Jailed former union boss John Maitland has escaped a third trial on corruption charges after a District Court judge took the unusual step of granting a permanent order halting the trial on the grounds it would be "oppressive and an abuse of process".
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The former head of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union is already serving a maximum six-year prison sentence after he was found guilty in June of being an accessory to misconduct in public office by his one-time political associate, former NSW Labor mining minister Ian Macdonald.
The Supreme Court heard Macdonald gifted a lucrative coal exploration licence in 2008 to Doyles Creek Mining, a company chaired by Maitland, and "sought to cloak his misconduct" in the "apparently worthy" venture of a training mine to promote mining safety.
Macdonald was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison over the deal.
In February, Maitland was charged with a fresh offence arising out of the same mining deal.
This was the third charge levelled at the former union boss. He had already been convicted of a separate charge of misleading the Independent Commission Against Corruption during the inquiry which exposed the deal.
Following that conviction, he was fined $3000 and placed on a good behaviour bond.
Maitland's legal team sought a permanent stay of the new trial on the basis it was "unjustifiably unfair and oppressive".
In a judgment delivered on Monday, District Court Judge Peter Zahra agreed.
He said the new charges against Maitland, of obtaining financial advantage by deception by making allegedly false statements to the Department of Primary Industries to support the grant of the coal licence, could have been added to his Supreme Court trial earlier this year.
Maitland had "already been the subject of a very lengthy and complex criminal trial", Judge Zahra said. The new trial would be "oppressive because most of the accused's criminality has already been punished and he faces only a modest increase in his sentence".
"I am of the view here that whilst the prosecutorial discretion was exercised in good faith, the objective effect of trying the accused on the counts here in a second lengthy trial is oppressive," Judge Zahra said.
The District Court heard Maitland has high blood pressure and collapsed at Silverwater jail on September 16. He briefly lost consciousness and was taken to Westmead Hospital where he remained until September 19.
