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A criminal case that has been closed over 20 years ago and one police officer has used the information contained within to deny me a club managers License. I know that the file is closed and requires an application to the court to have a judge rule on it and rule either way.Todate there has been no application to have the file open. With that in mind can i lay a formal complaint against the police officer for failing to comply with the law. The Officer then gave that information to another person and based on the evidence the judge denied my applicationRegards XXXXX XXXXX G
Already Tried: I have not moved on this at this point in time as i realize that if i lay this complaint to the poilice, the future of the officer might well be cpmpromised. So I need to be absolutely sure of my grounds before i proceed with laying this complaint
Hi Welcome to JustAnswer. My first response will follow shortly. Please feel free to follow up if anything is not clear
Is this criminal case sealed by an order of the court? Was this a matter which went to a conviction and sentencing, and was the result suppressed by the court? If it did not go to a conviction, where there suppression orders?
a conviction and sentencing was the result and the case was sealed by order of the court as i understand it
Was there a suppression order?
yes a supression was issued for the plainiff
Do you mean the complainant? What about the defendnat?
Well i was the accused so and the supression order was for the complainant
I understand what sorts of cases have a suppression order like this. Were you jailed as a result of the conviction?
yes
The reason for my question was I wondered whether the Criminal Records Clean Slate Act may apply. But if you were sent to jail this does not apply. The suppression order would apply to the identity of the complainant. The police sergeant would be entitled to use the information about your conviction to advise the person processing your managers application that there was a relevant conviction. You will be aware that there is a requirement that convictions be considered in such an application. If however, there was any information released about the identity of the complainant, that would be a serious matter. The suppression orders would not apply to revealing your previous conviction.
On the other hand, it does seem unfair that after 20 years something like this has been brought up to disqualify you. After all you have served your sentence and presumably have led a blameless life since then.
There may be more about the case that you know about in terms of suppression. Please let me know that is the case.
since then i have had 1 speeding ticket which was in 2006 and nothing else .
the ruling relates to the type of conviction which i understood required a judge to rule if an application was lodged therefore any information which relates to the conviction cannot be used and the officer passed this information onto another person who had aggreed to approve my application but then subsuquently reversed her decission on recieving the information from the police officer
I then sort a suppression order from the judge that any information whivh relates to that conviction be suppressed and this the Judge so ordered
my argument is that the officer recieved information that was closed and sealed by the court and that the officer broke the law by using it in a court of law and passed that information on to a third party now this seems to me that the laws can be broken by the officer to back up his claim and to me that is a criminal offence.
thats how i read it and surely there must be some remedy that allows me to get justice
all i know is that i have been trying to get documentation and videos which the police say is closed and they refuse to release any thing to me
You can appeal the decision about the licence-have you considered that? But the file is sealed from search by categories of people. The information about the conviction is however held on the police database of convictions which is separate from the court file. I assume the police sergeant would have accessed the database of convictions rather than searching the court file, although you may know what he looked at.
He had all the relevant information of the case right down to what the offences were for
The conviction database would have the date of conviction, the number of charges, the section of the relevant statute used for the charge and the sentence. It would not normally have anything else. So this may help you identify whether he looked at the court file.
i have no wish to appeal the decission all i need to know do i have legal recourse with respect to the closed fileand the abuse of the officer failing to apply to the court to have it opened for the purpose to use it in the club managers application hearing
If this was the standard sort of order sealing the court file, it would prevent access by other than specified persons. What you need to be able to prove is whether the officer accessed the court file contrary to the court order or whether he just looked at the conviction database. The point about the failure to obtain leave to use the court file information is important however. I am not sure however that this would lead to the police officer being dismissed. A police officer should observe the terms of a court order, and because of their status, should be particularly careful about the use of such information.
I am conscious that you want me to say whether the police officers future will be compromised. If he could access the court file without proper permission, I think it is very likely he would be disciplined, but whether he would lose his job I am not so sure.
its that reason that i need to be sure that if i lodge the complaint to the police that action will be taken to investigate and then as to what they intend to do. and yes i do understand that lodging the compliant could very well affect the officers future one way or another and based on what you say above i believe he has breached the rules/law and needs to explain to me why
Sometimes the police think they are above the law on these issues although most are careful.
You may want to consider going to the Independent Police Conduct Authority at http://www.ipca.govt.nz/
thank you for your reply
i will look at that site now and go from there many thanks for your advise
Regards Dorothy
Experience: LLB MMgt FAMINZ 32 years qualified as lawyer