Verbal remand warrant forms

The Beerburrum mail robbery, as it became known, was a complex and tortuously circumstantial case. Identification of the accused, Donald Flanders and William Wilson, was difficult and depended largely on the testimony of the postal worker who was the victim of the armed robbery.

Due to security factors, the committal proceedings in 1973 were held at the newly built Magistrates Court in South Brisbane’s Stanley Street. One of the accused was on bail, the other in custody. The committal went for several weeks before John Spain Callaghan, SM, a man known for his intimate knowledge of the more remote sections of the law and for his iron will.

A remand warrant under the Justices Act 1886, with the Magistrate’s signature outlining where and when prison authorities should again present the prisoner, was the usual method of advising the circumstances of the case. Yet the magistrate had discovered a section under the Justices Act (section 85) that allowed him to remand someone in custody for three days without warrant.

As was the practice at the close of the day’s proceedings, the magistrate’s depositions clerk prepared the warrant for signature, collected it, gave it to the watchhouse keeper and made the necessary arrangements to have the accused back before the court the next day.

With the verbal remand having been issued in open court, the Magistrate felt that his duty had been done and had departed. The prison authorities, without a piece of paper to escort the prisoner, refused to take him, creating an impasse. The deps clerk and the watchhouse keeper tried, in vain, to explain the idea of a verbal remand but without the appropriate paperwork, no one was going anywhere.

The deps clerk was a bright young man. Realising that the lack of paperwork was the sticking point, he hit upon the idea of issuing a ‘Verbal remand warrant form’ and quickly drafted one on an old noiseless typewriter. Not having the Magistrate on site to sign it, nor with any expectation that such an event would be foreseeable, he did so himself. Regardless of the unique nature of the form, the prison escorts were pleased to have the paperwork and the prisoner came and went without any problem for the period of the committal proceedings.