You and your partner respond to a radio call from an anonymous informant to attend a noise complaint of persons fighting in a nearby street. You attend an address and find two males rolling on the ground and grappling with one another on the front lawn of the front house on a battle-ax block (a battle-ax block is one where there are two houses, one behind the other which share a common driveway). You separate the males and identify them as Fitzwilliam DARCY and George WICKHAM. Mr DARCY resides in the front house and Mr WICKHAM resides in the rear house. You and your partner speak with the males separately. You observe redness to the left cheek of Mr DARCY. After conferring with your partner, you arrest Mr WICKHAM and charge him with Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm under S.59 of the Crimes Act 40/1900 NSW. When offered the opportunity to be interviewed by you, Mr WICKHAM speaks with his solicitor and exercises his right to silence and refuses to be interviewed. You arrange for Mr DARCY to attend the police station to make a statement. Mr WICKHAM is subsequently granted conditional bail by the Custody Manager with conditions protecting Mr DARCY. The matter is listed for Mention in court in several weeks’ time. See STATEMENT of Fitzwilliam DARCY available on vUWS. This is a two-part assessment as explained below. In Part One you are to write a letter. In Part Two you are to write a report. 13 PART TWO: It is quite a common practice for defence solicitors to write letters to police making representations about the perceived weaknesses of prosecution evidence. In such circumstances, the Commander of the Police Area Command will request the arresting officer to write a report in response to the issues raised in the letter and making a recommendation. It is ultimately the Commander’s decision whether to withdraw or proceed with a charged. They make that decision based on the advice of the arresting officer and that of the local Prosecutor Write a report in the I.B.C.R. format (available, uploaded attached). In the report, you are to respond to the issues raised in the letter of Mr WICKHAM’s solicitor. You are to assess the strength of the brief of evidence and to provide a recommendation to your Commander. You may recommend that the current charge is appropriate and should proceed at court or you may recommend that it should be replaced by an alternative and more appropriate charge. Alternatively, you may recommend that the charge be withdrawn altogether. Ensure that you explain the reasons for your recommendation.
