A judge has ordered New Zealand Police to pay $5750 to a Wellington Parliament protester charged with trespass after a police detective botched the gathering of a key witness.
It follows the detective failing to properly read a series of requests by a police prosecutor, requesting the identity of the witness — an officer involved in the protester's arrest that he had known for more than 20 years.
The judge described the error as "hard to fathom".
Laura Cassin was one of more than 100 people charged with trespass on February 10, 2022 — the day police made a failed attempt to end the occupation on Parliament's grounds.
Her arrest hit the headlines as she was filmed being dragged through police lines with just her underpants on.
Footage showed her being dragged out of a crowd of protesters by her hair by two female police officers, a blanket was then draped over her head by a medic and a third male officer also joined in the fray as she was pinned down, at one stage dropping his knee on her neck or shoulder area.
Despite hundreds of complaints about the incident, a major IPCA investigation into the occupation found she had deliberately stripped off her clothing and covered herself with coconut oil to make it harder for police to grab her.
She spent a night in police custody and three nights at Wellington's Arohata Prison — the first of which was her birthday. She was then released on bail.
She was due to go on trial on March 31, 2023 for trespass, however Judge A Nicholls dismissed the charge as "failures by the officer in charge" to respond to defence requests to have the arresting officers give evidence at trial and be available for cross examination meant it could not go ahead.
"It would have been an abuse of process to continue any further," Judge Nicholls said.
The trial
In February, in the lead-up to the trial, her lawyer Tudor Clee asked police prosecutors several times for the identity of the three officers involved in Cassin's arrest as the defence said they were relevant to issues they wanted to explore at trial. The prosecutor liaised with officer in charge, Detective Sergeant Andrew Compton.
Compton was in charge of managing the prosecutions of 108 people arrested that day.
The two female officers had been identified but it wasn't until the day before trial Clee identified the male officer involved.
Under cross-examination by Clee, Compton confirmed he has known the officer as a colleague for more than 20 years, he could readily identify him and could identify him as the male police officer in the police video of Cassin's arrest and did so in the court room.
Asked why did not respond to the prosecutor relaying the defence's requests for the male officer's identity, he said he read the earlier requests narrowly — to be related to the first and second female officers — and did not read the summary of teleconference notes provided by the prosecutor to him which clearly stated Clee requested the identity of the male officer.
"DS Compton's evidence under oath was that he had not deliberately shielded (the officer), but that he had read the requests narrowly, and not read the summary of the teleconference notes provided by the police prosecutor."
The prosecutor tried to get the officer to appear at short notice, but he was committed elsewhere. The judge subsequently dismissed the charge against Cassin.
At the trial, Clee expressed concern at the nature of DS Compton's omissions.
Since the trial, Clee discovered that as early as July 2022, the IPCA was investigating another incident involving the third officer, and Compton had been asked to review video footage taken on February 10, 2022, the same day Cassin was arrested.
"This means that six months prior to the requests being made by Mr Clee for the identity of the officers involved in Ms Cassin's arrest, DS Compton was aware that (the officer) was under investigation by the IPCA for use of force during arrests that day," the judge wrote in his costs decision released earlier this month.
"It also means that when DS Compton was reviewing the video of Ms Cassin's arrest, on his understanding of the request for the identity of the arresting officers, he would have nevertheless readily identified (the officer) as the male officer in the video and known that he was under IPCA investigation."
Clee also discovered the officer is also under a separate criminal investigation into more than one incident from February 10. At the time of the costs hearing on June 12, no charges had been laid.
The judge said he would assess the compensation claim on the basis of Compton's misunderstandings and oversights at the time of the March 31 trial.
"DS Compton knew that the manner of Ms Cassin's arrest had been the subject of controversy, knew that the defence were asking for the identities of the arresting officers shown in the video, knew that the male officer in the video kneeling on Ms Cassin while she was being arrested was under IPCA investigation, and knew who that male officer was, but interpreted the defence request as nevertheless relating to only two of the three police officers. In hindsight it is an interpretation that is hard to fathom. That lapse of judgment fell short of the required standard, and no doubt his usual standard."
The defence also argued that had the officer been identified ahead of trial, he would have likely been called as a witness. But because of other investigations, it's likely he would have received legal advice not to participate in the trial, leading to the possible abandonment of the charge by police.
The judge agreed that had the officer been given notice he was to be called to give evidence and be cross-examined on his actions during Cassin's arrest, it's likely he could not participate and the trial wouldn't have gone ahead.
The judge awarded Cassin $5750, recognising the costs to Cassin of the trial that would have been avoided if Compton had not made his "serious mistakes".
Cassin told 1News she was grateful the charge was dismissed and can now "move on".
"I think the judge just saw how wrong all of this was piece by piece.
"I was in total shock when DS Compton said at the trial that he knew who it was all along. I felt like it was deliberate to undermine my defence. I read about hundreds of other non-violent protesters having their charges dropped and didn't understand why they wanted to make an example of me," Cassin said.
Police said they could not comment on the judge's decision.
SHARE ME