Supreme Court dismisses Carolyn Reynolds appeal against the closure of her Lake Bennett restaurant

The restaurant at the Lake Bennett resort will remain mothballed after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of a decision to refuse its registration as a food business.

Former Country Liberal Party election candidate Carolyn Reynolds in happier times.

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THE restaurant at the Lake Bennett resort will remain mothballed after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of a decision to refuse its registration as a food business.

In 2018, NT Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie knocked back resort owner Carolyn Reynolds’ application to re-register the restaurant as a food business after its registration lapsed.

Ms Reynolds then appealed that decision to the Local Court which affirmed Dr Heggie’s decision in October last year and on Friday, the Supreme Court backed in the lower court’s ruling.

Ms Reynolds’ appeal was based on a number of grounds, including that she was denied natural justice by judge Tanya Fong Lim in the Local Court, all of which were rejected by Chief Justice Michael Grant.

Ms Reynolds’s claims included a complaint that she was not allowed to “cross-examine herself” and that Ms Fong Lim failed to accommodate her as “a self-represented litigant with a frontal lobe brain injury following an assault”.

But Chief Justice Grant ruled the lower court was “at pains” to ensure she “understood the procedures which were being adopted and was in a position to make decisions in her best interests”.

“Those measures included the grant of several adjournments to allow the appellant to collect herself,” he said.

“There was no failure to accommodate the appellant’s disadvantages as a self-represented litigant.”

Ms Reynolds was also self-represented at the Supreme Court appeal hearing in March, during which she aired “a litany of complaints” which Chief Justice Grant said “cannot be addressed in this forum given the nature of the appeal”.

Ms Reynolds claimed in court to have been attacked by another Lake Bennett resident with the effect that “(she is) not sure if my short-term memories are real or confabricated (sic)”.

She said after she reported the assault to police, Dr Heggie’s delegates “became more aggressive and persistent” which she attributed to a friendship between the Chief Health Officer and her attacker.

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“She says that the responsible government agency has deliberately targeted her and her business with the intention of keeping it closed,” Chief Justice Grant said.

“This appeal is ill-adapted to the attempted ventilation of those issues (but) it suffices to say for these purposes that there is no objective evidence before this court of bad faith on the part of the responsible government agency, or its officers or employees.”

Ms Reynolds has previously vowed to ‘die in the High Court fighting’ Dr Heggie’s decision.

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