By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim At around 9.30 one morning, NSW police officers were at a flat on Murray Street in Port Macquarie investigating an incident, when the phone rang. An officer answered and told the caller the occupant wasn’t home. The caller rang again two minutes later. This time, the officer recognised the… Read more »
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim NSW police don’t have the power to randomly search people’s vehicles. If an officer does search a vehicle, they must have a suspicion on reasonable grounds for doing so. The police powers to stop and search people and their vehicles without a warrant are contained in the Law Enforcement… Read more »
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Last week, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (NSWCCA) determined that a precedent followed by the state’s courts had become a “judicially imposed constraint”. That rule stated that a person convicted of a substantial drug supply must be sentenced to full time imprisonment unless there were ‘exceptional circumstances’. Over… Read more »
By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim Between March and June 2014, Matthew “Fatty” Stapleton was under investigation by the NSW police for mid-level supply of methamphetamine. Officers were granted the power to conduct a controlled operation, and recordings suggested that Mr Stapleton and Shane Mooney were associates. On 16 May 2014, Stapleton contacted an undercover officer and… Read more »
The offence of drug driving, unlike drink driving, does not require you to have a certain level of drugs in your system at the time of driving – any amount is enough. This means that even drugs taken days ago, which no longer have any effect on your driving ability, could still see you being… Read more »
The Family Drug Treatment Court of Victoria (the FDTC) was established in May 2014 by Magistrate Greg Levine, who had spent years heading the Children’s Court of Victoria – as well as countless hours researching similar family drug court initiatives in the USA and UK. Since its inception, the Court has helped parents overcome their… Read more »
Margaret Elizabeth Flack, a 55-year-old widow living in Glebe, Sydney was astonished when police searched her home and found a briefcase containing almost half a million dollars in cash. She wasn’t aware of its existence, and police couldn’t find the true owner. Both the authorities and Mrs Flack believed it was theirs! But who got… Read more »
For years, smoking has become the subject of increasing government regulation – from where you can smoke, to where you can buy cigarettes and even what kind of packaging they can be supplied in. Staggered legislation is squeezing smokers out of an growing number of public places, and in July, the latest in a long… Read more »
Drug importation is one of the most serious crimes in Australia – potentially carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. But how would you feel if you were accused of being a drug smuggler when you didn’t even know that drugs were in your luggage? And perhaps more importantly, are you guilty if you were… Read more »
Some drugs, such as crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride – more commonly known as ‘ice’ – can make users do things they would normally never do. Using ice can result in paranoia, hallucination, depression, memory loss and loss of ability to make decisions. It can have a more intense ‘high’ than other amphetamines like speed. Imagine waking… Read more »
