Police pay $800,000 after threats of legal action

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Payouts by the police to complainants threatening legal action leapt by more than one-third last year, to almost $800,000.

Police spokesman Jon Neilson disclosed that payments made in 2000-2001 totalled $797,246 compared with $582,250 the year before - a 37 per cent rise.

He was unable to explain the increase, but said the amount remained fairly modest against claims lodged by complainants for $19.1 million last year, and for $16.1 million in 1999-2000.

"We are a large organisation and it is just part of the business we are in," Mr Neilson said.

He said payments in some years included money given to former staff as well as to members of the public.

A payout of $10,000 to an Auckland lawyer who felt degraded by being searched outside Mt Eden Prison was just one of two extracted from the police in settlements which came to light last week.

North Shore lawyer John Mather said he hoped his defence of his rights would deter the police from infringing those of other people.

In the other settlement, eight young Palmerston North people are understood to have gained $71,000 after an armed offenders squad burst into a house in 1999, leaving one female occupant with stitches and two broken teeth.

Mr Mather initially sued the police for $80,000 for false imprisonment, unreasonable search and common assault, but accepted $10,000 before the case went to court.

He accused the police of exceeding their powers when they claimed the right to search him under the Penal Institutions Act, which he said applied only to prison officers.

The only other general power to search people was under the Misuse of Drugs Act or if someone consented to being searched.

Even prison officers had to give visitors a choice under the Penal Institutions Act between being searched on their way into a prison, or refusing and being turned away, Mr Mather said.

He chose the second option after calling to see a client in prison two years ago and watching in dismay as two other people in front of him were patted down and ordered to turn out their pockets in public view in the prison carpark.

As he returned to his car, two plain-clothed police officers stopped him and insisted on searching him in similar fashion while threatening to arrest him if he obstructed them.

This was even after he explained he was a lawyer, and identified himself with a business card.

Mr Mather said his motive in presenting his card was to show he had nothing to hide, rather than to seek special treatment, as he believed nobody should be treated with such indignity.

"It just seemed to me very Third World, getting people to empty their pockets in a carpark."

Cannabis law reform advocate Chris Fowlie has not considered suing police whom an Auckland District Court judge found had breached the Bill of Rights Act by searching him in Karangahape Rd at 1.30am in June last year.

Mr Fowlie, president of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was just relieved at the dismissal of a charge against him of possessing 0.7gm of cannabis - which he said was barely enough for half a cigarette.

But he was disappointed the police continued to search people on mere suspicion of breaches of the Misuse of Drugs Act, and had arrested another member of his group in a similar body search on Karangahape Rd two weeks ago.

Judge Phil Gittos said, in a reserved decision last month, that the police had no reason to suspect Mr Fowlie and a friend were doing anything illegal while saying goodbye after meeting for a cup of coffee.

This was despite evidence from a team policing unit member that she noticed a strong smell of cannabis.

The judge said there was an uncomfortable perception the police were "engineering opportunities to conduct personal searches of persons minding their own business, in a public street at random or on a purely speculative basis".

Mr Fowlie said the ruling had not deterred the police from arresting fellow activist Mike Harding, saying they could smell cannabis but not finding any apart from half a cigarette lying beside the motorway at the Karangahape Rd overbridge.