Search warrant use challenged

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33655, 3 October 1974, Page 14

Search warrant use challenged

-.•S (.Veto Zealand Press Association) I AUCKLAND, October 2. An implication that the use of search warrants to seize patients’ files from doctors was common police procedure was not correct, Dr G. J. Ogg, a spokesman for the Bexley clinic, said today.

t The commander of the ’ Auckland police district [ (Assistant Commissioner G. t Tait) had been reported as > saying that it was a routine . police procedure to look . into the medical and psychi- • atric background of both the ; accused and the person • killed in cases of homicide, said Dr Ogg. The use of the search warrant at the Bexley clinic implied that the use of search warrants to authorise the seizure of such files was routine. “In the experience of the clinic, this is not correct,” he said. “Over the last 12 years since this clinic was opened, there had not been one case, until last week, in which a search warrant was used to authorise the seizure : of a patient’s file in any of i

' about three dozen cases of ; homicide or any other . crimes.” ’ The police had two alter- ' natives to the use of a search warrant in such a case, he 1 said. A medical report could be obtained with the permission of the patient, or the doctor could be compelled, by use of a subpoena, to attend a court and present his records to a magistrate or a judge. “The use of a search warrant has hitherto been found quite unnecessary,” he said. Dr Ogg asked Mr Tait to state publicly that, until last week, no search warrant had ever been used to seize files from the Bexley clinic. Mr Tait would not com-' ment today on the use of the I search warrant. .