Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Markham
First time was I think around 1989/1990. Took them a long time to get to me.
5 o'clock in the morning the door bell rang and when I answered it found 5-6 policemen standing at the door with a search warrant. It was for producing porn and they just walked in and demanded I show them where the hardcore stuff was.
I showed them the office, yes I worked from home in those days, and they started to fill up their bags with "evidence". I called my lawyer who arrived as they were leaving with everything they could stuff into their bags.
They had gone through all my personal pictures with a fine tooth comb and even took the nude baby pictures I had. My baby and pictures most parents have.
They were looking for anything to justify the warrant.
My lawyer asked if there was anything that could get me into trouble from what they took and I said no. he advised me to wait. It was pretty scary and intimidating, anyone who thinks the police are there to help you, give you the benefit of the doubt and find the truth is kidding themselves. They are there to get an arrest and a follow up conviction.
Waited 6 months before I got my lawyer to ask about all the stuff they had taken, he wrote to them and got a very vague reply. "It's still being examined and considered"
12 months later I was having problems doing a tax return and getting pressure from the tax man. Sent another letter to the police, with the tax mans demands for a return for the year. This got a response.
3 moths after the search EVERYTHING was taken to the incinerator to be destroyed. I was not informed, as it my rights, and everything was gone. Sent this to the tax man with a bank statement that showed a loss and told them to take it up with the police.
Never paid tax for two years because of it and the tax man had no way of tracing where my money was, is or went. So a small silver lining, but lost a lot of good content. If you notice on the site there is nothing prior to 1989 on them.
|
Nice silver lining in that one Paul
I'm surprised the IR never prosecuted you for failing to submit returns :-)
Had a few of these scenarios you mentioned - basically they always came to nothing and applications were made to courts to have all material destroyed. After a few times, (we got kinda pissed at this), so made objections in court and got the material returned.
One instance was where a court had already judged the material was not obscene and was ordered to be returned. We never had time to even look at the returned boxes - and about 10 days later they "confiscated" them all again
Application was made objecting to the destruction of the material and pointing out that a higher court judged that this was not obscene. On this occasion there was a very indignant crown prosecutor acting for the DPP (a total asshole) - trying to claim all sorts of garbage, but had no evidence to support any of his claims. When the court ordered the return of the material - once again - prosecuting counsel got his panties in a twist and regarded this as a personal offense against him
We had a couple of guys with a van ready to take the material from the court. They started to remove it along with several cops. The prosecutor starts on the cops in court - "Why are you behaving as removal men and helping?" That was it - I went up to him and quietly whispered, "Asshole - since you are responsible for the return of this content - do it. Our removal men have just quit". He flusters and shuffles his papers and we all leave the court and let the law return the boxes with their transport.
BTW Paul... not sure in your instance, but there is not usually arrests for that kinda stuff - they are not permitted to make judgements on any content - simply refer it to the DPP for his judgement on whether to take further action.
And totally agree - don't they try very hard to justify the warrant, especially if they can't really find anything interesting