Mt Nebo - Mt Glorious Road Policing Tactic

Copied from Bikepoint Australia, 01/02/04

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Police entrapment in Qld?

Queensland police are being accused of entrapment tactics on the Mt
Nebo to Mt Glorious road on the outskirts of Brisbane. An email sent
to BikePoint claims, in part, "The Queensland Police Service are now
patrolling the Mt Nebo - Mt Glorious Road from the Gap to the
T-Intersection near Wivenhoe Dam with unmarked Commodore SS utes. One
is red and the other is black with very dark window tinting. The rear
windows have Yoshimura Racing and JetPilot stickers to help disguise
them. They are equipped with video recording equipment and speed
detecting equipment.

"On Friday we saw these two cars driving back and forth over the
mountain and an ST1100 with uniformed rider was not far behind.

"When speaking with some riders at the coffee shop they confirmed that
a fortnight earlier they approached the red ute from behind that
happened to be driving exactly at the 70 km/h speed limit. The Ute
slowed down a bit, then sped up and then slowed again, with what
appeared was an attempt to entrap these riders into committing a
traffic offence. Unbeknown to these rider's, these were actually
un-marked Police cars and overtook over the double-white lines and of
course exceeded the 70km/h speed limit. They received traffic
infringement tickets in the mail later that week with photographic
evidence for a multitude of traffic offences. Hence, these guys were
enjoying their last ride on Mt Glorious before having to hand in their
licenses this week."

If true, it makes a mockery of the recent rider and government-backed
safety meetings recently held in the same district. California police
were proven to be using similar tactics some years ago and ended up
with a rap over the knuckles and many of the traffic convictions being
overturned. We can only hope Queensland can develop an equally robust
sense of fair play

 

If its true, why are you suprised???

 

<BIG SNIP>

Other favoured cop tactics include:

- encouraging would be offenders to drag an unmarked police car from the
traffic lights
- tailgating motorbikers hoping that'll they'll speed in order to increase
the gap. <-- they've got me like that once.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 01 Feb 2004 13:30:54 GMT

IT might be reprehensible, it's not illegal.

If you break the law, you break it. In the cases given - car at the
speed limit, double white lines - the "correct" solution is to sit
behind the car and wait. "I'd never have passed if I'd known it was a
cop" isn't an excuse, it's a statement the speaker has at least 2
braincells to rub together...

If the cops were themselves behaving legally, then they have done
nothing wrong. The interesting bit is if they can be held to have
"induced" the crime. I suggest that driving at the speedlimit, and
sometimes slowing, is normal behaviour on a "scenic drive", and so
can't be said to have induced anything. PRetending to want to have a
drag could possibly be inducing, but face it, you'd have to have Frank
Galbally on your case and a petrolhead judge to get away with that.

Seems to me that they figure anyone so wedded to their regular hoon on
Glorious that they can't manage to hold back for one lap is the kind
of repeat offender they *want* to get off the road. And this is a good
way of catching the rider who can't hold back.

IF there have been talks between cops and riders, have those talks
produced any difference in *rider* behaviour? Have the cops had
any reason to believe they will get useful results from being nice?
That's the hassle with this consultative approach... it doesn't give the
cops what they want, doesn't get the crash-happy heroes off the road.
So if you want to them to be nice, find a way for them to skim off the
idiots and leave the rest.

A quick search produced:

OHN ANTHONY RIDGEWAY v. THE QUEEN F.C. No. 95/016 [1994] HCA 33; (1995)
129 ALR 41 (1995) 69 ALJR 484 (23 August 1994)

6. At common law, a person of full age and sound mind is liable to
be punished for any voluntary act or omission that the law forbids or
requires on pain of punishment unless the act was done or omitted without
wrongful intent or guilty mind. In some cases - usually offences of a
minor nature - the element of intent or guilty mind may not be a condition
of liability. And, murder apart, a person will not be liable even for
a voluntary act or omission if it was the result of duress.

But, in the absence of a statutory justification, it is no defence to
a criminal charge that the accused was induced by others to commit it.
In Reg. v. Sang (199), Lord Salmon remarked that:

"A man who intends to commit a crime and actually commits it is guilty of
the offence whether or not he has been persuaded or induced to commit it,
no matter by whom."

In Sang, the House of Lords held that it was not a defence to a criminal
charge that the accused was induced by a police informer to commit an
offence which he would never have committed but for the inducement of
the informer. The House of Lords also held that a trial judge has no
discretion to exclude evidence of an offence that is induced by an agent
provocateur.

7. Nor is the position any different when the accused has been induced
to commit an offence by the conduct of law enforcement officials.
Law enforcement officials are not exempted from the operation of the
criminal law. If their acts or omissions induce a person to commit
a crime, they are liable to be punished as principals or accessories.
It is no answer that they acted with the best of motives. In A. v. Hayden
(No.2) (200), Gibbs CJ said that it "is fundamental to our legal system
that the executive has no power to authorize a breach of the law". When
a law enforcement official induces a person to commit a crime, both are
in breach of the criminal law and are liable to be punished accordingly.


8. For these reasons Australian courts have rejected a substantive
defence of entrapment (201). So have courts in New Zealand (202) and
Canada (203).

Zebee

 

Well bugger me - I never knew that. Very interesting - thanks!

Mark.

 

Getting Slower & Slower ! said....

GS> overturned. We can only hope Queensland can develop an equally robust
GS> sense of fair play

Is this the same mob who played "fair" with a mate of mine who was
pinged for exceeding 6 kts in his dinghy. The boat's lucky to do more
than 4 or 5 kts. The cops had no radar and merely estimated his speed.
The cops were quite rude about it all, too.

But then, I s'pose interstate tourists (and motorcyclists) are fair
game, huh?

 

Rude cops? Surely not - the cunts are usually too stupid to be really rude.

 

Entrapment ...

who gives a shit eh? QLD doesn't have anty entrapment laws so they can do
what they like. Hey, I reckon it's totally stuffed up, but not much you can
do about it.

Cam

 

They are stupid in QLD , some one I know was hassled by some local
traffic boys . went to court over the matter , they had assaulted him ,
falsified matters pertaining to the matter they stopped him for , lied
in court and were reprimanded by the magistrate and are currently under
investigation ... and why you ask ?
because he recorded it and they claimed to have lost their copy...
about 3 months ago holland park court house... research if you want :_)

 

Normally scenic driver on the Mt also have the common courtesy to pull
over and let you past instead of holding you up through the corners -
guess the cops doen't have any manners.

Conrad

 

In aus.motorcycles on 2 Feb 2004 15:39:33 -0800

I have had drivers do that sometimes, but the vast majority don't. I
didn't realise Qld drivers were so different.

Zebee