WALTER A LEVINGE (ALSO KNOWN AS RICARDO LESSUR-MILLAR) v THE ATTORNEY GENERAL IN AND FOR THE STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES [1988] NSWCA 83

WALTER A _ LEVINGE (ALSO. KNOWN AS__ RICARDO LESSUR-MILLAR) v THE ATTORNEY GENERAL IN AND FOR THE STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

SAMUELS, MAHONEY and CLARKE JJA 9 June 1988, 9 June 1988 [1988] NSWCA 83

Criminal law — procedure — application for permanent stay of proceedings on ground of abuse of process — appeal should be heard by the trial Court (the District Court) and not by the Court of Appeal in the first instance — Watson v Attorney General (1987) 8 NSWLR 685 applied and appeal dismissed. ORDER Appeal dismissed. No order as to costs.

Samuels JA This is an application by the claimant, Walter Levinge, who is alsoknown as Ricardo Lessur-Millan, for a permanent stay of proceedings now pending in the District Court in the sense that he has been committed for trial on a number of charges in the District Court, although no bill has yet been found or, of course, any indictment presented.

Mr Levinge appears in person and as a result the originating process is not very clear. There are two summonses and we have treated them, as I have said, as seeking a permanent stay on the ground that to proceed with the trial in the District Court would be an abuse of process.

I do not think it necessary to go in detail to the facts of the matter, save to say this: Mr Levinge was extradited from the United States of America and arrived in Sydney on 7 May 1986. Since that time there have been proceedings in the Supreme Court, which terminated in an unsuccessful appeal to this Court in which judgment was given dismissing the appeal on 23 July 1987. In those proceedings which were heard at first instance by Smart J, Mr Levinge, who was then legally represented, sought to challenge his extradition primarily on the basis that it was wholly invalid because he had, in fact, been kidnapped and brought by unlawful means from the United States to Australia. That ground and other grounds, were painstakingly debated and their cogency finally rejected in the appeal.