Charles Oswald Dearden awarded $600k after suffering burns at Jondaryan birthday party

An accomplished southwest Queensland rural worker has been awarded $600,000 in damages after he was severely burned at a 21st birthday party in a prank by one of his friends.

Charles Oswald Dearden (left) and Robert Andrew Taylor (right) were parties in a civil matter in the Rockhampton Supreme Court, relating to an incident at a Toowoomba region property in February 2019.

A southern Queensland man who was left with lifelong injuries after being burned by his friend in his sleep at a Toowoomba region party has been awarded $600,000 in damages.

The Rockhampton Supreme Court heard Charles Oswald Dearden was the victim of a prank gone “terribly wrong” at a birthday party on a Jondaryan property in early 2019, when his friend Robert Andrew Taylor poured petrol on him while he was asleep in a swag before setting it ablaze with a lighter.

Mr Dearden, a 24-year-old who the court heard was an accomplished rural worker with experience on properties across Queensland and the Northern Territory, suffered injuries and burns to 15 per cent of his body and required extensive skin grafts and treatment to his thigh, wrist, upper torso and shoulder.

Justice Graeme Crow delivered his verdict on the civil case on June 2, ruling that property owners Terence and Nicole Ryan were “liable in negligence” for Mr Dearden’s injuries.

Roma's Charles Oswald Dearden was seriously burned at a party on a Toowoomba region property in February 2019, which required him to have skin grafts. Photos supplied from Facebook.

Justice Crow laid out the facts of the case, which stated Mr Dearden and Mr Taylor were both at the property The Three Mile on February 9, 2019 to celebrate the 21st birthday of the Ryans’ son Daniel, with whom they were boarding school friends.

By the property owners’ own submissions, the party featured more than 100 young people and a significant amount of beer and wine.

The court’s decision was based on a series of events that occurred after a power outage hit the property around dusk, after which Mr Ryan retrieved a generator and several jerry cans of fuel.

After the power was restored, the court heard a small grassfire was started near the homestead and Mr Ryan had concluded the cause was a 5L jerry can used to fill the generator.

“Mr Ryan observed his adult son, Matthew Ryan, pick up the small jerry can and Mr Ryan told Matthew to ‘put it in the shed’,” Justice Crow’s judgment said.

“Mr Ryan did not check where specifically his son Matthew put the small jerry can in the shed and did not check whether the small jerry can was empty or not, but did state ‘As far as I was concerned, it was empty’.”

Robert Andrew Taylor (left) was a third party in a Supreme Court case between Charles Oswald Dearden and Terence and Nicole Ryan. The court heard Mr Taylor had poured petrol on Mr Dearden before setting him on fire in a prank gone wrong.

The can was placed in a terracotta pot inside the nearby open shed close to the entrance, where Mr Taylor found it some time after midnight.

At this point, the court heard a group of boys had surrounded Mr Dearden while he slept, before Mr Taylor approached his friend and, in his own words, “dribbled fuel on his lower shirt, high jeans area and his – say his hip area and then ignited it … with the lighter”.

Mr Dearden was rushed to hospital in Toowoomba.

Justice Crow concluded that both Mr and Mrs Ryan as the party hosts were liable for damages for failing to ensure the jerry can was out of reach from partygoers, especially after Mr Taylor said the initial grassfire had given him the idea to find petrol and use it on Mr Dearden.

“Ordinarily, the sheer stupidity of lighting a fire at a party would be sufficient to categorise the probability or risk of occurrence as being low, perhaps even to the level of being insignificant,” he stated.

“However, I accept that the first grassfire did place in the mind of Robert Taylor the idea of starting a fire and using that to wake up his friend Charles Dearden.

“After the experience of the first grassfire, Mr and Mrs Ryan considered it important to remove the fuel source so as to prevent another guest using the fuel to light a fire. Regrettably, they did not.

“Absent the fuel, it is likely that Mr Dearden would not have been lit up at all or if Robert Taylor attempted to use a lighter, it would have taken such a time that one of the group of men would have intervened or Charles Dearden could have awakened and extinguished the fire.

“I therefore conclude that Mr Dearden has proved that the defendants were in breach of their duty of care to him.”

The court heard and accepted that Mr Dearden would be restricted from several forms of rural work due to his injuries.

“I accept that Charles Dearden suffers from increased pain in the area of his scarring, greater difficulty in working in the hot climates that he is required to work in because his right axilla does not sweat, and pain and difficulty in the cooler months where his scarring also causes him pain and restriction of movement,” the judgment said.

Justice Crow ordered Mr and Mrs Ryan to pay Mr Dearden $600,000 for general damages, past and future economic loss, as well as past and future medical expenses.

In a subsequent ruling in the same judgment, Mr Taylor was ordered to pay the Ryans $420,000, with Justice Crow concluding he had to “bear the bulk of the apportionment as he has engaged in a reckless and criminal act fuelled by his high state of intoxication”.

Mr Dearden was contacted by The Chronicle for comment.