A
HISTORY
OF
POLICE RAIDS
ON
INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES
IN
AUSTRALIA
THE
1976 TUNTABLE FALLS PRE-DAWN RAID
THE 1976 CEDAR BAY PRE-DAWN RAID
THE 1997 WYTALIBA RAID
When settlers came to this land, they came in contact
with the original tribal inhabitants. There was some friction,
but also some cultural exchange. So it was when the Aquarius tribe
arrived in Tuntable Valley, the Uniformist Tribe on the banks
of the Richmond decided to send out a war party, and bring back
captives to display to their people as a warning to any who might
otherwise have accepted them. Modern man may have better tools
than the men of pre-history, but he still has the same set of
instincts......
There is a political culture, and a police culture
that would exalt these "instincts". Beware their conjunction.
Beware the Daleks among them. Every generation has them.
In many ways, the
erosion of civil liberties in a small hippie town like Nimbin
is small potatoes compared with the nightmares being dealt out
in freedom's name to the rest of the world. Still, wasn't there
an old hippie cliché about "thinking globally and
acting locally"? I believe there's also an even older activists'
one-liner that "it's better to die on your feet than to live
on your knees" (as borrowed by Midnight Oil in the '80s).
Surely it's time to at least try and stand up for our basic civil
rights.
So in time-honoured
hippie tradition, you are all invited to a peaceful "Celebration
of 30 years of Police Over-Kill" to be held in Nimbin on
Saturday August 12th. Bring a smile, some courage, a joint (just
kidding, officer) and a good sense of humour.
If nothing else,
it's bound to be a crack-up. See you there.
Heavy handed police actions are nothing
new in Nimbin. There is a long history of them, but some early
parts of that history seem to have already faded from memory.
The Tuntable Falls and Cedar Bay raids in 1976 seem lost already.
There is very little information on what happened in those raids,
apart from archived newspaper stories, and I felt there should
be a record of events, as told by those who were there.
(In 1976, on August 12th, before dawn,
about 60 fully armed police raided the Tuntable Falls Community,
simultaneously serving photocopied warrants at the North End,
Centre, and South End of the then 1200 acre property, rounding
up as many people as possible, marching them up to the road, and
transporting them by road, some in a cattle truck, to an identification
area on the ridge above Tuntable valley.)
On August 12th,
2006, it will be Thirty Years since that infamous Tuntable Falls
Police Raid.
I was one of the
Tuntable Falls 43. I know of three people arrested that day that
are no longer with us. Their version of events is lost to us.
There must be other survivors of the Great '76 Raid.
It would be very
much appreciated if survivors could write down their memories
of that day, and contribute them to a collection that I would
put on the website, with or without names, as the individual writer
prefers...
Survivors of the
Cedar Bay Community Police Raid of August 29th, 1976, in Queensland,
are also requested to send in their memory of that experience.
(Buildings were burned, and rainwater tanks punctured by gunshots....tell
us more, please, if you were there.)
Survivors of the
1997 Wytaliba Community Police Raid are also invited to contribute
to a collection. (The raid was videotaped by residents, and police
subsequently successfully sued?)
If there is another
large scale police raid of an intentional community in Australia
that I have forgotten, please let me know...
There is not much
information on the web, or in books, about these events. It would
be good to remedy that.
Email: webhead@hempembassy.net
Post to:
“Personal Account,
Nimbin HEMP Embassy,
51 Cullen St
Nimbin 2480”
Phone Contact:
HEMP Webspinner
Alan Salt,
(02) 66891478
THE TUNTABLE
FALLS PRE-DAWN RAID
AUGUST 12th 1976
In the first year or two of the Tuntable Falls Co-Ordination
Co-Operative there were many meetings discussing what we should
be doing on the property, with no agreement on whether people
could construct their own shelter. In our 900 member Athenian
democracy, we couldn’t seem to get any lasting agreement.
This meant that everyone was living in the original farm buildings,
or even under them, living and eating together.
Someone, fed up with the delays, or bored with the ongoing
encounter group, just went out and built a “house”.
That forced the issue, and it did not take long, once it was
clear there was a common urge for many of us to step back from
the intense communal living situation. We had to work out a
procedure for house site selection and then getting community
approval, to stop it turning into a free for all.
So, in August 1976, I was one of those still living in an original
structure, at the Centre, in one of the five original pig-sties.
Being taller than the average pig, I had raised the roof, and
added doors and windows to suit. It was temporary, but dry and
comfortable enough at the time. Just above were the community
veggie gardens, and winding below was Tuntable Creek. I had
four neighbours, and the Tin Shed was the kitchen for our hamlet.
It was winter, in our subtropical narrow valley, which meant
warm days, but frosty nights. During the nights ripe chokos
would fall onto the roof waking me with the bang, and then roll
slowly down the roof ending with a thump on the ground. Sometimes
bandicoots, lizards or snakes came in.
On August 12th , in the dark, before dawn, I was awoken from
my slumbers by a police officer pointing a shotgun in my face,
and asking me if I wanted to be charged with a cap of smack
or a bag of grass? I told him there was nothing there. He said
that didn’t matter, what did I want to be charged with,
a cap of smack or a bag of grass? He was still pointing his
gun. The words sank in. I said that seeing as I didn’t
have anything, he’d have to decide that for himself, whereupon
he ordered me to get dressed and get outside to join the others,
already herded into a group near the Tin Shed. No pot had been
found on or near anyone arrested in the Tin Shed, nor was there
any effort made to find anything there.
(They couldn’t find much of anything anyway, because
there was a pot drought on, and as far as anyone on the property
knew, there was no pot. The Police were very lucky that morning
to find the one person on the property sleeping with a “stash”
of twelve ounces in a Sunshine powdered milk tin by their bed,
so they did search some places.)
Twenty yards away, through his plastic windows, we could see
Terry McGee at his desk in the Cow Bales, lights on, already
on the phone, surrounded by his files and books, and being completely
ignored by the police. Barney though had been marched out of
the Cream Room right next to it. If you looked like a “hippy”,
you were going. We stood together in the cold, the sky growing
lighter, wondering what was happening for the rest of the community.
Our “Tin Shed” group was marched down to the creek
crossing, and up to the council road, where we were merged with
the Echo, White House and Pala residents that had been rounded
up. Wattle Creek was missed as they had just slashed the commons
paddock and the police couldn't see the paths through it to
their dwellings. While we stood analysing the situation, a red
cattle truck full of people from the North End of Tuntable drove
past. We were a little more fortunate; we were soon packed into
Paddy Wagons, but not taken far, only up to the ridge, part
way to Nimbin, where everybody arrested was taken to first.
The police had entered the property at three points in forces
of about twenty, and at each entry point had rounded up as many
people in the vicinity as possible before the alarm spread.
On the ridge overlooking the South End, on the road to Mt Nardi,
the police had set up a command post to overlook the operation,
process the arrestees, and have a barbeque at the same time.
While they finally took down names and ages, we were able to
talk to people from other parts of the property, and find out
what had happened to them. Jerry B. told me they showed him
a photocopied warrant. I hadn’t seen one. The word went
round later that the twelve ounce stash was to be divided among
us for the charges. This was where we were fingerprinted, photographed,
and our names finally taken.
They seemed to reach “capacity”, and then began
the procedure for transporting us prisoners to Lismore lockup.
We sang and joked in the back of our van, and laughed at the
high comedy of some of the stories flying round about situations
that had occurred with police in the course of the raid, like
naked people fleeing into the bush, that sort of thing. I don’t
want to say too much, so others can tell their story themselves.
Eventually, all 42 of us were bailed, released onto the street,
and allowed to find our way home. In all, 43 had been arrested,
but a young woman caring for a child was left behind at the
North End, perhaps to keep the child out of the cattle truck
used there, provided she came in later. It was the beginning
of months of court appearances, big name barristers, and newspaper
coverage.
Police claimed in the newspapers at the time that no one had
a gun pointed at them, and that the people who travelled in
the cattle truck did so at their own request, rather than be
walked to a pickup point. Well there's no mistake about the
gun in my face, but I don't have definitive information on the
cattle truck throwoff....yet. If you know, let us know.
On the 29th August 1976, Queensland police raided Cedar Bay
with the help of a naval vessel, and destroyed houses and rainwater
tanks before taking those arrested to Cairns…Queensland
police said they had done this raid in support of the NSW police.
Ultimately, all Tuntable drug charges were dropped, after the
search warrant was successfully challenged. As I remember the
grounds for the judgement were:
• A warrant to search Tuntable Falls community
was the equivalent of a warrant to search a village or small suburb,
which was not acceptable. The warrant was not specific enough
in the address to be searched.
• Photocopied warrants were not acceptable.
The actual warrant had to be served.
• The warrant was to be served between sunrise
and sunset, and was not served at that time, but before sunrise.
Behind the judgement though, it seemed obvious that the prosecution
of these cases were going to be a courtroom circus, a field
day for the press, and an embarrassment for government agencies
generally. The judge did not want that circus to happen in his
courtroom. He took the most sensible course of action he could
see that would satisfy the requirements of the legal system:
threw out the warrants and put an end to the matter.
The police seem to have acted in ways that went beyond law
enforcement, and showed us the depths of the intolerance some
sections of the community felt towards us. Possibly we were
naïve not to foresee this, but we never had any sense of
being a threat to anyone with our land sharing experiment. We
were just a bunch of young people looking for a better place
or way to live.
Sadly, there will always be some police who think the current
laws and police powers are inadequate, and that they themselves
are the true arbiters of the law as it should be. They are one
of the very real dangers in police culture, and there is still
a lack of checks and balances to ensure that law enforcement does
not become prejudice enforcement, that the law is not selectively
enforced, and that the law is applied equally to all.
Alan William Hutley (32yrs old then),
known to most as Barney, one of the few names actually on the
search warrant, and arrested in the same group as me, is no
longer with us. I remember you Barney, and the good times we
shared at Tuntable Falls.
Warwick Sibthorpe, (19yrs old then) Plumber
and Joiner extraordinaire, also arrested that day, is no longer
with us.
Neil Roberts, (36yrs old then) Bahai
opal miner, also arrested that day, is no longer among us.
***
PAMPHLET ISSUED AFTER RAID:
TUNTABLE FALLS LEGAL DEFENCE FUND APPEAL
The Co-Ordination Co-Operative owns 1200 acres of land at Tuntable
Falls, NSW, on which some 160 members are residing full time,
working towards the development of alternative life styles for
themselves and the rest of the community.
On 12th August, 1976, the Co-Operative's land was entered by
the police force in a raid, which is now infamous for its methods
and lack of results. As a result of the raid, 42 occupants of
the Co-Operative's land, most of them shareholders, were arrested
and 75 charges, relating in the majority of cases to the possession,
smoking, or other use of marijuana, were laid.
Because of the nature of the raid and the circumstances in
which it was executed, the members of the Co-Operative have
decided that, without limiting the right of each accused to
have his case conducted as he sees fit , every charge which
the Co-Operative's legal representatives advise may be defended
with resonable prospects of success will be defended, and that
all costs, legal and administrative, resulting from the raid,
will be paid out of a common fund.
As a result, we will become liable to meet expenses which are
beyond our present capacity. We are not permitted to use capital
funds for these purposes and we have decided to appeal to members
of the public for funds to assist us to defend our brothers
and sisters against the actions of the police.
Several eminent barristers from Sydney have offered their services
gratuittously in aid of the defence, and one main item of expense
will be the payment of air fares of these barristers to Lismore
and return on each occasion when our local legal representatives
consider their assistance necessary.
With these expenses, it is expected that legal and related
costs will not be less than $2,000. Available legal aid facilities
will be utilised to the full, but these are not expected to
be nearly adequate, and the amount quoted takes legal aid into
account.
We are therefore appealing to you to contribute to our cause
by donating to the Co-Ordination Co-Operative Legal Defence
Fund. We have opened a Trust Account with a Trading Bank, into
which all funds received will be deposited. The account will
be audited and no funds will be disbursed unless in payments
related to the defence of the charges laid against us.
None of the accused will have any authority over operations
on the account. It is intended that any surplus funds be retained
in the Trust Account or invested in authorised securities, to
meet expenses attributable to future violations of the Co-Operative
land by the State.
Cheques, money orders, and postal notes should be made payable
to the "Co-Ordination Co-Operative Legal Defence Fund"
and forwarded to the Secretary, Tuntable Falls Co-Ordination
Co-Operative, Nimbin, N.S.W. 2484. All contributions will be
gratefully accepted but acknowledgements and receipts will not
be issued unless specifically requested, to reduce costs.
***
NEXT PAMPHLET ISSUED AFTER RAID:
This is an extract from a pamhlet for a common defence fund
for Tuntable and Cedar Bay
The full text is here.
NIMBIN
The "Nimbin Commune" in a peaceful community of about
160 people living in about 40 residences in a valley about four
miles from the town of Nimbin near Lismore in Northern N.S.W.
The residences are partly grouped into hamlets and most of
the hamlets try for self sufficiency in food. The commune itself
is legally registered as a co operative and it has
bought its 1200 acres of land by selling shares at about $250
each.
During the night of August 11th, 1976, 65 police gathered at
Lismore in secret.
Arming themselves with shotguns, armalite rifles and a warrant
to search for heroin, they approached the commune in pre dawn
darkness. At dawn, eight raiding parties were launched against
the sleeping hamlets.
They herded 42 people some at gun point into a cattle truck
and vans and took them to Lismore.
At Lismore, the police laid 75 charges, most of which were
concerned with alleged possession. smoking or other use of marijuana.
(None concerned heroin.)
By combining hard earned personal savings, the Co operative
was able to bail its members out. But the expense of defending
the Co op members will be great as the cases will be heard individually
later this year and next year.
Although several eminent barristers from Sydney have offered
their services free of charge, travelling, accomodation, and
administrative expenses are expected to cost in the vicinity
of $2,000
The Co operative has therefore appealed for assistance.
Kep Enderby and Dean Letcher appeared for the Tuntable defendants.
If you were there, please send us your story....
We'll put it here, with or without your name, as preferred.
THE
CEDAR BAY PRE-DAWN RAID
AUGUST 29th 1976
On the 29th August 1976, Queensland police raided Cedar Bay
with the help of a naval vessel, and destroyed houses and rainwater
tanks before taking those arrested to Cairns…Queensland
police said they had done this raid in support of the NSW police.
If you were there, please send us your story....
We'll put it here, with or without your name, as preferred.
*****
The Cedar Bay Alliance
An excerpt from a work by Dr. John Jiggens.
*****
DEFENCE FUND PAMPHLET ISSUED AFTER RAID:
This is an extract from a pamhlet for a common defence fund
for Nimbin and Cedar Bay
The full text is here.
Cedar
Bay
Cedar Bay is about 100 miles North of Cairns. The commune is
a series of gardens and huts with communal kitchens built behind
the beach along the three mile stretch of sand.
At the North End, the huts stretch along a track which leads
from the glistening sand to the towering North Queensland rain
forest.
The police began their raid several hours before dawn on August
29, 1976, by taking over a farm with an airstrip some distance
inland. They brought in a helicopter to attack the commune from
the air, while a naval boat came from the sea and a land party
moved in along the land track.
Twelve of the inhabitants were captured. Some were handcuffed
with their hands behind their backs around trees. Others were
tied up with fishing nets. Others the women were whisked away
by helicopter.
While the inhabitants were helpless, the huts were set alight
with baby clothes used as kindling. The vegetable gardens were
trampled, the water tanks shot up, the paw-paw and banana trees
slashed.
The charges brought against these people living 40 miles from
Cooktown on private property were mainly of vagrancy. Eight
were charged with vagrancy, three with possession, one with
growing marijuana.
The magistrate from Cooktown was on leave so was the Clerk
of Courts so the next clerk down the line found the 12 guilty
and fined or gaoled them.
When it was decided he had no power to do so, the gaoled were
freed and then re arrested on the same charges.
The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has set up a fund
not only to give legal defence but to give legal aid to civil
action against those who burnt and destroyed the communes property.
And the fund will be used to rebuild the Cedar Bay commune.
*****
Following quoted from:
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00003442/01/3442.pdf
The Cost of Drug Prohibition in Australia
Dr John Jiggens
School of Humanities and Human Services
Queensland University of Technology
Australia’s illicit drug trade began with the cannabis
plague of the 1960s and the War on Drugs in Australia was chiefly
intended to stop cannabis use. The most extreme of the Drug
War warriors was Queensland Premier Bjelke-Petersen, who ordered
his police to drive marijuana users out of Queensland. After
the Queensland police burned down the houses of the inhabitants
of the hippie commune at Cedar Bay in 1976, Bjelke-Petersen
defended the police action, declaring he was “Tough on
Drugs”. Bjelke-Petersen’s accomplice in the Cedar
Bay raid was the young John Howard, then Minister for Business,
with responsibility for Australia's Federal Narcotics Bureau,
who has continued Bjelke-Petersen’s ”Tough on Drugs”
politics during his period as Prime Minister.
***
Following quoted from:
http://www.laboite.com.au/_dbase_upl/PERF%20CUES%20Last%20Drinks.pdf
PERFORMANCE CUES
for
LAST DRINKS
by Shaun Charles
Adapted from the Novel by
Andrew McGahan
The homes of Aboriginal people and hippies were not deemed
worth protecting and could be burnt down by the Queensland police
with no public outcry. When the government ordered a military-style
police raid on a hippie commune in Far North Queensland that
included the
burning of the hippies’ homes, what became known as the
Cedar Bay story was initially ignored by the mainstream media
until a journalist from alternative radio station 4ZZZ (Steve
Gray) broadcast a report that was picked up by 18 year old Andrew
Olle from the ABC’s Four Corners who then sent an investigative
team to visit there.
***
Following quoted from:
http://regnet.anu.edu.au/program/review/Publications/FlemingP4.pdf
Les liaisons dangereuses: Relations between
police commissioners and their political masters
In 1976, a student demonstration went ahead without the required
state permit. The police
halted it. In the confusion that followed, one young girl was
hit over the head by a police officer’s
baton. Whitrod promised the students he would look into the
matter. The Premier, according
to Whitrod: immediately issued a decree that I was not to conduct
an investigation. If I was to investigate anything, he said,
I was to investigate what the students were doing on the road
without a permit. I…thought it was my right to inquire
into the conduct of one of my own
officers and that the premier’s pronouncement breached
the doctrine of the separation of
powers’ (Whitrod 2001:179–180).
The Police Minister, Max Hodges supported the Commissioner’s
request for an inquiry and was
removed from his portfolio for his efforts. There was no inquiry.
After he had gone, the Premier
told the press, ‘I’ve told him [Whitrod] what I
want … now we’ll just have to see wait and see how
he goes’ (cited in Bolen 1997:88). He didn’t have
to wait long. Within weeks a police raid on a Cedar Bay commune
in North Queensland prompted a complaint by residents. Again
the
Commissioner said he would look into the matter.
And once again the Premier issued a decree that Whitrod was
‘not to send any officers north of
Cairns to investigate’. Whitrod defied the directive and
proceeded with the direction on the
grounds that ‘police were sworn to uphold the law and
that public accountability of the police
would be supreme’ (Bolen 1997:69). He told his officers
that he was ‘issuing a direct order to them in contravention
of the premier’s directive’. Their subsequent report
was critical of the police
involved in the raid (Whitrod 2001:180).
Six weeks later, Cabinet decided to ‘substitute its
police promotion list for [Whitrod’s] (Waller
1980:258) and promoted Inspector Terry Lewis to Assistant Commissioner
over Whitrod’s
recommendation. Whitrod resigned immediately citing ‘political
interference in policing’ (Bolen
1997:69). At his press conference Whitrod commented:
The government’s view seems to be that the police are
just another public service department
accountable to the premier and cabinet through the Police Minister,
and therefore rightly subject to directions, not only on matters
of general policy but also in specific cases (cited in Pitman
1999:17).
Later Whitrod expressed relief that he was no longer ‘subject
to the whims of Queensland
authorities’ (Whitrod 1997:iv). On his resignation the
Courier Mail (17 November 1976) reported:
"the next Police Commissioner, whoever he is, will be expected
to be a ‘Yes man’ to the
Premier. What is equally perturbing, [is that] the fate of Mr
Whitrod will be seen as a warning
to other public servants: No innovations; no bothersome reforms"
(cited in Bolen 1997:92).
(Terry Lewis was later convicted and imprisoned for corruption.)
***
Following quoted from: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/extras/oq/book6main5.html
One humid morning in August 1976, a land, air and sea assault
was launched on the peaceful hippies of Cedar Bay, about 130km
north of Cairns. The government had heard tales of drug production
and responded with armed troops and police.
Some hit the beach in boats launched from a naval attack boat;
others dropped in by copter or trudged in through thick rainforest.
They expected a massive drugs haul and perhaps an accused murderer
rumoured to be hiding there. They found about 30 near-naked
hippies and few drugs — the stiffest fine to emerge was
a $500 bond for possession of marijuana.
Police set about destroying the camp, pouring kerosene over
makeshift humpies and setting them alight, telling residents
it was for their own good.
Police action . . . Cedar Bay hippies survey the ruin of
their home after it was torched by Queensland police in 1976.
Civil liberties lawyer Terry O'Gorman, who was just beginning
his career, was one of the first to trudge into the community
to offer legal support to the bewildered hippies — pursuing
charges of wilful destruction against police.
Walking through the bush in his safari suit he encountered
several naked women and eventually stripped to his underpants
during his time at Cedar Bay as a concession to his clients.
"It's really the only time I've every conducted interviews
like that," he later told media. You would hope so, really.
***
Following article quoted from:
QUEENSLAND COUNCIL FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, TERRY O’GORMAN
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING FOR 1981
http://www.qccl.org.au/documents/AGM_President_Rpt_1980_81_TOG_Feb82.pdf
Pages 4 & 5
Moves are afoot to use the laws relating to national parks to
break up a small alternate lifestyle community in Cedar Bay.
Members will recall the $65,000 police raid conducted on the
Cedar Bay commune in August
1976 with a resultant eight vagrancy charges and one minor charge
of cultivation of marijuana. The widespread condemnation that
greeted this activity has led the Government to use conservation-related
laws to try to achieve what the criminal law could not, namely
the removal of the Cedar Bay commune.
In November a Notice of Resumption of Lease was served on Bill
Yale Evans, an 88 year old hermit otherwise known as Cedar Bay
Bill. This document shows that the National Parks Minister is
intending to resume Bill’s 50 year old lease, supposedly
for conservation purposes. But no park management plan for the
new Cedar Bay National Park (declared a National Park in 1977)
has been published yet. And the supposed conservation motivation
of the Evans lease resumption sits poorly with the logging of
Windsor Tableland that is going on in an adjacent area, contrary
to the wishes of conservationists.
THE
WYTALIBA RAID
Those present at the 1997 Wytaliba Community Police Raid are
also invited to contribute to a collection. (The raid was videotaped
by residents, and police subsequently successfully sued?)
*****
Following quoted from:
Civil litigation by citizens against Australian police
between 1994 and 2002 Report to the Criminology Research Council
By Dr Jude McCulloch Criminal Justice and Criminology, Monash
University & Mr Darren Palmer Criminology and Police Studies,
Deakin University
http://www.aic.gov.au/crc/reports/200102-19.pdf
A New South Wales police employee interviewee referred to the
impact of publicity on the level of litigation.
"I think that the reality of that increase [in civil litigation]
is because people have been so successful, and much of this
is self-fulfilling . . . It seems to me, groups of lawyers,
many of which are ex-police interestingly enough, who have developed
the capacity to use the system well in terms of people’s
rights or perceived rights. I mean, I talk about the Wytaliba
case in the paper that I wrote. I think that cost us a little
over one million dollars. And what we’ve seen since then
is I think we’ve had about thirty-seven statements of
claim from other people who have some interest in property who
in light of the decision have come forward well after the event
and said, well, hang on, my rights were trespassed as well so
I want some portion of these funds as well, and that’s
substantially increased. And the lawyers in that case, and I’m
not being critical of them in any way, but the lawyers are ex-police
prosecutors who have been involved in policing and policing
issues, operational issues, and I really think that there is
that development in that regard. And I think then there is the
publicity aspect to this, that these cases, because of their
nature, get fairly substantial public exposure. Very often the
lawyers that are involved in these cases get fairly substantial
public exposure and I suspect that because of that, then people
gravitate to them and use them" (P1: 4).
Settling matters on a confidential basis avoids the snowball
effect.
The effects of settlement on police morale
Settling a matter may have a negative impact on individual police
where they feel they have done nothing wrong and a plaintiff
is being financially rewarded in circumstances where they don’t
deserve it. The settlement may be seen as an indication of lack
of organisational support for the individual officer or a lack
of belief in the officer’s integrity. Settling cases may
also have a negative effect on overall morale if it is generally
thought that the organisation is a soft target and that police
can be sued for just doing their job, with plaintiffs rewarded
regardless of the merits of the particular situation. All police
interviewed expressed the view that settlements were something
that could impact on morale either at the individual or organisational
level.
******
If you were there, please send us your story....
We'll put it here, with or without your name, as preferred.
|
