Bent Cops

Constable Cullum McGillivray and his Sergeant Gary Patterson refused to prosecute Britton for his assault on Sandra at Willis St. saying that she and our two boys were not credible witnesses. The true reason for not proceeding was the police didn’t want to spoil their malicious prosecution of me by convicting Britton of a crime directly related to the shooting charges they had brought against me. (The “destroying” of the 111 tape recording proves that it was malicious)

When we made a private prosecution for his assault on Sandra and the boys at Willis St. against Britton, the presiding Judge,Tony Willy, had no concerns about the credibility of the Van Der Lubbe witnesses saying, “I think first I should deal with the evidence and make my findings of fact and credibility. There are three witnesses for the informant, that is, Mrs. Van Der Lubbe and her two sons Luke and Daniel. The evidence of the two boys corroborates in every material particular the evidence given by Mrs. Van Der lubbe. None of the witnesses were in Court when evidence was being given by another. There is no suggestion that the witnesses have in anyway connived to present an untrue account to this Court and I approach the matter in that way.”

That wasn’t good enough for the New Zealand Police though. They still maintained that we were a bunch of liars trying to use them for our own dastardly ends.

And after Britton had made another one of his insane, rambling, raves in defence of the indefensible the Judge convicted him of threatening language after ignoring the stone throwing evidence and watering down our assault charge. (Sympathy for the obvious nutter.) Britton responded to the verdict by threatening to “get” our lawyer Mr. Brosnahan . The judge heard the threat but did nothing.

That wasn’t the end of the matter though, Britton appealed the conviction, had another mad rave, but Judge Herron told him “there was ample evidence on which the Judge (Willy) could find Britton guilty of an offence” (so much for the corrupt cop’s position) and that the High Court had more important things to attend to and dismissed the appeal. Britton didn’t like that outcome either. First he flung his seat back in a fit of rage and he then stormed out of the Court shouting, “I want justice.” And what did the farcical PCA make of the matter? He said that the Police “enjoyed” a discretion in the laying of charges and that in this case they clearly exercised (enjoyed abusing) that discretion.

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Constable McGillivray advised Britton to plead not guilty to the charge of trespass (19/5/1992) that he brought and to tell the judge that it was “urgent” that he get his table and chairs from our property. Here are a couple of gems from the usual mental rave that Britton said in his defence. “Early in the morning Sandra Van Der Lubbe came round to the shed I am living in. I was still in bed. She threw a piece of paper on the workshop bench next to the stereo and screeched this is a trespass notice, you are not coming onto my land and started to try and upset me by calling me names. My immediate thought was what the hell is going on, what is this stupid……..but I contained myself and said do not be fucking stupid. You know I told Jack I would be up there today. She kept her raving and insults until I finally jumped out of bed, covering my knackers. She said, you are not getting anything on my land along with further insults. I said, like fucking hell, I am going to get my stuff now. She said, no you are not and more insults and you do not scare me. Which I thought was very funny since I had not tried as yet. Another thing I thought was pretty strange was as she nutted off she kept looking at my prick area. It is not a normal thing to do. (What would that pervert know about “normal”?)

And when Judge Watson gave his verdict he said this. The Defendant in his sworn evidence has given his account of the dispute between the parties. It is clear from that account that certainly some of his “gear” relating to farm activities remained on this property. It may well have been that he had been given, as he says, a verbal agreement to go onto the property whenever he wished. That verbal agreement was revoked from the time he received the trespass notice. Any further entry on to the property had then to be negotiated by, or with the consent of the occupiers. I think the position is fairly and properly put by Mr. Britton when he says that he thought the notice was a lot of guff and he had determined that he would go onto the property at such time as was suitable to him or such purpose as was convenient to him principally to recover items which were still on the property. However they certainly did not fall within Section 4(5) (b) that it was necessary for him to go on to the property because of some emergency. None of those items were urgent; and it is clear to me from the evidence of Mrs Van Der Lubbe that it had been already covered with Mr. Britton had he cared to listen, that she was willing to have other people come onto the property provided it was not Mr. Britton. I think if Mr. Britton had been more concerned about what was being said to him rather than what his nightwear was covering, he might have understood quite clearly what was happening to him. This is a case where these circumstances it is clearly established that a valid trespass notice was properly served on Mr. Britton. He then trespassed on the property in defiance of that notice and I have no doubt that he was aware of the notice and its affect and I equally have no doubt that he had no intention of complying with that notice. Again with that scenario that there was a wilful trespass by Mr. Britton and he must accordingly be convicted.

His Honour then slapped him on the wrist with a $100 fine.

Britton never again used that “looking at my prick area” allegation in his later raves but he did say this in a later Brief of Evidence. ‘I then got a lift to a neighbours house and telephoned the Police. Mr. Van Der Lubbe was charged in connection with the shooting but was acquitted by a jury apparently because he said he believed I was going there to rape his daughter.’ Britton heard every word of my defence argument in Court and he knows I don’t have a daughter. He swore to and signed that Brief. Now, is he mental or not? Should he be treated as a potentially armed nutter with murder/suicide on his perverted mind?

The original Judge (WILLY) was wrong when he reduced the assault charge to threatening words and the real reason Britton appealed the conviction was because he thought he would get his firearms licence back if the conviction was overturned, demented fool that he is.

LINK

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Sex case police in probe

11.09.2004

The Police Complaints Authority is investigating after Motueka police refused to take a woman’s case of sexual abuse to court and it was later proven in a private prosecution.

The woman’s 68-year-old stepfather was convicted on eight charges of indecent assault after the Crown adopted her case.

After a jury trial last November, the stepfather was sentenced to three years in jail.

He had sexually assaulted her at least once a week for 10 years – between 1964 and 1974 – from the time she was five until she was 16.

The woman said she had spent tens of thousands of dollars to take her case to court.

She wants a formal apology from the police and an acknowledgment they discriminated against her.

The woman laid a complaint with the Motueka police in 1995.

In the five years that followed, police refused to take her case to court, saying there was a lack of corroborating evidence.

Detective Derek Milne, who has since left the police, wrote to the woman this year giving nine the reasons for the case not being taken up.

They included her employment as a prostitute between 1981 and 1983, the incidents of abuse described as lasting 90 minutes or longer being an “unusually long time”, and her apparent “over-interest in matters of sexual abuse accompanied by unrealistic expectations about the investigations that take place”.

Inspector John Winter, of Nelson police, also wrote to the woman in July this year, reiterating the reasons given by Mr Milne and saying the case had been sent to the police legal office in Christchurch.

Using the Solicitor-General’s guidelines to determine the question of prosecution, police had also decided there was not enough evidence for a prima facie case.

“Given the successful prosecution of your stepfather by the Crown, it is easy to say that the police made the wrong decisions, but even the Crown Solicitor was not confident of success, knowing the predisposition by Nelson juries not to convict without corroboration,” he said.

The woman said that the first time police turned down her case, she was “absolutely devastated”.

“The system needs to change so women who make a complaint are believed and the police do not act like judge and jury.”

After police refused for a third time to act, the woman took a private prosecution.

At a depositions hearing, Justices of the Peace found there was enough evidence to warrant the case going to trial.

The case was then taken up by the Crown.

The jury only took two hours to find the man guilty.

“It has been absolutely appalling. I have had to go through so much and am still fighting,” the woman said.

The Police Complaints Authority complaint was laid last week.

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Police Complaints Credibility in Crisis Thursday, April 01, 2004

The credibility of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is under serious threat. The simmering public discontent at the role and function of the authority that has been bubbling along for a number of years has reached a level that cannot be ignored.

That is why the Green Party opposed the reappointment of Justice Borrin as the head of the PCA last week. It was not an attack on his personal integrity. It was simply recognising the massive problem faced by the PCA and the urgent need for a fresh start.

The government has recognised this with the introduction of the Independent Police Complaints Authority Bill to parliament. That bill is an attempt to reassure the public about the independence of the authority, and to try to put some investigative grunt into it.

Those changes have now been put on hold while we await the outcome of the inquiry into the investigation of rape allegations against the police, and into the police culture current at the time of those allegations. The Greens hope that further changes needed to the PCA legislation will come out of those investigations.

I had the chance to question Judge Borrin at a Select Committee hearing last year. What worried me was that there was no acceptance by him that public unease is anything more than a problem of perception. He refused to accept that there is a substantive problem with the way the Authority conducts its investigations.

Those problems may not be of the Authorities making. The legislation governing the PCA and the significant resource constraints it has faced has meant that complaints against the police are conducted by police officers, often work colleagues and personal friends of the complainee.

It is no surprise that people have formed the conclusion that complaining about the police is a waste of time because it just means “police investigating their mates”. That is pretty much exactly what it means.

For Judge Borrin to believe that this is simply a problem of perception, rather than a significant and systemic bias is a bit of a worry.

Added to those problems is the massive backlog in investigating complaints with delays of such length that investigation seems pointless when it finally comes around. Green MP Keith Locke has been waiting for four and a half years for a judgement relating to police treatment of protests against a visiting Chinese leader in 1999.

Following the inquiry into the treatment of the rape allegations, the new legislation will finish its passage through parliament. With the reconfigured PCA, the new Independent Police Complaints Authority, it is important that a new culture develop within the authority. The authority must have the confidence of the public, and it must hold that confidence. That is why a new head is needed.

Generating public confidence will be hard enough in any event, as finding experienced investigators who are able to conduct inquiries but are neither serving police or ex-police, will be difficult. The only hope the new authority has of holding public confidence is by demonstrating a confident and courageous approach to investigations of complaints against the police.

We like to believe that the New Zealand police is largely free of systemic or institutionalised financial corruption, unlike some of our neighbours in the region. The police have, however, been accused of institutional racism, sexism, bullying, falsifying evidence and intimidatory tactics and those accusations have sometimes been proven.

Of equal concern is that there appears to be a strong cover-up culture in the police. If we want a police force that is largely free of corruption, the only way of achieving that is to vigorously investigate and deal with any examples of it.

We cannot rely on the police to do that. The natural response of the police, as with any professional body, is to give the benefit of the doubt to its own members. That is why a strong, independent, and vigorous Police Complaints Authority is essential. It’s a matter of trust.

http://www.nandor.net.nz/journal/2004/04/police-complaints-credibility-in.php