CASE: R v Bredal [2024] NSWCCA 75

WARNING: Disturbing content of child sex offences

Daniel Christian Bredal (45 years old) was charged with a child sex offence, that offence being using a carriage service to groom a person under 16 years.

There was no 16-year-old child on the other end of the communications. It was in fact a fictious assumed online identify operated by the police.

Bredal was sentenced to 1 year and 7 months imprisonment. However, due to exceptional circumstances, he was released immediately on recognizance.

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against the sentence on the basis that it was manifestly inadequate - not the length of the sentence, but that it had been suspended.

The appeal was unsuccessful.

CASE: In the Estate of Edward Steven Middleton [2019] QSC 128

If you tear up your Will, does it cancel the Will or does it only cause a whole lotta headache for the administrator of your estate?

In this case, both.

There is a presumption that where the Will was last in the possession of the testator, and it cannot be located after their death, that the testator intentionally destroyed their Will intending to revoke it.

This is problematic where the Will has simply been misplaced or destroyed unintentionally.

But even if you do rip up you Will with dramatic flourish, wholly intending to cancel it, how can anyone know that for sure? It still needs to be proven which in itself is a hassle.

This case serves as a good example that even if your action has the intended outcome, there may have been an easier way to get there.

It also demonstrates that destroying your last Will does not automatically revive your earlier Will and may result in you having died with no Will at all.

CASE: Sadiq v NSW Trustee and Guardian [2015] NSWSC 716

When Christina Coombes died in June 2013, she left behind a decrepit home in Paddington, Sydney, and no Will.

After her death, Waleed Sadiq, a man 18 years her junior, claimed to have been in a romantic relationship with Christina for the past 17 years.

However, there was no record of Christina ever having a parter and her neighbours said that Waleed was just man who came by sometimes selling junk door-to-door.

Which was it? Was he her devoted spouse or a canny salesman who spotted an opportunity?