By John McKechnie AO, KC
Douglas Stuart Wylie may have been a little over protective of his rubber plantation near the village of Sangara east of Kokoda in Papua New Guinea.
But then again maybe he had good reason. Over the years the Sangara Rubber Plantations Ltd had survived many challenges. Formed in 1935 after failure first of a cocoa then of a sugar plantation, the plantation nestled in a valley between Kokoda to the west and Mount Lamington to the east.
Sangara was a small village, home to the Orokavia people.
After switching to rubber trees, the company appointed Aubrey Eric Simpson as a manager. He was a colourful character. In 1932 he and another man were charged with assault and acquitted after the chief prosecution witness said neither of the accused should be in the dock.
The jury said they had heard enough evidence and returned a verdict of not guilty without leaving the court. Mr Simpson also was cleared of a charge of false pretences in 1933 by jury verdict.
Unfortunately personal matters began to intrude into his working life as manager and on 18 November 1941 Mr Simpson literally blew his brains out with a shotgun in Adelaide, South Australia.
D.S Wylie, an accountant who had tended to the company since its cocoa days then became manager as well as secretary. Three weeks later the Japanese imperial navy bombed Pearl Harbour and Australia was at war with Japan.
The Japanese in due course invaded Papua New Guinea. On 28 July 1942 D.S Wylie, by then in Sydney described what we now know as the Kokoda track. He said that only a narrow path which in some places winds steeply around the sides of precipitous mountains is available to the Japanese in their progress from Awala to Kokoda. By then the Japanese had pushed through to Sangara and occupied the plantation. The war years were brutal to the plantation workers.
After the war DS Wylie took back control of the plantation and set about recommencing production.
In 1947 an enterprising salesman purported to sell off pieces of the plantation. A prosecution for false pretences ended in an acquittal despite DS Wylie’s evidence.
Then came the 21st of January 1951. Mount Lamington, long thought to be dormant, exploded. The resultant pyroclastic flow killed nearly 3000 people including most of the population of Sangara.
As Papua New Guinea was under Australian control it is the largest civilian tragedy in Australian history.
Due to the topography the rubber plantation and its neighbours were largely undamaged.
In 1956, DS Wylie survived an attempt to remove him as manager by dissident shareholders, described contemptuously as Pitt Street farmers.
At last we come to 1957. By now DS Wylie had moved to Papua New Guinea from Sydney and lived on the plantation as manager. His next door neighbour LW Stevens owned a plantation called Enbaubo.
LW Stevens had survived the Mount Lamington explosion though his Jeep had not.
By 1957 he had acquired another Jeep which was used to drive into Popondetta a nearby town sometimes giving a lift to friends of his who worked on DS Wylie’s Sangara Plantation.
LW Steven’s house was close to the plantation’s boundaries and for some time he would drive through the Sangara plantation (it was unfenced) to get to the government road.
Until the 7th of September 1957. On that day LW Stevens drove along the Sangara Plantation Road until he came to a barricade with a sign ‘No admittance’. DW Wylie was entertaining visitors at his house a short distance away. LW Stevens asked him to remove the barricade. No dice.
During the next week LW Stevens cleared a track from the boundary to Sangara Plantation Road. The cleared track ended at the boundary where tyre tracks had guided the way though the Sangara plantation to the government road.
On the 14th of September LW Stevens drove with some friends to Popondetta. As lawyers would say, his licence to drive through the Sangara plantation had been revoked. He was a trespasser but he drove through anyway.
As soon as LW Stevens had gone, DS Wylie sprang to action. He gathered up his wife and a couple of workers and headed to where the track entered his plantation.
Carefully he supervised the building of a ditch across the tyre marks that he knew LW Stevens would follow. The ditch was 12 foot long, 3 foot wide and 3 foot (about a metre) deep. Then DS Wylie ordered that the ditch he covered with leaves so that it was invisible. The trap was set.
It was 2am when LW Stevens set off to drive his friends back to their homes. In his Jeep. Off he went down the newly cleared track to the boundary. Without stopping he followed the tyre marks. It was a dark night. Bang. The Jeep fell into the pit. LW Stevens was injured. His friends, though shaken were not. The Jeep was significantly damaged.
D S Wylie had got his message across well and truly. No admittance to the Sangara Plantation. No short cuts.
No doubt he was for a time, pleased at his effort. The trap had worked perfectly and had caught the Jeep. There would be no more trespassing onto Sangara property by his erstwhile friend.
However LW Stevens sued DS Wylie in the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea. The judge held that L.W Stevens was a trespasser and entitled to no separate duty of care.
But deliberately setting a trap by digging a ditch where DS Wylie knew that his neighbour would come was beyond the pale. DS Wylie was not entitled to create a retributive danger.
LW Stevens recovered damages for his minor injuries and for the repair on his Jeep.
Despite DS Wylie’s best efforts the Sangara rubber plantation was wound up in 1962. (adapted from Stevens v Wylie (1959) PGSC 25).
