NZ: Police acts 'verging on criminal'

This is yet another case of abuse of police power – the other major examples being the Urerewa terror raids in 2007 and the arrest of Kim Dotcom at the bahest of the FBI.

This time the police have used fake charges to pull the wool over the eyes of a motorcycle gang and the court system.

Gang case thrown out over false arrest

Stuff,

24 October, 2012

A judge has thrown out a case against Nelson Red Devils Motorcycle Club members, saying police actions using a fake search warrant and false charges against an undercover officer were a "serious misuse of the court".

In a decision today, Justice France issued a stay of proceedings on drugs and other charges against 21 people, including counts of participating in an organised criminal group against 10 club members.

"I see the actions of the police in this case as involving serious misuse of the court, and a troubling misunderstanding of its functions," the judge said.

Lawyers for the Red Devils had applied to have the charges thrown out. They argued police abused judicial process when they arrested an undercover officer, who went by the assumed name of Michael Wiremu Wilson, in Nelson in 2010.

Wilson had infiltrated the Red Devils and police argued his staged arrest was necessary as he was under threat and his arrest would enhance his appearance of criminality.

Wilson's storage unit in Motueka was searched, with a fake search warrant, and he was later arrested outside the Red Devils' Nelson headquarters. He was charged with possessing equipment to cultivate cannabis.

Judges and staff at Nelson District Court, along with some police officers in Nelson did not know the charges were fake.

In March last year police raided the Red Devils headquarters in Natalie St, using a digger to smash their way into the property. A total of 37 people were arrested at the headquarters and in a series of raids across the top of the South Island.

They were the culmination of what police said was an 18-month-long undercover operation into the gang, called Operation Explorer.

Justice France said the court's processes had been abused in a "significant way" by the police.

"The fake search warrant was used in circumstances where it was falsely represented to a member of the public that it had been issued by a judicial officer.

"The false charges involved the searing of a false oath, and then further opportunistic abuse of the court's processes."

He said he was suprised by the lack of insight by the officers about inappropriateness of making up a fake search warrant pretending and using it on a member of the public.

He said it reflected the police's lack of a hard look at the reality of what they were doing and "too ready assumption that the police perspective was correct".

Justice France said while police had not acted in bad faith and believed they had a right to act as they had that state of mind was due to a lack of external advice and a lack of proper scrutiny.

He said while the charges against the 21 were serious, they needed to be kept in perspective.

He said the drug allegations were at the lower end of the scale, many related to the sharing or selling of drugs amongst each other or to visitors to the club house.

He expected police would as a consequence of this judgement change their practices and he doubted a false charge would be sworn against an under cover officer.

"I see the actions of the police in this case as involving a serious misuse of the court, and a troubling misunderstanding of its functions."

In August Judge Chris Tuhoy threw out minor charges, under the Sale of Liquor Act, against 28 guests found at the Red Devil's clubrooms in August 2010.

Judge Tuhoy said police used "unlawful and unnecessary" force to chainsaw their way into the Red Devils' Nelson headquarters and obtained evidence improperly by breaching the defendants' rights in that operation, which pre-dated the termination of Operation Explorer.

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