Thursday 29 January 2015

There was an interesting case

up in the Supreme Court recently.
A local businessman was pulled over by the police. He was not breaking any traffic rules but the "tint" on his car windows was "too dark".
This should have been a simple matter of advising someone that this was the case, asking them to get it fixed and - if thought necessary - following up to see that it was done. It could all have been handled pleasantly and well. It wasn't.
The owner of the car put in a complaint about the way the incident was handled. He alleged one of the two policemen had assaulted him.
The issue was complicated by the fact that the police use service stations owned by the man who was stopped. He knows very senior people in the police force and he complained to them. Who wouldn't?
Even then the complaint should have been handled in a lower court. Was there a case to answer? What were the circumstances?
It went further. A QC defended the policeman - paid for by the police union. They claimed he was a hero. He was not convicted and the judge went as far as to say that the case had wasted two weeks of court time.
And then, the following day,  we learned an injunction was served on the state newspaper preventing them from now publishing anything further - about the policeman.
The injunction was lifted the day before yesterday. Yesterday morning the paper has published some details about previous complaints made about the way this policeman has "controlled" incidents.
It came as no surprise to me. A local man had complained earlier about a similar incident. He said he had not put in a formal complaint but now wishes he had.
I wonder what has been going on. Getting a QC to handle a case of minor assault seems strange to me. It is the sort of thing much more likely to be handled by a competent barrister who does criminal work.
Can anyone explain?
 

2 comments:

Helen Devries said...

Is the policeman in the masons?

catdownunder said...

interesting thought - but probably not. The QC was a woman which makes the Masonic connection unlikely.