Court Appearances “At Discretion Of Police”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31322, 18 March 1967, Page 14

Court Appearances “At Discretion Of Police”

Whether a person was brought before the Court immediately after < arrest or whether he appealed at the next sitting was at the discretion of the police, said Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., the senior magistrate in Christchurch, yesterday. This was so only where cases were tried summarily. Mr Lee was commenting on a recent case in Christchurch in which defence counsel, Mr A. P. C. Tipping, protested because a youth arrested at 2 p.m. one day was held in the cells overnight and not brought before the Court until next morning. Mr Tipping said that to hold the youth in custody was contrary to the spirit of the Crimea Act. Mr Lee said that no application was made to the Court to have the youth appear on the afternoon of his arrest. It was not necessary to bring the youth before the Court for him to be released on bail. The police had full power to allow bail to any arrested person before a court appearance provided it was a summary offence. Mr Lee said he was well aware that arrested persons should appear before a court as soon as possible after arrest, but that meant at the first reasonable opportunity. “Entirely for Police”

His comment, he said, was in no way critical of the decision by the police not to allow bail for the youth. The matter of bail was entirely one for the police. It could well have been that the police were well justified in this case, as the offence was very prevalent among young people. On occasion, arrested persons did appear in court on the same day they were arrested, said Mr Lee, but this was not always practicable. He cited the position in the Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, when 15 witnesses were waiting to give evi-

dence. To have delayed them all while a person who might have been facing a number of charges was brought before the Court would have been unreasonable, he said. The Court had never objected to a late arrest appearing before it immediately, provided this could reasonably be done. Mr Lee said that only recently he had given instructions to the registrar to write to the police telling them that arrested persons were not to be brought before the Court on the day of arrest unless there were special reasons. “The reason for thia was the congestion in the courts and the difficulties magistrates experience in dealing with a case where persons had already been brought before the Court for hearing the same day,” he said.