Busted update no.2

Well I attended Darwin Magistrates Court this morning (21st Mar) for mention of the matter of "possess cannabis".
Surprisingly there were very few people in court, so my mention came up by 9:15.
I entered a plea of "not guilty".
When asked if I would like time to get legal advice I stated that I would probably be representing myself in this matter.
The court set a date for the contest hearing at 10:00am on 2nd May.

The contest hearing is something the NT court system has introduced in the last couple of years.
It's like, before the Magistrate, each party presents a statement (you show me yours and I'll show you mine), then the Magistrate gets out the ruler.... and determines if the prosecution has enough to justify an actual hearing.
Basically it's the last chance for either the prosecution to drop the charges, or for me to change my plea (no chance of the latter I'm afraid). All a complete waste of the courts time as far as I can see, just part of their intimidation tactics to squeeze out as many guilty pleas as possible to avoid taking up valuable court time.
However for one who has no plan to plead guilty, it's just a waste of the court's and my time.

So then the Magistrate sets a date for the hearing.

The last time I went through this process was for an alleged traffic infringment about a year ago. In that case we got through the mention, the contest hearing and then two weeks before the actual hearing I got a letter from DPP (Department Of Public Prosecutions), to the effect that, upon reflection, the DPP had decided not to proceed with the matter.
So, at least, that time around I called their bluff. It may not be so easy this time.
With all the "tough on drugs" rhetoric being thrown around, they may be looking for a "whipping boy" or two.
This is all about politics, not justice.
The police have already implied this by their statement in the precis presented at the mention that at the time of the offence "THE DEFENDANT WAS A CORE-GROUP MEMBER OF THE NETWORK AGAINST PROHIBITION (NAP)".

Interestingly, as I left the court room, I was approached by a lawyer asking if I required representation, or had I been in touch with Legal Aid. I told him I was reluctant to go to Legal Aid since, in my experience, they were only interested in assisting guilty pleas and plea bargaining, whereas I had no intention to do any "bargaining", and I could not afford a high priced lawyer to conduct my defence.

I don't know if he's actually seen the brief and has an interest in the case or he's just trying to drum up business. What is interesting is that he's a lawyer known to have very tight connections with the CLP (Country Liberal Party), the encumbant Government's main opposition party and arch nemesis. I thought this strange as the CLP is not a big fan of NAP either.
Perhaps he's unaware of the connection of this case with NAP just yet, or maybe he is aware, and his motives are political too.
Anyway, he has offered to listen to my story for free and determine from there whether to take up the case (billing his services to legal aid), or not. We'll see.