By SCOTT INGLIS
A former mental patient who had an alleged 16-year obsession with a woman has accepted a cash offer from the Crown after police unlawfully searched his car.
Aucklander John David McVeagh sued police for $90,000, claiming an officer unlawfully searched his car during a routine traffic stop in December 1998.
The policeman found pepper spray and an axe-handle. He arrested Mr McVeagh, who spent the night in the Auckland central police cells.
He sued, saying the search breached his rights and was illegal. The Crown offered to settle by paying him a confidential sum of money, which he accepted last Friday.
Mr McVeagh was known to police before that night, having served time in Lake Alice psychiatric hospital and prison for convictions relating to an alleged 16-year obsession with a woman.
The police patrol had randomly stopped him near Karangahape Rd on December 15 and breath-tested him.
He was found to be sober, his car was warranted and registered, he was not on bail or parole, nor was he under any mental health orders or medication. He was also the car's registered owner.
He says that to his knowledge he was nowhere near the woman he allegedly harassed.
But after confirming his identity and record with police control, the officer demanded that Mr McVeagh open his car's back hatch. The search was under the pretext of checking his spare tyre kit under the Transport Act.
Mr McVeagh protested, but complied when asked again.
The constable found the axe-handle and pepper spray, and locked Mr McVeagh up for the night.
Several months later, Mr McVeagh pleaded guilty to possessing the pepper spray, a restricted weapon, and was convicted and discharged. A charge over the axe-handle was withdrawn.
In his statement of claim, he said he suffered trauma and stress from the police search and subsequent overnight imprisonment.
He also pointed out that under the Transport Act a car does not even need a spare tyre or kit.
"The police have conspired to have me falsely imprisoned before ... The police violated my rights under Article 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990 by searching my car without due cause."
The Auckland City police commander, Superintendent Howard Broad, said the case raised an important procedural issue, which would probably be addressed through training.
Mr McVeagh, a beneficiary, said he felt vindicated by the settlement and agreed that the policeman most likely became enthusiastic about searching his car after discovering who he was.
In 1984, he was committed to Lake Alice after being convicted of assaulting the woman with whom prosecutors alleged he was obsessed.
The Crown claimed he met the woman in an Auckland pub in 1977 and then began harassing her through letters, phone calls and unsolicited visits.
He was released in 1989, but sent back for threatening to harm a policeman and possessing an unlicensed firearm. He was finally discharged from Lake Alice on February 19, 1993.
Mr McVeagh resented being sent to Lake Alice and wrote to former MP Dr Hamish MacIntyre.
The Crown alleged that in the letter, he threatened to kill the woman, saying: "If I don't get $2 million compensation, there will be a bloodbath. I have the moral right to kill the people who conspired to kidnap me, starting with ... [the woman]."
Mr McVeagh was convicted of threatening to kill her and in May 1994 jailed for 15 months.
Yesterday, he denied harassing the woman, and said he was only ever accused of a technical, non-violent, non-sexual assault.
Mr McVeagh said he was suing the Crown for $20 million, claiming he was "deliberately, falsely" imprisoned at Lake Alice.
He said he was embroiled in legal issues over the case in the Court of Appeal.
There are 101 civil claims currently lodged against police, claiming a total of $46.5 million.
In the financial year to the end of June, 64 claims were settled in and out of court.
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