Derek Achong

A Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trate has ad­vised po­lice of­fi­cers to prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gate do­mes­tic abuse al­le­ga­tions be­fore bring­ing charges be­fore the courts.

Mag­is­trate Du­ane Mur­ray gave the ad­vice on Fri­day, as he dis­missed a case against a man for breach­ing a pro­tec­tion or­der ob­tained by the moth­er of his child.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the woman ob­tained the pro­tec­tion or­der, pro­hibit­ing the man from be­ing phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly abu­sive to­wards her, in Sep­tem­ber 2019, af­ter their sev­en-year re­la­tion­ship end­ed.

In June 2020, the woman re­port­ed to po­lice that the man had breached the pro­tec­tion or­der. She claimed that the in­ci­dent oc­curred af­ter she re­ceived five missed calls on her cell­phone from the man’s num­ber and re­turned the calls. She claimed that when the man an­swered, he cursed and threat­ened her be­fore hang­ing up abrupt­ly.

When he was ar­rest­ed, the man de­nied any wrong­do­ing, as he claimed that he was call­ing her to make arrange­ments to see their daugh­ter.

In de­cid­ing the case, Mur­ray not­ed that he found rea­son­able doubt in the woman’s claims. He said that the po­lice of­fi­cer who took the woman’s re­port failed to do a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore charg­ing the man. He not­ed that the of­fi­cer did not make an of­fi­cial note of the man’s de­nial of the al­le­ga­tion up­on his ar­rest.

He al­so point­ed out that while cross-ex­am­in­ing the woman, the man’s at­tor­ney, Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh, con­tend­ed that af­ter she re­turned the calls, he went to his near­est po­lice sta­tion to seek as­sis­tance in re­solv­ing their dis­pute over cus­tody of their daugh­ter.

“The court ex­pects in cir­cum­stances like these that there is some­thing more that ought to take place in terms of an at­tempt to con­duct some de­gree of in­quiry, even if it is to say that a re­quest was made of the de­fen­dant for a state­ment or what­ev­er and he re­fused,” Mur­ray said.

“All these things are im­por­tant el­e­ments in as­sist­ing the court in be­ing able to come to a con­clu­sion that might be one that the pros­e­cu­tion de­sires,” he added.

Mur­ray al­so warned the woman about mak­ing triv­ial re­ports on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“It must be un­der­stood that pro­tec­tion or­ders are meant to be a shield, not a sword. A per­son must be in le­git­i­mate fear and con­cern for them­selves,” he said.

He stat­ed that the case demon­strat­ed that the cou­ple had un­re­solved is­sues and en­cour­aged them to seek as­sis­tance to help re­solve them for the ben­e­fit of their child.

“If you can­not do it be­tween your­selves, let the court in­ter­vene so that your child could spend time with both her par­ents. I urge that,” Mur­ray said.

He al­so ad­vised the man that he should not gloat over the fact that the charge was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed.

“The re­al vic­to­ry for you will be mak­ing use of the best op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a prop­er arrange­ment for your daugh­ter,” he said.