QLD:Qld councillor must repay $1.37m: court

AAP General News (Australia)
12-07-2011
QLD:Qld councillor must repay $1.37m: court

EDS: Amends amount in first par to read $1.37 million



By Christine Flatley

BRISBANE, Dec 7 AAP - Logan councillor Hajnal Black should have held $1.37 million
in trust for an elderly man with dementia instead of transferring it into her own account,
a court has ruled.

In the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Queensland's Public Trustee on Wednesday won the
right to start pursuing the money taken by Mrs Black in October 2009.

In the hearing late last month, David Jackson, QC, for the Public Trustee, told the
court Mrs Black, who was given power of attorney over the man's affairs in April 2009,
knew he lacked capacity when she transferred the money six months later.

Mr Jackson submitted that that knowledge, along with the nature and size of the transaction,
meant Mrs Black had acted improperly.

However, Mrs Black told the court she was acting in accordance with the 66-year-old
man's wishes when she made the transfer.

She said she had been friends with the man for decades and he was like a father to her.

The transfer of the money - which came from the $2.25 million sale of the man's property
at Park Ridge - was in keeping with his wishes, which he'd made clear over a decade, she
said.

Justice David Boddice ruled in favour of the Public Trustee on the matter and ordered
Mrs Black pay costs.

However Justice Boddice ordered that the issue of whether a second property at Greenbank
was given by the man as a gift to Mrs Black be decided during a separate trial.

That matter will be reviewed later this month.

Mrs Black is also facing criminal proceedings under the Local Government Act of Queensland
over allegations she failed to inform the CEO of Logan Council that she held a joint bank
account with the elderly man.

That matter will go before the Beenleigh Magistrates Court later this month.

AAP cf/mjs/de

KEYWORD: LEGAL: BLACK WRAP

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