Graham Ashley Robert Palmer's response to an application to stop him from mounting any new court proceedings was almost inevitable - he launched another case in the High Court.
Palmer, a convicted sex offender at present serving a sentence of preventive detention, has filed at least 18 actions and threatened to start even more as he tries to have his guilty verdicts overturned.
He has filed actions against the Attorney-General; his former lawyer and two Crown prosecutors alleging conspiracy; a psychiatrist who gave evidence on his behalf; the superintendent of Paremoremo prison; Telecom; the manufacturer of an automated public toilet; the IRD seeking $6.5 million; three police officers; the person he says was really responsible for the sex offences of which he was convicted; Bluebird Foods, law firm Bell Gully, and a real estate firm; a truck rental company; and the Governor-General.
Palmer is also said to have alleged that a number of judges were biased and the Governor-General, the Government of the day and the Court of Appeal were predisposed against him.
Following complaints about his enthusiasm for going to court, the Attorney-General applied to the High Court for Palmer to be declared a vexatious litigant.
That would mean he would need the court's permission before starting any new cases or proceeding with present ones.
Crown lawyers said in court papers that Palmer had "persistently and without reasonable grounds instituted vexatious legal proceedings and is likely to continue to do so unless restrained".
According to the Attorney-General's statement of claim, Palmer has had most of his actions dismissed, struck out, stayed or declined.
But Palmer denies that, maintaining that he has won most of his cases.
Judges have commented that some of his cases were an attempt to make a "collateral attack" on the guilty verdicts in the sex trials, were an abuse of process, and should never have been started.
In addition to filing a statement of defence to the application to make him a vexatious litigant, Palmer has filed proceedings asking for the vexation litigant application to be struck out.
He said the Attorney-General's action was in fact a collateral attack on his various proceedings and was designed to defeat the course of justice.
However, Palmer has taken the opportunity the case has presented to renew his claims that he was wrongly convicted.
He claimed in his statement of defence that a 15-year-old girl lied in court about him taking her from her home and ejaculating on her top.
He said her clothing had been examined by the ESR, but no traces of his DNA were found.
His statement of defence said the exculpatory DNA report was withheld from the jury, which he said meant he did not get a fair trial.
In addition, Palmer claimed there was fresh evidence that the girl was at home while he was miles away.
Palmer said that at trial Telecom gave false evidence that there were no incoming or outgoing calls from the girl's home at the time the girl said she was with Palmer.
Since his trial and appeal to the Court of Appeal, he said, Telecom had given fresh evidence that there were four incoming calls that were answered in that 2 1/2-hour period.
"[She] was at home talking on the telephone to her sister during the time she said she was with [me]," Palmer said in his statement of defence.*
Palmer claimed the girl's ex-boyfriend was the real sex offender.
He said the former boyfriend was the person she first claimed raped her when she went to the police station.
Meanwhile, Palmer's case is due to be heard by the Privy Council next week.
Last week Palmer applied for High Court bail to go to the Privy Council. His application was declined.
* CORRECTION: In the original version of this story, the words "she said" were omitted from the quotation.
Back to court - yet again
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