Compensation for trumped-up charge
Five years ago, high profile lawyer Adam Houda was arrested at Burwood Local Court on a trumped-up assault charge by police. On October 25, he received $145,000 compensation, plus interest.
The lawyer, who currently represents the former Guantanamo detainee, Mamdouh Habib, successfully sued police for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.
Acting justice Harvey Cooper said that the arresting police officer, Constable Stebbing, “well knew that that offence had not been committed and that he was motivated to do so solely out of spite, or ill will towards the plaintiff [Houda] because the plaintiff had stood up to his unjustified, menacing and rude conduct”.
“I am comfortably satisfied that Constable Stebbing was enraged that the plaintiff told him to mind his own business and, instead of ending the interlude, he told the plaintiff to fuck off”, acting justice Cooper said.
Osama bin Laden targets Liverpool?
Police were disappointed, yet again, when the combined forces of international terrorism failed to find Australia on the map, let alone make it the target of fundamentalist anger.
Two suitcases, both harmless, were responsible for the evacuation of 200 passengers at Liverpool train station, in Sydney’s south west, on October 28.
Members of the Liverpool Local Area Command, the Campbelltown Commuter Crime Unit and the New South Wales Counter-Terrorism Unit caused havoc, closing down the station between 3.50pm and 5.50pm.
Offensive?
“Youse are fucked”, a drunk pedestrian told police on July 18, while he looked at them through the windscreen of a marked police bus.
On October 17, NSW local magistrate, Pat O’Shane, dismissed the charge of offensive language against 27-year-old Rufus Richardson, saying that foul language “was to be expected on George Street, [Sydney] at that time of night”.
The magistrate awarded Richardson more than $2600 in legal costs, ruling that he should not have been arrested or charged in the first place, according to the October 18 Australian.
The NSW Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, is seeking an appeal against the acquittal.
For a discussion of what people in NSW can say to the police, see Police v Butler [2003] NSW Local Court, at < http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lcjudgments/nswlc.nsf/5727e65c31f4925c4a256cf50003b369/b10f03fb16745a2a4a256d97002e05f6?OpenA HREF="mailto:Document"><Document>.
Dale Mills
From Green Left Weekly, November 9, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
