NAP: they're
nothing but big rug rats
By Rob Inder-Smith
The Network Against Prohibition's knack for pulling the rug out from beneath prosecution lawyers was never more evident than in Darwin Magistrates Court this week.
The trial for last October's smoke-in - potentially a bigger bun fight than the tumultuous LA Job* - was set down for three days, from September 15-17.
But just a day after opening submissions, the prosecution case was in tatters. The trial had been aborted and rescheduled for next year, and the two women sent by Chief Minister Clare Martin and DPP Rex Wilde to savage NAP, had been sent packing.
Worst of all, they had failed to show why two of the most serious among the raft of charges should not be struck out because of insufficient evidence.
When Magistrate David Loadman prematurely wrapped up proceedings half-way into day two, the pair dashed from the courtroom, red-faced and smarting from successive rebukes from the bench and questions like, 'Do you know where you're going?'
Jubilant Napsters were more sympathetic, knowing that with an adversary named Knobs, the prosecution simply lacked polish.
The saga was just one more revelation in the latest round of NAP v the police state.
The prosecution never seemed to fully recover from an early disruption to its game plan, when your humble author was separated from his four co-defendants on a technicality, and arraigned for a day in November.
The low point came when Magistrate Loadman, having sat through the testimony of three prosecution witnesses, then wanted to know where the evidence was to sustain a charge of 'assault police' laid against Stuart Highway.
As the court waited in embarrassed silence, Miss Knobs flicked through pages of a statement by another of her witnesses, in a desperate search for a line, or a word, that would provide Mr Loadman with the evidence he wanted from her.
Her search was in vain and frustratedly, she sat back down.
Mr Loadman dismissed the charge accordingly.
Just moments before, he had dismissed an 'escape custody' charge laid against NAP founder Gary Meyerhoff, which he also found unproven.
Such magisterial magnanimity was in stark contrast to Mr Loadman's unsympathetic and often hostile courtroom demeanor, which he demonstrated at the outset when refusing a request to stand himself down because of antipathy toward NAP.
With tart eloquence, defendant Nicolette Burrows delivered several well-expressed and justified concerns about a bias against her in particular. From the bench came something about 'three daughters of my own' and reference to the song, 'Thank heaven for little Girls', and the name of the French singer who popularised it, Maurice Chevalier.
On cue, Micky Barry promptly stood up and began his submission with a casual: 'Vive la France.'
The retort went over his head and Mr Loadman refused to stand himself down - as they all do.
In all, NAP has now had an impressive 70 charges against it dismissed, ranging from humble criminal damage - aka bill-pasting - to failing to cease to loiter.
That the 'dismissals' continue to prove the trumped-up nature of the charges, and amplify NAP's claims of police persecution, is cold comfort - some Napsters, especially those in the LA job, are looking at lengthy prison terms.
The performance of Miss Knobs and co was consistent with that of other prosecution teams the plutocrats have pitted against NAP.
If nothing, NAP have demonstrated that some Crown Law solicitors seem to enjoy being chastised by the magistrate, and almost wallow in their own ineptitude.
The hearing, anticlimactic though it was, could not have gone better had NAP planned it themselves.
It was adjourned until January 30, 2004, which is plenty of time for Miss Knobs and co to get their shit together.
• A sixth defendant, Emma Birkeland-Corro, is facing separate charges arising from the same event.
* The Legislative Assembly job - otherwise known as the Parliamentary 'invasion' - resulted in the charge of 'disturbing the Legislative Assembly while it is in session'. It is the first time in Australian political history such a charge has been laid and is presently on appeal before the Supreme Court.
