8 Comments »

1. 

   I am curious to know if costs were awarded against the private prosecutor?

   Awarding of costs is meant to be a deterrent to both police and private prosecutors bringing baseless cases to caught$. It is difficult for judges to maintain reasonable access to caught$, when different parties have widely differing economic resources, such as the average man against Government/police.

   UK Prosecution Policy and Guidance

   Crown Law (NZ) 6.5 THE PUBLIC INTEREST TEST

   THE PUBLIC INTEREST TEST
   6.5 Once a prosecutor is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a
   reasonable prospect of conviction, the next consideration is whether the
   public interest requires a prosecution. It is not the rule that all offences for
   which there are sufficient evidence must be prosecuted. Prosecutors must
   exercise their discretion as to whether a prosecution is required in the public
   interest.
   6.6 In a time honoured statement made in 1951 Sir Hartley Shawcross QC MP,
   the then United Kingdom Attorney-General, made the following statement to
   Parliament in relation to prosecutorial discretion:
   ‘It has never been the rule in this country “¦ that suspected criminal
   offences must automatically be subject of prosecution.’
   6.7 Broadly, the presumption is that the public interest requires prosecution where
   there has been a contravention of the criminal law. This presumption
   provides the starting point for consideration of each individual case. In some
   instances the serious nature of the case will make the presumption a very
   strong one. However, there will be circumstances in which, although the
   evidence is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction, the
   offence is not serious and prosecution is not required in the public interest.
   Prosecutors for instance should positively consider the appropriateness of any
   diversionary option (particularly if the defendant is a youth).
   6.8 The following section lists some public interest considerations for prosecution
   which may be relevant and require consideration by a prosecutor when
   determining where the public interest lies in any particular case. The following
   list is illustrative only.
   PUBLIC INTEREST CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROSECUTION
   6.8.1 The predominant consideration is the seriousness of the offence.
   Where a conviction is likely to result in a significant penalty including
   any confiscation order or disqualification, then there is a strong
   public interest for a prosecution;
   6.8.2 Where the defendant was in a position of authority or trust and the
   offence is an abuse of that position;
   6.8.3 Where the defendant was a ringleader or an organiser of the offence;

   6.8.4 Where the offence was premeditated;
   6.8.5 Where the offence was carried out by a group;
   6.8.6 Where the offence was carried out pursuant to a plan in pursuit of
   organised crime or was an offence involving serious or significant
   violence;
   6.8.7 Where the offence was motivated by hostility against a person
   because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religion,
   political beliefs, age, the office they hold, or similar factors;
   6.8.8 Where the offence is prevalent;
   6.8.9 Where the offence has resulted in serious financial loss to an
   individual, corporation, trust person or society;
   6.8.10 Where the offence was committed against a person serving the
   public, for example a doctor, nurse, member of the ambulance
   service, member of the fire service or a member of the police;
   6.8.11 Where the victim of the offence, or their family, has been put in fear,
   or suffered personal attack, damage or disturbance. The more
   vulnerable the victim, the greater the aggravation;
   6.8.12 Where there is a marked difference between the actual or mental ages
   of the defendant and the victim and where the defendant took
   advantage of this;
   6.8.13 Where there is any element of corruption;
   6.8.14 Where the defendant has previous convictions, diversions or cautions
   which are relevant;
   6.8.15 Where the defendant is alleged to have committed an offence whilst
   on bail, on probation, or subject to a suspended sentence or an order
   binding the defendant to keep the peace, or when released on parole
   from a prison or a place of detention or otherwise subject to a Court
   order;
   6.8.16 Where there are grounds for believing that the offence is likely to be
   continued or repeated, for example, where there is a history of
   recurring conduct.
   6.9 The following section lists some public interest considerations against
   prosecution which may be relevant and require consideration by a prosecutor
   when determining where the public interest lies in any particular case. The
   following list is illustrative only.

   PUBLIC INTEREST CONSIDERATIONS AGAINST PROSECUTION
   6.9.1 Where the Court is likely to impose a very small or nominal penalty;
   6.9.2 Where the loss or harm can be described as minor and was the result
   of a single incident, particularly if it was caused by an error of
   judgement or a genuine mistake;
   6.9.3 Where the offence is not on any test of a serious nature, and is
   unlikely to be repeated;
   6.9.4 Where there has been a long passage of time between an offence
   taking place and the likely date of trial such as to give rise to undue
   delay or an abuse of process unless:
   the offence is serious;
   delay has been caused in part by the defendant;
   the offence has only recently come to light; or
   the complexity of the offence has resulted in a lengthy
   investigation.
   6.9.5 Where a prosecution is likely to have a detrimental effect on the
   physical or mental health of a victim or witness;
   6.9.6 Where the defendant is elderly;
   6.9.7 Where the defendant is a youth;
   6.9.8 Where the defendant has no previous convictions;
   6.9.9 Where the defendant was at the time of the offence or trial suffering
   from significant mental or physical ill-health;
   6.9.10 Where the victim accepts that the defendant has rectified the loss or
   harm that was caused (although defendants must not be able to avoid
   prosecution simply because they pay compensation);
   6.9.11 Where the recovery of the proceeds of crime can more effectively be
   pursued by civil action;
   6.9.12 Where information may be made public that could
   disproportionately harm sources of information, international
   relations or national security;
   6.9.13 Where any proper alternatives to prosecution are available.
   6.10 These considerations are not comprehensive or exhaustive. The public
   interest considerations which may properly be taken into account when
   deciding whether the public interest requires prosecution will vary from case
   to case. In each case where the evidential test has been passed, the prosecutor
   will weigh the relevant public interest factors that are applicable. The
   prosecutor will then determine whether or not the public interest requires
   prosecution.

   NO PROSECUTION
   6.11 If the prosecutor decides that there is insufficient evidence or that it is not in
   the public interest to prosecute, a decision of „no prosecution‟ will be taken.
   6.12 A decision of „no prosecution‟ does not preclude any further consideration of
   a case by the prosecutor, if new and additional evidence becomes available, or
   a review of the original decision is required.

   Failure by the judge to award costs, that give reasonable incentives against frivolous cases, is what fuels familycaught$ and District Caught alike.

   Secrecy in familycaught$ allows failure to apply the principles of costs at the end of hearings, to go unnoticed by honest, taxpaying citizens.

   This maintains the flow of baseless cases, which form perhaps the majority of the “workload” in familycaught$. Similarly too, the incomes of all of the legal workers involved…..

   It just doesn’t work, to rely on Saint Peter to enforce the Prosecutor’s Rules. [accountability..]

   Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 3:01 pm

2. 

   Interesting – that this case reaches the extreme, where it is (quite the opposite)not in the public interest to continue.

   We saw the same thing recently, where, in the preservation of justice and the understanding of criminal law the case against a man taking photographs of women in public was thrown out.

   What we are seeing is such a feminised Police Force that they no longer understand the law they are duty bound to uphold, or the peace they are obliged to preserve, and equally feminist judges who want to apply the revenge scale rather than the law.

   Comment by Downunder — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 3:23 pm

3. 

   Costs rules:

   See http://www.legislation.co.nz
   Search for District Court Rules

   14.2Principles applying to determination of costs
   The following general principles apply to the determination of costs:
   (a)the party who fails with respect to a proceeding or an interlocutory application should pay costs to the party who succeeds:
   (b)an award of costs should reflect the complexity and significance of the proceeding:
   (c)costs should be assessed by applying the appropriate daily recovery rate to the time considered reasonable for each step reasonably required in relation to the proceeding or interlocutory application:
   (d)an appropriate daily recovery rate should normally be two-thirds of the daily rate considered reasonable in relation to the proceeding or interlocutory application:
   (e)what is an appropriate daily recovery rate and what is a reasonable time should not depend on the skill or experience of the solicitor or counsel involved or on the time actually spent by the solicitor or counsel involved or on the costs actually incurred by the party claiming costs:
   (f)an award of costs should not exceed the costs incurred by the party claiming costs:
   (g)so far as possible the determination of costs should be predictable and expeditious.

   That might be the theory, but it is the practice that gives incentives in the real world. The printed rules are little more than dishonest marketing/windowdressing in the real world. Far from the mental hospital that is the court$, alas.

   By the time you have read a clause, they might have been changed, behind the scenes.

   Warning: Some amendments have not yet been incorporated

   Lewis Carroll wrote well about these environments and his works are a better use of your fleeting time on this earth.

   Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 3:40 pm

4. 

   Do you want to take your other think now?

   You have another think coming, you know?

   If not, sing twinkle twinkle little bat, how I wonder what you’re at.

   Comment by Downunder — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 6:27 pm

5. 

   Downunder I totally agree with your “… feminised Police Force …” comment. In my case a “feminised Police Force” and feminised Crown Prosecution conspired to uphold complaints made in 1996 in relation to incidents that allegedly occurred in 1980 when the complainants claimed to be living in my house in Northland. The fact that Ministry of Education records showed that the complainants spent all of 1980 at a boarding school in Auckland and would have been known to Police in 1996 had they bothered to check didn’t stop a nasty, vicious, vile, feminist Crown Prosecutor taking case to trial in 2013 and a densely corrupt Judge telling the Jury to ignore the 17 year prosecution delay because it was irrelevant. It is for this reason we desperately need a Criminal Cases Review Commission but wont get one because Amy Adams and her criminally insane predecessor Collins both hold that our current Court System is perfect and never makes mistakes. Try telling that to Arthur Thomas, David Dougherty, David Bain, Scott Watson and many others still in our prisons.

   Comment by JONO — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 8:39 pm

6. 

   You can judge a society, by the care it takes of it’s most vulnerable members.

   (This includes men as well as women. This includes people with occasional mental health problems, as well as people in poor physical health. This includes children, as much as adults. This includes people with gambling addictions, as much as members of the National/Sky City Party. This includes people who buy milk, as much as the Farming Industry who vote Sky City/National Party. This includes electricity consumers, as much as people who vote Sky City/National Party. This includes coalminers who gamble with their lives at work, as much as executives responsible for their Health & Safety, who vote Sky City/National Party. It includes the people who fell on the viewing platform at Cave Creek, as much as the Minister of the Crown who defunded Conservation Department and led the she’ll be right culture, that fuelled his own high wages.)

   You can judge a justice system, by the care it puts to righting the wrongs it has done itself.

   How long and how much effort was required, to sort out each of the legal fiascos listed by JONO, above?
   To what extent did the failed organisations take effort to sort out their mistake, themselves?

   It is all different pieces of the pie called accountability.
   Accountability that was never really intended to work !

   I am not saying that NZ is as bad as USA, Russia, China, India, UK or France (or mothers or solo mothers).
   Nonetheless, we need to improve the quality of our country, by quite a bit.

   Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 3rd July 2015 @ 9:27 pm

7. 

   A couple of generations of self entitled greedy females and there’s only one direction that will take us and that is backward.

   Comment by Downunder — Sat 4th July 2015 @ 9:53 am

8. 

   I had almost the identical matter- my son attended Kristin (and I knew Peter Clague), I am described by BDO as a man of substantial means. I have never been in any trouble of any sorts with Police in my life My ex a trained industrial psych-o(of 13 years) got pregnant by donor and begged me to be the legal father, We already had a 5 year old son ( my apple of my heart). I refused and so she literally set me up. As I was driving my son for an ice cream, she tried to grab him out of a moving car ( just started reversing ) and she claims to be run down and had a tiny graze to her knee. I stopped and assisted and she told me “she had me” and claimed to Police I ran her down and that it was intentional. My life has been hell for 3 years. I won the criminal case- Judge threw it out but I had lost 18 months of my life and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars defending 2 charges -assault with a deadly weapon ( a car) and male assaults female – when we knew within days could not win but had to wait in a long line to get to court. I learned Police are thicker than bricks when I had to deal with them and you cant sue them despite their obvious lack of competence. Prior to that I never came across their ineptitude and PC rules (and that is what this DV curse is) While this was going on she used the criminal charges to malign me in the family court and destroy my reputation by innuendo despite assaulting me some years earlier and Police just ignored it-She had my son taken from me suggesting that I might hurt him and no one cared I never had, no one cared I might be innocent, simply no one cared at all about a son and his dad being broken up and the allegations just continued for 3 years till we finally saw a judge in June 2015. My ex under examination had no evidence to support her scores of allegations – despite 3 years and 1000 pages of affidavits. Where else in society can you discriminate, malign, hurt, humiliate and destroy someone with no evidence and still be able to walk out the court head held high and no consequences. If I fought back the law determines I am emotionally , psychologically and financially abusing this “brave’ Domestic violated female. Good on the Police Courts and those deceptive lawyers who know its lies but as there is no adverse penalty for perjury – just keep lying. Justice is a myth in NZ. Make those crazy women pay for their deception and this crap just might stop. Good on you Peter. Fight for your honour and ours. I am.

   Comment by Furious — Sat 4th July 2015 @ 4:18 pm

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