Police ‘filter’ wanted

Press, 17 March 1977, Page 4

Police ‘filter’ wanted

PA ' Wanganui Top officiali of the Police Association have called for a system to “filter” complaints laid against the police after the dismissal in the Magistrate's Court at Wanganui of assault charges laid against two constables.

Mr J. C. K. Fabian, S.M., dismissed charges of assault against Trevor Colin Smith and Fergus Andrew Mackay, who had pleaded not guilty to assaulting a man on December 31.

The charges arose from an incident near the complainant’s home when police were called after an argument broke out between neighbours.

The Magistrate said that he was of the opinion that the account given of the incident by the constables was far more realistic than the evidence given by the prosecution.

The Police Association’s v i c e-president, SeniorSergeant D. S. Boyd, of Wanganui, and the national secretary, Dr R. A. Moodie, condemned the ease with which people could now lay informations against members of the police which later

proved to be unsubstantiated. Doctor Moodie said that he would ask the Commissioner of Police (Mr K. B. Bumside) to take up with the Government the question of protecting members of the police from "unnecessary harassment." Doctor Moodie said that that his association did not object to policemen being answerable to the law and courts — but officers were vulnerable to "malicious or unfounded prosecutions,” something which he said had happened In the Wanganui case.

“I believe the imposition of a filter between the complaint and the laying of an information will avoid a lot of hardship for both prospective prosecutors and policemen,” he said. He had always considered the Solicitor-General should do this job.

Each police and traffic prosecution was preceeded by careful vetting.

"Is it too much to ask that private prosecutions against policemen be subjected to the same process?” he said. Mr Boyd said that informations could now be laid against members of the police “almost at will," without being required to be justified before any qualified law authority or body.

Cases such as the one in Wanganui caused unnecessary anxiety to the police and their families. One of the constables involved in the case had been on his honeymoon.