, two motions for the summary dismissal of the proceedings are brought by the defendants. Although the charge of failure to state his name and address was stayed permanently, Dr Fleet’s still raises it in his pleadings. The remainder of the pleadings are struck out and on the grounds that pleadings are intelligible and the elements of each causes of action are not substantiated by them. It is the Court’s belief that after repetitive attempt to get Dr Fleet to engage a legal practitioner to assist with drafting any new pleadings, he will not.
After the finial dismissal of the third Supreme Court action, Dr Fleet then files another originating summons in June 2008 to the Supreme Court of NSW Court of Appeal, which is promptly dismissed by Justice Bell JA. Dr Fleet again files a new motion which is again reported, and details more notices asking for the variation of previous orders made and for McCallum J to disqualify herself – presumably for apprehension of bias.
Campbell J states that the repeated themes of Dr Fleet’s appeal included, that a decision:
“(a) promoted the interests of the Respondents/Defendants and their legal representatives, (b) effectively denied myself the benefit of access to justice, (c) effectively denied myself equal protection and equal benefit of the law, (d) effectively denied myself ‘equal and effective legal protection against discrimination on all grounds’, (e) were oppressive to myself, (f) were unfair to myself, and (g) breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (including Article 14(1)), and a matter of international concern.”
Dr Fleet’s claims of the judicial officers in the Common Law Division include “effectively denied the right to present my case to the Court in an adequate and complete manner” and “effectively denied the right to cross-examine the respondents’ affidavit witnesses”. It is almost like Dr Fleet expects an inquisitorial style of legal system and dames the court for not investigating his claims, and I can’t help but wonder if Dr Fleet’s expectation of the judicial system has been influenced by his original success in the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal in 1999. Did Justice Keith Mason’s initial act of kindness manifest into an expectation that ultimately caused the destruction of Dr Fleet?
Again the notice of motion was dismissed and Bell JA orders affirmed. But the matter doesn’t end there, in February 2009 there is another reported judgement of the NSW Supreme Court where Dr Fleet seems to have filed yet another originating summons, this time with the sole defendant being the State of NSW. This time Dr Fleet fails to appear before the Registrar, the crown solicitor files a motion to dismiss and Dr Fleet fails to appear before the Court. This last summons was dismissed with costs for want of prosecution under UPCR 12.7 – an unceremonious end.
Google Map shows Dr Fleet’s Seven Hills address in 2009 was an empty block. The house which was owned by the Dr Fleet’s mother, who decided about this time, was sold by the public trustee. The property was sold in 2010 as Dr Fleet was by now an undischarged bankrupt. He seems to have also started proceedings against the Public Trustee (which I was unable to find) and the Blacktown City Council. As a result of the 2008 matter, Dr Fleet was declared a vexatious litigant.
Dr Fleet missed the original proceedings regarding being declared a vexatious litigant and after supplying a doctor’s certificate for missing the hearing, a reported re-hearing was conducted by Justice Craig. Craig J states:-
I indicated that he would need to address me and if necessary provide evidence as to the circumstances in which these events had occurred on 26 February in order to make good a submission that he had not been given an opportunity to be heard at that time. Dr Fleet then appeared to become very anxious, gathered his papers and indicated that he intended to leave because he was being denied a fair hearing. As he left the Court, although I invited Dr Fleet to remain and assured him that I was content to take as much time as it reasonably required in order to hear his argument, he said that he needed to attend immediately for medical examination and treatment. He then left the precincts of the Court.
The problems in the Dr Fleet story where:- the original heavy handed treatment of Dr Fleet by the RSPCA officers regards the failure to provide adequate palliative care for Jason; the incompetence of Dr Fleet’s original lawyers at the Local Court and their inability to clean this up quickly and cheaply; the entire Legal System’s lack of guidance for how the courts are to handle incompetent parties, either self represented or not; and the inconsistence treatment of Dr Fleet by the various decision makers.
You can see in Dr Fleet’s actions that he has continually come back to the Supreme Court looking for the relief he originally received from Justice Mason. Over the course of 13 years Dr Fleet lost his dog, his mother, his home, every cent he had, and eventually his mind. It’s a tragic case highlight the snowballing effect of injustice. It takes an otherwise functioning man and ends up with a broken one who has little other future then being in and out of medical care, all because he was emotionally unable to let go of his dog.
Source: http://judicialwatch.org.au/article/the-personal-destruction-of-dr-robert-fleet
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