Wednesday 6 November 2013

NSW O'Farrell Government and Metgasco Limited - implications regarding possible political interference and unethical or corrupt behaviour


The Northern Star 6 November 2013

The Northern Star 6 November 2013:

A magistrate has questioned whether charges brought against a group of anti-CSG protesters were politically motivated and accused the police of being vexatious in pursuing them.
Magistrate David Heilpern has dismissed charges against Alan Roberts and Bradley Rankin and written a scathing judgment, accusing the police of "an abuse of the processes of the court".
The case was in relation to a protest against Metgasco drilling at Glenugie in January. Up to 30 people were charged with obstructing a driver. To save time, a deal was done between the prosecution, defence and the court to make the case against Roberts and Rankin a test case.
But according to Alan Roberts, police withdrew the charges of "unreasonably obstruct a vehicle" just hours before the six-month limitation expired, without informing the defendants or the court.
"Presumably because there were no vehicles anywhere close (by) to obstruct," he said.
A new charge "attempt to obstruct a vehicle" was laid instead.
Mr Heilpern said it was the first time he had seen a charge of "attempting to commit a traffic offence" and likened it to attempting to not wear a seat belt.
"In this case I find myself asking what could possibly be the reason for continuing on with such an innocuous charge in these circumstances? Why else would police risk cost orders against them, drive a prosecutor up from Sydney to run the matters, arrange police witnesses to travel from Sydney, all for an innocuous minor traffic matter.
"It is in that context that the realistic suspicion of political interference arises," he said.....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is all the LNP know how to do, call up vexatious charges, haul the people before the courts and then the judges say that it is politically motivated....does Peter Slipper ring a bell???

Unknown said...

This government is making up the rules as they go along. All they want to do is rake in the $$$ without any concern of the consequences to the environment. They are looking after themselves and their rich mates, god help the rest of us