2016 Selden Society lecture – the Hon Richard Chesterman AO RDF QC on the Supreme Court Fire of 1968

The Selden Society 2016 Lecture Series continues with the Hon Richard Chesterman AO RDF QC.

For more information on Selden Society Lecture Series visit the Supreme Court website

In the early hours of 1 September 1968, as the building’s caretaker was doing his rounds, an unemployed alcoholic named David Brooks, slipped through the doors of Queensland’s historic law courts, designed by colonial architect F D G Stanley in the 1870s.

Resentful of the police and the justice system for his habitual arrests, Brooks made his way to the judges’ chambers, drove a knife into an associate’s desk and scribbled the note ‘judge not lest you be judged, sinner.’ He then set the building alight.

The Hon Richard Chesterman AO RFD QC was a final year law student and associate to Justice Wanstall (later Chief Justice) when news of the fire broke and brings his personal reminiscences to this lecture.

On 12 March 1998 he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. He also served on the Mental Health Tribunal (1998–2002) and as a Commercial List Judge (2002–08). He was appointed a Judge of Appeal on 11 December 2008.