Wednesday, October 31, 2012



The price of rotten cops III

The police's decision to run a false prosecution of one of their undercover agents in order to boost his credibility just keeps on giving:

The fake prosecution of an undercover police officer has led to charges against a senior Auckland Hells Angels member being thrown out.

Phillip Schubert was charged with offering to supply methamphetamine after Operation Explorer, which involved undercover officer Michael Wiremu Wilson infiltrating the Nelson Red Devils gang.

Wilson was the subject of a fake prosecution in which police deceived the courts and served a fake search warrant on a member of the public.


So that's now at least 50 charges against 30 people dismissed because of this abuse. Hopefully that will be a lesson to the police not to do it again. Though judging by Greg O'Connor's reaction, it seems to have had absolutely no effect on the underlying mindset.

Meanwhile, there's also this bit:
Leary rejected going to the Independent Police Conduct Authority as it was "like talking to a brick wall"

When even lawyers have no faith in the supposedly independent institutions set up to provide oversight of the police, in a case where there has been clear-cut malfeasance, you know that something is deeply, deeply wrong. The IPCA needs to be reformed, and turned into a real, independent watchdog which regularly prosecutes or fires police for their misbehaviour. Until that happens - until there are consequences for police abusing the law - such abuse will continue.