Derek Achong

The Court of Ap­peal has dis­charged a 69-year-old re­tired es­tate con­sta­ble from Ari­ma, who was con­vict­ed of throw­ing beer bot­tles and a ket­tle with hot wa­ter at po­lice of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­port at his home.

Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon and Vasheist Kokaram up­held Pe­ter Ce­de­no’s ap­peal af­ter Deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) George Bus­by con­ced­ed that a mag­is­trate mis­han­dled his case.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Ce­de­no was ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers went to the cou­ple’s home at Green­vale Park, Ari­ma, on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2017.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly met Ce­de­no’s wife out­side and en­tered the house with­out a war­rant to con­front Ce­de­no over the al­le­ga­tions.

Ce­de­no re­port­ed­ly be­gan act­ing in a vi­o­lent man­ner and threw beer bot­tles, a beer case and a ket­tle with hot wa­ter at the of­fi­cers. He was even­tu­al­ly sub­dued and charged with as­sault­ing the of­fi­cers and throw­ing mis­siles.

In his de­fence, Ce­de­no claimed that the po­lice came to his home af­ter he, his wife and their son had an ar­gu­ment.

Ce­de­no, who was left vi­su­al­ly im­paired, with a speech im­ped­i­ment and mem­o­ry loss af­ter a traf­fic ac­ci­dent in 2015, claimed that the of­fi­cers did not iden­ti­fy them­selves when they forced their way in­to the house. He al­so con­tend­ed that he threw the ob­jects at them as he be­lieved they were ban­dits.

The as­sault charge was even­tu­al­ly dis­con­tin­ued but Ce­de­no was put on tri­al be­fore the mag­is­trate for the less­er of­fence, which has a max­i­mum sen­tence of a $1,500 fine and up to six months in prison.

The mag­is­trate dis­missed a no-case sub­mis­sion in the case and con­vict­ed Ce­de­no of the of­fence. He was placed on a $1,500 bond to keep the peace for six months.

Ce­de­no’s broth­er Rick­ie was al­lowed to rep­re­sent him in the ap­peal due to his med­ical con­di­tions.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions be­fore the ap­peal pan­el, Bus­by not­ed that un­der Sec­tion 23 of the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act, po­lice of­fi­cers are al­lowed to en­ter pri­vate premis­es with­out a search war­rant if they sus­pect that a per­son is com­mit­ting do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that the po­lice of­fi­cers ad­mit­ted that they met Ce­de­no’s wife out­side while he was locked in­side.

Stat­ing that the of­fi­cers’ en­try in­to Ce­de­no’s home was il­le­gal, Bus­by ad­mit­ted that the of­fi­cers could not re­ly on the pro­vi­sion of the leg­is­la­tion, as they did not present a re­port to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the DPP’s Of­fice as re­quired.

“He had the right to throw any­thing at any­one who was on his prop­er­ty with­out cause,” Bus­by stat­ed.

The ap­peal pan­el agreed with Bus­by’s po­si­tion, as they not­ed that the is­sue of a re­tri­al did not arise as the ev­i­dence in the case was in­ca­pable of re­sult­ing in a pos­si­ble con­vic­tion.