Northern Territory police wrongfully arrest up to one person a week: NAAJA

UP TO one person per week is wrongfully arrested in the Northern Territory, exposing taxpayers to dozens of potentially costly law suits

Up to one person per week is wrongfully arrested in the Northern Territory, exposing taxpayers to dozens of potentially costly law suits, a leading Darwin lawyer has warned

UP TO one person per week is wrongfully arrested in the Northern Territory, exposing taxpayers to dozens of potentially costly law suits, a leading Darwin lawyer has warned.

The revelation comes after a man was “unlawfully detained” by police when he was mistakenly arrested for breaching a suspended sentence he had already completed late last month.

The man was held in custody overnight and taken to court where he was finally able to speak to a lawyer who confirmed the error and he was released.

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency principal legal officer David Woodroffe said his estimate was based on clients NAAJA was aware of and could be just the “tip of the iceberg”.

“Regrettably it’s not infrequent that we see pretty basic and fundamental mistakes that occur in which there’s these sort of grave consequences where people are unlawfully detained,” he said.

“It can be once a week or once a fortnight, sometimes it can be very simple mistakes about people’s bail conditions — on one day their bail is removed and the next day they’re then breached simply because the paper work hasn’t been done.”

In response to a series of questions from the NT News, NT Police refused to take any responsibility for the latest bungle and would not say how it happened or whether processes would be reviewed.

“Northern Territory police have not received any complaints regarding the way (the man) has been treated,” a spokeswoman said.

While Mr Woodroffe said he was not criticising police who were working with out-of-date computer systems which hindered communication between courts and law enforcement, the blunders could be costly.

“People have the right to seek redress and compensation for being unlawfully detained,” he said.

“We don’t see this as a situation of people enriching themselves but rather it drives home the message to government to basically fix these problems.”

Mr Woodroffe described the response from police management as “disappointing”.

“The concern obviously, and the concern would be for the public as well, whether this is actually the tip of the iceberg, that there are situations that don’t come to light,” he said.

“One would hope that lessons are always learned every time there’s a situation where such incidents occur that police and all services, whether that’s corrections or government services or courts or even legal systems actually review what happens so that mistakes don’t happen in future.”

Originally published as Northern Territory police wrongfully arrest up to one person a week: NAAJA