By Alex Cooper
MELBOURNE — Jeremy Dixon, who describes himself as an anarcho-syndicalist, is trying to wage a legal war against Section 464Q of the Crimes Act of Victoria, which gives police the widest powers to collect fingerprints. He is trying to challenge a police warrant to collect his fingerprints.
His story begins last year at one of the big anti-Gulf War demonstrations here, when he was arrested for "hindering police". There had been a fairly harmless altercation between the main demonstration and a smaller counter-demonstration, but police arrested three antiwar demonstrators, including Dixon.
The police sergeant who charged him at the station said: "I'm a bit of an anarchist myself, mate, when I don't like some cunt, I punch his head in". As there was a lawyer present, Dixon managed to decline to give his fingerprints, as was his right.
Several months later Dixon and the other demonstrators were convicted of "hindering police", and the police applied to the magistrate for a warrant to collect Dixon's fingerprints. The magistrate was not convinced that "hindering police" was an offence covered by Section 464Q and granted an adjournment to an unspecified date this year.
Time rolled on, and Dixon changed address but still collected mail from his address at the time of his arrest. He never received notice of a hearing date. Unknown to him, a hearing took place on January 16, and the police obtained a fingerprinting warrant and a warrant for his arrest.
Seven months later, Dixon was sitting in a pizza parlour in Fitzroy after work when he was confronted by what appeared to him to be two thugs. They turned out to be the sergeant who had originally arrested him and another policeman. Both were off duty and in plain clothes. One of these men kept Dixon in the pizza parlour while the other went to get the warrant. He returned with a police van and more police.
Dixon said he wanted to see a lawyer at the nearby Fitzroy Legal Service, which was open at the time. But when he moved towards the door he was thrown to the floor by the police, one of whom "enthusiastically twisted my arm". He was handcuffed and taken to Fitzroy police station, where he was forcibly strip-searched.
Despite feeling very intimidated, Dixon refused to give his fingerprints, explaining that he had not known of the hearing for the fingerprinting warrant. So he was charged again with "hindering police", refused bail and spent the night in the police cells. The bail justice said to him: "If you have nothing to hide, why don't you give your fingerprints?". Dixon referred to the Tim Anderson frame-up, and this seemed to embarrass the justice and the desk sergeant.
The next day he was taken to the courts, strip-searched again and brought before a magistrate. Fortunately, the legal aid lawyer who had represented him in the first instance was there on another case, and Dixon was allowed to appeal against the fingerprinting warrant. He was released only on condition that he report weekly to the police.
Months later his case is lost somewhere in the mess that is the "justice" system. He is eager to challenge the police's power to collect fingerprints of virtually anyone simply on the easily levelled but trivial charge of "hindering police". He also hopes to build a movement to help people defend themselves before the courts, something which is practically impossible at present. But with legal aid bodies overstretched, many people are falling victims to police abuses of power, he said.