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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4774 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

I will briefly go through the letter. It is about traffic charges brought against a certain person. The letter goes on:

The only two persons to give evidence in the hearing were the police informant and -

I will not identify the person. It continues:

In his summing up of the matter, Magistrate Nichol made the following comments:

"There ... really is a major difference between ... the two witnesses ... There was a time when I think that police officers felt that the courts ought to be acceptable to, be able to accept their evidence and to find a case proved, if the Constable or the police officer had given evidence, that if true, covered the ingredients of the offences, and but if a court were to proceed on the basis that in the absence of some reason to have some doubts about the veracity of a police officer, the case should be found proved ..."

He went on to say later:

It's sad to say of course that in very much recent times the royal commission into police conduct in NSW has even involved some members of the AFP, have shown that there are occasions when there are police officers unfortunately don't tell the truth.

The magistrate dismissed the charges. Mr Speaker, I do not particularly want to speak about the circumstances of the case; rather I want to speak about the inference drawn by Magistrate Nicholl. The association, in their letter, go on to say:

The Association, on behalf of its members around Australia, is astounded by these comments -

as I am. They go on:

Such an obscure comparison between a traffic matter in the ACT and historical corruption in the joint drugs task force in NSW in the early 1980's, is as ridiculous as us drawing a conclusion about ACT magistrates based on the proven corruption of former NSW Chief Magistrate Farquar, and the dismissal of three NSW magistrates for incompetence during the same period.

Apart from what appears to us to be inherent bias against police in the comments of Magistrate Nichol, the position he has adopted places AFP members and the government in a costly and potentially untenable situation. The practice of one-member patrols is surely redundant if police are to prove an offence before Magistrate Nichol, unless high technology surveillance and recording equipment is placed into every AFP vehicle in the ACT Region.

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