Auckland resident Peter Fuller claimed he was harassed by the Eagle helicopter, mainly at night. Photo / Huia Volunteer Fire Brigade
Auckland resident Peter Fuller claimed he was harassed by the Eagle helicopter, mainly at night. Photo / Huia Volunteer Fire Brigade
Peter Fuller claims police harassed him by flying the Eagle helicopter over his home.
He tried to trespass the chopper from flying over a large part of Auckland before seeking more than $1 million in damages, alleging trespass and misconduct by police.
Justice Christine Grice deemed the case meritless and vexatious, highlighting its abuse of process.
A man alleged police waged a three-year-long campaign of intimidation against him by using the Eagle helicopter to harass him.
Peter Fuller wanted more than $1 million in damages for what he claimed were trespass breaches, expenses, “countless hours of time consumed” and “past, present and continual misconduct”.
But, the High Court didn’t buy it and now the Court of Appeal has also dismissed his claims.
Fuller claimed a campaign of harassment began the same day he challenged jurisdiction in the Waitākere District Court and successfully had 25 outstanding community work hours dismissed after he had refused to complete them on the grounds of “learning and understanding my inalienable human rights under God’s law being Common Law”.
Fuller took proceedings against the Waitākere Area Controller Sonny Patel. He claimed Patel provided a “generic excuse” that police were pursuing someone involved in a burglary when challenged about why the Auckland helicopter was flying over Fuller’s home.
A High Court decision said Fuller appeared to have moved to another address to avoid further aerial intrusions by the helicopter. But within three days, he claimed it had “resumed its previous pattern of appearance at my new address and no longer visited my previous address”.
As a result, Fuller said he created a “tailor-made trespass notice to the New Zealand Police Corporation” specifically addressing the Eagle helicopter crew, which included the air zone above his address.
Attached to his statement of claim was a series of exhibits, one of which was an aerial map purporting to show the flight path of the Eagle helicopter on specified occasions in a single day.
Various documents that purported to be trespass notices addressed to police were also presented.
Police received multiple complaints from Auckland resident Peter Fuller about the Eagle helicopter. Photo / Michael Craig
Justice Simon Moore said in a High Court decision that it was difficult to follow Fuller’s statement of claim, his complaints regarding the helicopter, as well as various other complaints to the police area commander and Independent Police Conduct Authority alleging police harassment.
The decision said Fuller had served trespass notices on police and they had not complied with them. He had then reported the breaches of the notices to police for them to investigate.
The statement of claim had not set out anything that amounted to a legal cause of action, other than a specified tort for past, present and continual misconduct in the prayer for relief.
In addition, the trespass notices sought to restrain police from entering the airspace, not only above Fuller’s address in Waitākere, but also Avondale, New Lynn, Takapuna, Newmarket, Ōtāhuhu, North Shore, Massey, Manukau, Papakura, Onehunga, Northcote, Glenfield, Mission Bay, and Ellerslie.
Justice Moore noted that even if there was a power to restrain the police from entering the airspace above Fuller’s address, which there was not, the trespass notice effectively covered the whole of the greater Auckland metropolitan area, “highlighting the absurdity of the proceedings and reinforcing the inescapable and plain conclusion the proceedings amount to an abuse of process”.
The appropriate defendant was found to be the Attorney-General, sued on behalf of police, and not Patel, while the defendant was not required to file a defence to claims that were not legally available against him.
It would be “manifestly unfair for the defendant to have to respond to such as a meritless and vexatious case”, Justice Moore ruled.
“Right-thinking people would regard this court as exercising poor and ineffective control of its processes if it were to allow the plaintiff’s documents to be treated as proper documents for filing.”
Justice Christine Grice, in the recently released Court of Appeal decision, said the proceeding was not able to be salvaged and was “meritless and vexatious”, as the High Court had earlier indicated.
“We consider it would be manifestly unfair to the respondents that they be required to respond.
“We also agree with the judge that right-thinking people would regard the High Court as exercising poor and ineffective control of its processes if it were to allow the plaintiff’s documents to be treated as proper documents for filing.”
A police spokesperson said the Eagle helicopter played a vital role every day in helping to keep Auckland communities safe.
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the HC Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of Cook Islands News.
