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K v Police (1993) 11 FRNZ 335 (HC)

Case summary provided by BROOKERS

Name: K v Police
Reported: (1993) 11 FRNZ 335
File number: AP243/93
Date: 14 October 1993
Court: High Court
Location: Auckland
Judge: Fisher J
Charge: Aggravated Wounding, Dangerous Driving, and Unlawful Taking
CYPFA: s214; s245
Key Title: Arrest without warrant
Brooker’s summary:

Children and young persons - Jurisdiction - Youth Court - Statutory preconditions for arresting young persons - Original charges against the appellant dismissed - Second set of informations laid and found proved - Whether there was a jurisdictional bar to the prosecutions because of non-compliance with s 245 - Arrest not related to particularly identified information - Consequential upon incidents - Filters for non-arrest situation not applicable in arrest cases - Section 214 conditions adequate substitute - Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, ss 214, 245.

The appellant took the first complainant's car without authority and drove at him in an allegedly dangerous manner when he tried to stop her. A few days later, a second complainant received serious injuries when trying to stop the appellant while she was driving the stolen car. The appellant was arrested by the police and charged with three offences relating to those incidents. When the appellant was brought before the Youth Court to appear on those charges, the two charges which involved summary offences laid indictably were dismissed on the ground that there was a jurisdictional defect as was the aggravated wounding charge. The police then laid new charges of aggravated wounding, dangerous driving, and unlawful taking. The Youth Court held the dangerous driving and unlawful charges to be proved, and rejected the appellant's submission that s 245 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 posed a jurisdictional barrier.

That decision was appealed on the basis that the Judge did not consider whether there had been a relevant arrest or compliance with the alternative procedures specified in s 245. The appellant submitted that there could be jurisdiction under s 245(1) only if she had been relevantly "arrested", or if the requirements for belief, consultation, and family group conference had been satisfied in terms of subs 245(1)(a), (b), and (c). The appellant submitted that when the second set of informations were laid the earlier arrest no longer related to those informations, and that she could no longer be regarded as a person "arrested" for the purpose of giving jurisdiction under s 245(1).

Held, dismissing the appeal:

(1) When s 245(1) Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 refers to a case in which the "young person has been arrested", it does not relate the arrest to any particularly identified information. The arrest in question relates to the "offence" in the sense that the arrest relates to the incident with which the information is later concerned. The arrest was directly consequential upon the very incidents for which the second informations were laid.[(1993) 11 FRNZ 335, 336]

(2) One of the principal objects of the Act is to divert young persons away from the Court process. Section 245 discourages an over-readiness to bring prosecutions in non-arrest cases by requiring that these cases first pass through the filters of belief, consultation, and conference. The reason that those filters do not apply in arrest cases may well be because different filters relating to arrests under s 214(1) are an adequate substitute. Where the police have considered it necessary to arrest, they should be held publicly accountable for it in a Court of law to ensure that the arrest was justified, a process facilitated by prosecution.

(3) There had been an arrest in this case for the purpose of all the informations which followed. At the outset, the police had to consider whether an arrest was justified in light of s 214. Having done so they discharged their responsibilities as to preconditions for a prosecution. The fact that the mechanisms of those prosecutions subsequently changed was a matter of form only.

Cases referred to

Police v Burgess 17/9/92, Judge Harvey, DC Papakura CRN2255011532

Appeal

This was an appeal against conviction on the ground that the Youth Court lacked jurisdiction under s 245 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989.