Originally Posted by
Squawk7700
Ok LB, can you say that you were stalked and assaulted by someone without any charges having been laid against the perpetrator? I feel like the answer to that may actually be a yes.
Can a police officer say that you’re a speed limit breaker and a dangerous driver even though he/she didn’t fine you for it and you didn’t front a magistrate? That feels like a yes.
If it’s not written down in any correspondence, does that mean it didn’t happen?
A pedophile is a bad example, because you can be a pedophile and have not acted upon it and you would not have committed any offence. Once acted upon, you become a pederast. A pedophile allegation is a baseless allegation, despite it sounding nasty.
From the limited information available on this matter, my gut feeling is that someone at CASA felt that they had been treated in a way that constituted assault and or stalking, a discussion with Police followed and advice was given that suggested that either the points of proof for a charge were not satisfied or it was suggested that the chances of a conviction were unlikely… a common occurrence, at which time it was decided not to proceed.
Does that mean that the accused assaulted or stalked? Maybe… maybe not. You can’t even say in the eyes of the law it did or didn’t constitute assault because it never went before a magistrate to make that judgement.
Part 2: can someone go around saying that you assaulted someone and get away with it? Well that depends on how deep their pockets are, or how much evidence that they possess once it hits the civil court.
Interesting arguments.
Ok LB, can you say that you were stalked and assaulted by someone without any charges having been laid against the perpetrator? I feel like the answer to that may actually be a yes.
What you “feel” is correct. Of course you “can” say anything you like.
But whether what you say is true is an entirely different question. Just because someone says and earnestly believes they were “assaulted” does not make it so. I can swear on a stack of bibles that I “feel” I was “assaulted” and that does make it so. Not all physical contact constitutes an assault in law - you know that.
And your ‘Part 2’ picked up the point that - although anyone “can” say anything they like - doing so comes with some risk:
Part 2: can someone go around saying that you assaulted someone and get away with it? Well that depends on how deep their pockets are, or how much evidence that they possess once it hits the civil court.
It also depends on whether it was said under Parliamentary privilege. It’s called “Cowards’ Castle” for a reason.
Can a police officer say that you’re a speed limit breaker and a dangerous driver even though he/she didn’t fine you for it and you didn’t front a magistrate? That feels like a yes.
Once again, your ‘feeling’ is correct. The police officer “can” say anything he/she likes, just as I “can” say that the police officer is a speed limit breaker and dangerous driver, even though he/she hasn’t been fined for it and didn’t front a magistrate. We know what the police officer would say in response to that allegation: It’s not true and, therefore, you can’t ‘put up’ so best to ‘shut up’. Believe it or not, the reverse applies (except for the power imbalance…).
If it’s not written down in any correspondence, does that mean it didn’t happen?
I like your kind of sophistry, Squawk!
If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?
In this case, there were people around to hear and see any trees falling. You know what they’re called: Witnesses. And stuff was written down. And - astonishingly - it appears the word “assault” and the word “stalking” does not appear anywhere in what was written down by CASA, even though the crimes were allegedly committed against CASA staff.
From the limited information available on this matter, my gut feeling is that someone at CASA felt that they had been treated in a way that constituted assault and or stalking, a discussion with Police followed and advice was given that suggested that either the points of proof for a charge were not satisfied or it was suggested that the chances of a conviction were unlikely… a common occurrence, at which time it was decided not to proceed.
And if that’s the truth, it makes Carmody’s cowardice even more craven. If that’s the truth, he should have told the Senate Committee that the police became involved but “it was decided not to proceed” (although I note you did choose passive voice - for a reason).
Maybe Carmody’s opinion is that the police were incompetent or lazy for not pressing for prosecution. If that’s part of the truth, that’s what he should have told the Senate Committee.
Maybe part of the truth is that the police were concerned that the circumstances could have constituted an assault on Glen. Maybe Glen thought he was about to be manhandled by someone and Glen’s response was a reasonable way of reducing the likelihood of that happening. If that’s part of the truth, that’s what Carmody should have told the Senate Committee. (Coincidentally, the only time I’ve ever gone to police on the basis I’ve been assaulted was when a couple of idiot football spectators got in my face - nose-to-nose - and ‘ordered’ me to move from the place I was standing perfectly lawfully. Nobody had to touch Glen in order for him to reasonably apprehend the application of physical force from someone else.)
But instead, Carmody - who isn’t a judge or magistrate and wasn’t there - simply made the bald assertion that specific crimes had been committed by Glen and just skipped over the bit about who decided charges wouldn’t be laid against Glen and why that decision was made.
Does that mean that the accused assaulted or stalked? Maybe… maybe not. You can’t even say in the eyes of the law it did or didn’t constitute assault because it never went before a magistrate to make that judgement.
Errrrmmmm. The “eyes of the law” are - or used to be - important in representative democracies subject to the rule of law. The prosecution process performs a number of functions, one of which is to give someone who’s been publicly accused of crimes the opportunity to vindicate him or herself.
What you seem blithely to be accepting is a situation in which a public official states that specific crimes have been committed by a named member of the public, and that’s fine even though “it was decided not to proceed” with any prosecution for those crimes and no explanation is given by that public official as to who decided not to proceed and why.
Don’t you think it would put an ever-so-slightly different slant on things if the truth is that the police reckoned there was a reasonable chance that Glen could show that he was assaulted and reasonably responded to the assault?
Just hypothetically.
You might ‘feel’ that I’m merely speculating. But so are you, at least as to the reasons for no prosecutions proceeding.
We do know, for sure, that there was an ‘interaction’ that ended up with police ‘involvement’ as a consequence of ‘some set of circumstances’, yet no prosecution of Glen followed. The word “assault” and the word “stalking” appear nowhere in any CASA record relating to Glen (according to the results of the FOI process). I interpret that as tending to show that no assault or stalking happened.
If CASA considered one or the other or both happened, it is open to CASA to pursue a private prosecution without the involvement of VICPOL. And if the circumstances involved public officials being assaulted or stalked in the course of their duties, offences would probably arise under the Commonwealth Criminal Code and the CDPP would be interested. Yet - nothing.
A pedophile is a bad example, because you can be a pedophile and have not acted upon it and you would not have committed any offence. Once acted upon, you become a pederast. A pedophile allegation is a baseless allegation, despite it sounding nasty.
It makes my point with greater force than the allegation of a crime.
When some public official in front of a Parliamentary committee states that Squawk is a pedophile, you’ll just shrug that off, comfortable in the knowledge that being a pedophile is not an offence and unperturbed by the fact you have no practical way of refuting the statement? Seriously?