Power corruption and lies uphold the Reich
A POLICEMAN who a judge said should have been jailed for leaking sensitive information to a drug dealer has walked free without a conviction on a legal technicality.
The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed after Christopher Gerald Marks, 39, was given a $4350 fine without conviction in the County Court this year for misconduct in public office and other offences.
He admitted passing on confidential information from the police's LEAP database about a drug bust to a man he knew was an ecstasy dealer.
The misconduct charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years' jail.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal said the former senior-constable should have been convicted -- and even given a jail term, although possibly suspended -- but their hands were tied because of the way the prosecution appeal was made.
The dealer, Shane Carl Waters, was under covert investigation for trafficking in mid-2003 when a man he sold ecstasy to was arrested during a routine check in Frankston with a large amount of pills.
At Waters' request Marks looked up details of the arrest, warning the dealer, "You'll have to learn to take it a little bit careful."
The officer, who was a senior-constable at the Frankston regional response unit at the time, knew Waters through his local football club.
He admitted he knew Waters sold ecstasy -- despite never reporting him -- but said he had no idea it was large-scale.
Marks said he thought Waters was simply inquiring about the arrest of a friend and he did not know of the dealer's link to the case.
County Court Judge John Smallwood said the leak was an error in judgment fuelled by friendship and loyalty rather than a serious ethical breach.
But Justices Peter Buchanan, Geoffrey Eames and Geoffrey Nettle said the argument that the real reason for Waters' request for details did not occur to Marks beggared belief.
"With all respect to the learned sentencing judge, I think it fanciful to suppose that (Marks) could have believed the provision of criminal intelligence to a known drug dealer was a relatively innocent transfer of information," Justice Nettle said.
But the DPP did not appeal on the ground that the judge made a mistake in finding it was a judgment error -- the appeal was made only on the ground that the sentence was inadequate.
The court found that for this reason the appeal had to be dismissed, despite its finding that it was a serious offence for which a conviction should have been imposed.
The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed after Christopher Gerald Marks, 39, was given a $4350 fine without conviction in the County Court this year for misconduct in public office and other offences.
He admitted passing on confidential information from the police's LEAP database about a drug bust to a man he knew was an ecstasy dealer.
The misconduct charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years' jail.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal said the former senior-constable should have been convicted -- and even given a jail term, although possibly suspended -- but their hands were tied because of the way the prosecution appeal was made.
The dealer, Shane Carl Waters, was under covert investigation for trafficking in mid-2003 when a man he sold ecstasy to was arrested during a routine check in Frankston with a large amount of pills.
At Waters' request Marks looked up details of the arrest, warning the dealer, "You'll have to learn to take it a little bit careful."
The officer, who was a senior-constable at the Frankston regional response unit at the time, knew Waters through his local football club.
He admitted he knew Waters sold ecstasy -- despite never reporting him -- but said he had no idea it was large-scale.
Marks said he thought Waters was simply inquiring about the arrest of a friend and he did not know of the dealer's link to the case.
County Court Judge John Smallwood said the leak was an error in judgment fuelled by friendship and loyalty rather than a serious ethical breach.
But Justices Peter Buchanan, Geoffrey Eames and Geoffrey Nettle said the argument that the real reason for Waters' request for details did not occur to Marks beggared belief.
"With all respect to the learned sentencing judge, I think it fanciful to suppose that (Marks) could have believed the provision of criminal intelligence to a known drug dealer was a relatively innocent transfer of information," Justice Nettle said.
But the DPP did not appeal on the ground that the judge made a mistake in finding it was a judgment error -- the appeal was made only on the ground that the sentence was inadequate.
The court found that for this reason the appeal had to be dismissed, despite its finding that it was a serious offence for which a conviction should have been imposed.
posted by professor rat at 5:20 AM
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