Inmate's days in court may end

The Solicitor-General has been asked to consider whether to try to stop an enthusiastic litigant from pursuing any more hopeless court cases.

Graham Ashley Robert Palmer, who sprang to prominence in the 1980s in one of the country's first and biggest GST frauds, is a prisoner at Paremoremo, serving a term of preventive detention for sex offending.

Over the past couple of years Palmer has mounted a number of unsuccessful actions against people who appear to have crossed him.

They include two Crown prosecutors, his former lawyer, the superintendent of Paremoremo Prison, a psychiatrist who wrote favourable reports on him, and most recently the manufacturer of an automated public toilet - which Palmer claimed led to a conviction for indecency.

He has also sued Telecom and took a private criminal prosecution against another man.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for Crown Law confirmed that the Solicitor-General was looking at Palmer and a number of other people to see whether they should be declared vexatious litigants.

"There have been a considerable number of complaints about him," she said.

Declaring someone a "vexatious litigant" is a rare move designed to stop hopeless and frivolous cases being brought.

Crown Law investigates and assembles a case to put before a High Court judge.

Before being allowed to file another proceeding, a vexatious litigant would have to get permission.

A considerable amount of material would have to be amassed before a judge would take away a citizen's rights.

Palmer generally pursues the court actions in person without a lawyer to represent him, and is invariably accompanied by two prison guards when he attends court.

Prominent Auckland barrister Harry Waalkens represented a psychiatrist who wrote two favourable reports on Palmer when he was sentenced to preventive detention in October 1999 and for the Court of Appeal hearing in May the following year.

Despite the supportive nature of the reports, Palmer sued the psychiatrist for $195,000 alleging breach of contract and negligence.

Last November in the Auckland District Court Judge Paul Barber struck out the claim, noting that Palmer's statement of claim "did not disclose any reasonable cause of action and could well amount to an abuse of process".

Yesterday, Mr Waalkens said: "After I had the proceedings struck out I wrote to Crown Law saying Palmer was a menace to society. He has got to be declared a vexatious litigant."

Risking being named as a defendant himself in a future proceeding, Mr Waalkens added: "He [Palmer] is odious. He is just awful. He should not be permitted to misuse the court process like this. The proceeding against the psychiatrist was outrageous."

Mr Waalkens said that Palmer appeared to get great pleasure out of the court process and treated it like a game.

He speculated that Palmer did it to "get out of jail for the day".

The psychiatrist was awarded $8000 costs. It is not known whether Palmer has the means to pay.

In his action against the superintendent of Paremoremo, Palmer sought an order allowing him to use a computer and printer in his prison cell to process a number of court proceedings.

Justice Peter Salmon, in the High Court at Auckland, ruled that the prison had acted "entirely reasonably in relation to the plaintiff's [Palmer's] needs for computer use".

In a separate action, also before Justice Salmon, Palmer alleged that prosecutors Philip Hamlin and Morag McDowell had conspired with his lawyer, Frank Hogan, to pervert the course of justice in a trial where he was facing sex charges. Palmer sought a total of $10 million.

In dismissing the action, Justice Salmon said that there was "no basis" on which Palmer's allegations could proceed.

In the most recent decision to go against him, Palmer was suing automated toilet manufacturer Exeloo for $200,000 for alleged negligence.

Palmer had been convicted on indecency charges involving two young girls at a public toilet manufactured by Exeloo in December 1997.

As a safety feature in the event of someone collapsing inside, the toilet has a sensor which opens the doors if no movement is detected for two minutes.

Palmer claimed that he suffered from cystitis, a bladder problem.

He said he had remained motionless for more than two minutes in the toilet and the door opened automatically.

Judge Arthur Tompkins at the Waitakere District Court ordered summary judgment and costs of $17,500 against Palmer.

He said the claim was an abuse of process.

The judge agreed with Exeloo's lawyer, Craig Langstone, that Palmer's claim was in essence that Exeloo should have protected him from his own criminal behaviour.

As at March 2001, Palmer had accumulated more than 60 convictions for dishonesty or sexual offending in New Zealand, Great Britain and Australia.

In 1988, he was jailed for five years and eight months after duping the IRD out of $2.6 million in the country's first GST fraud.