Mallard pleads guilty to fighting charge

Written By: - Date published: 4:47 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 6 comments
Categories: labour - Tags:

The Dom reports that:

Cabinet minister Trevor Mallard has escaped an assault charge over his altercation with National MP Tau Henare by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of fighting in a public place.

Appearing in Wellington District Court this afternoon, the Environment Minister was convicted and agreed to pay $500 to a Salvation Army drug and alcohol rehabilitation course.

He paid the fine before leaving.

6 comments on “Mallard pleads guilty to fighting charge ”

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  1. Matthew Pilott 1
    18 December 2007 at 5:15 pm

    Love or loathe him, I respected him showing up in court himself to front the charges, and now for pleading guilty.

    I assumed he would be sending in his lawyers to represent him, and hadn’t anticipated him pleading guilty to anything given how the charges were brought about.

    Obviously a bit too late, but he’s acting with integrity after the fact…

  2. Graeme Edgeler 2
    18 December 2007 at 7:36 pm

    Fighting is an interesting charge. He’s basically throwing it back at Tau Henare and saying – you were involved too (fighting is often thought of as a mutual assault – i.e. person A assaults person B, and person B assaults person A). If it’s only person A assaulting person B, then it’s not a fight.

  3. Pascal's bookie 3
    18 December 2007 at 7:56 pm

    So does that mean Disgruntled Accountant of Miramar will be laying charges against Tau? I hope he justs goes away.

  4. illuminatedtiger 4
    18 December 2007 at 8:46 pm

    I’ve always been on the opinion those charges were filed with political motives.

  5. deemac 5
    19 December 2007 at 12:41 am

    I can’t think of any other OECD country where you can lay charges in a case where you have no real involvement. In England you can ask the police to investigate and the CPS to prosecute but if they decline (eg because de minimis non curat lex, as they say) you have no comeback. In view of the fact that court time is very expensive, and that real cases are waiting months to get timetabled, it is ludicrous to have court time wasted by stunts like this. Perhaps a lawyer can explain why the NZ system differs from the English one in this respect, when otherwise they are very similar?

  6. Graeme Edgeler 6
    19 December 2007 at 9:31 am

    deemac – the UK has an independent prosecuting authority, as do many other countries. We do not.

    However – unless it’s changed recently – I believe you can commence a private prosecution in England. The CPS has the power to take over the case, however, and can then drop it. Something like that.

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