Audacious land grab claim at centre of remote outstation family feud near Litchfield National Park

An extraordinary family feud playing out in a small NT Indigenous community has seen residents claim their rivals have snatched the land from under them by ‘fraud’.

• Stoush leads to Woolaning Homeland Christian College closure

AN extraordinary family feud playing out in a tiny Aboriginal outstation near Litchfield National Park has ended up in court, with community members claiming their rivals have snatched the land from under them by “fraud”.

Documents filed in the Supreme Court and obtained by the NT News reveal the Woolaning Community Incorporated association is suing a former member and her three children in a bid to wrest back control of the traditional homeland.

The documents say the land was first handed over to WCI in 1986 following an application by founding president Raymond Petherick, whose former wife Mary-Anne Winton and three children Sonya, Joseph and David Petherick are each named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The documents say Deloitte’s Hendri Mentz was appointed statutory manager of the association in 2017 after an investigation by Licensing NT and as a result, Ms Winton and Ms Petherick ceased to hold office as members of the management committee.

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But they claim when Mr Mentz attempted to show parts of the land to a potential investor in accordance with the wishes of the other former committee members, Ms Winton and Ms Petherick “disrupted” the visit, causing the delegation to leave “as a result of fears for their safety”.

Then in September 2018, the documents claim Ms Petherick wrote to Planning Department senior manager Karen White purporting to be the current chair of the association and requesting that it be removed as registered proprietor of the land.

They claim the letter requested Woolaning be replaced by Ms Winton, her three children and Raymond Petherick but the request was rebuffed as the department would only consider such requests from Mr Mentz.

By May of last year, the documents claim Ms Winton and David Petherick had “purported to sign a ‘transfer of lot’ in relation to the land” as representatives of Woolaning without authorisation.

“At the time of the execution of the ‘transfer of lot’, the first and fourth defendants knew or were recklessly indifferent that the land was held by the plaintiff for the benefit of all of its members consistently with its grant and the plaintiff’s objects and purposes,” they read.

Between May and June, the documents claim all four defendants “signed the ‘transfer of lot’, purporting to be the buyer of the land” for $125,000, without authority and below market value.

The documents claim that despite the association never receiving any of the money, the NT Registrar General — who is named as the fifth defendant in the lawsuit — accepted the transfer, resulting in Ms Winton and her children becoming the registered proprietors of the land.

“The transfer of lot and the registration of the land in the names of the first to fourth defendants was procured by fraud,” they read.

WCI is now seeking an order cancelling the transfer and returning the land to the association.

Each of the defendants is yet to file a defence with the court.

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