Man discharged

Press, 13 March 1987, Page 7

Man discharged

After what his counsel, Mr M. J. Glue, termed “a threat that never was,” a man was discharged in the District Court yesterday of a charge alleging the intimidation of a prospective witness to an assault.

The defendant, Raymond David Brown, aged 27, unemployed, was discharged by Mrs C. M. Holmes and Mr C. W. Crawford, Justices of the Peace, after the preliminary hearing of a charge that on January 27 he wilfully attempted to pervert the course of justice by threatening Stanley Cooper. Sergeant K. J. Morrison prosecuted. Mr Cooper, a driver, gave evidence that on January 5 he accompanied another man to the police station as a witness to an incident with two other persons.

On January 24, as he left a dairy in Hoon Hay Road, Brown approached him and asked if he knew anything about the matter coming to court.

Mr Cooper told Brown that the other man had made a complaint to the police.

Brown had replied that if Mr Cooper heard anything about the court case, if he was going to court he (Brown) would call round to see him. Brown said he knew where Mr Cooper lived. Mr Cooper said he told his wife when he arrived home and she suggested he call the police. He said he felt all right about the matter, and was not frightened.

Cross-examined, Mr Cooper said he did not regard himself as being threatened, when Brown spoke to him. He agreed the reason he went to the police was because of what his wife suggested.

He said he was not frightened about it at all. Mr Glue, successfully seeking a discharge, referred to the incident as a threat that never was.

More court news, Page 8.