The Melbourne Age, 30th August
Take a millionaire architect, a couple of prominent QCs, a Real Housewives of Melbourne star and a $US4.7 million ($6.3 million) jet aircraft claimed to be a dud and what do you have? A Supreme Court trial scheduled to start at 10.30am on Monday.
Andrew Norbury, the millionaire architect and developer, is taking time out from his day job as the husband of Real Housewives of Melbourne star Lydia Schiavello to sue Textron Aviation over a Cessna jet he says is now un-airworthy.
To argue his case Norbury, whose Metier3 firm designed Seven17Bourke, home to Channel Nine and The Age, has enlisted Ian Freckelton QC, the Victoria Police lawyer who has acted for police giving evidence in the Lawyer X royal commission and conducted the City of Melbourne inquiry into sexual assault allegations against former lord mayor Robert Doyle.
US-based Textron has hired Hamish Austin QC, whose expertise in commercial litigation “has been recognised in the Victorian and Australian Senior Counsel rankings of Doyle’s Guide to the Australian Legal Profession”, according to his Victorian Bar profile.
Over the past month the lawyers have been discussing with Supreme Court Justice Peter Riordan if court times need to be rescheduled to hear evidence from US witnesses and if his honour can view the jet under COVID-safe conditions.
Norbury sued after an incident during a descent into Essendon Airport in 2011, when the 2007 Cessna Model 525 Citation CJ1+ jet made two uncommanded left turns, forcing the pilot to execute emergency manoeuvres. He said the incident left the jet defective and within its warranty period, but Cessna declined to replace the aircraft.
Norbury is rarely seen on the Foxtel reality television program, but his wife has boasted of using the private jet to fly to Thredbo every weekend during the ski season.