morning, had an early breakkie wi friends this morning, one being a legal eagle. As usual this case came up in conversation, and one of the people present innocently asked could it be that the QPS would move in on GBC (if involved) after allowing the children to get a little bit of normality back into their lives after such a traggic event for such young children?
Just an idea, and it may or may not make sense, who knows, but could the 'powers to be' have been in lengthy and relevant discussions with child Physc's about potential trauma involved in removing their father so soon after the traggic loss/murder of their mother. After thinnking about this suggestion I guess it sounds plausable. The welfare of children is always of upmost importance to the authorities.
perhaps 'special' allowances can and have been made under these very special circumstances. I mean lets face it, he is not going anywhere, hardly a flght risk and I have no doubt his passport has probably been taken off him.
If the authorities thought that these 3 littlle girls would be better mentally prepared to go through the ordeal of losing their father in another 1 or 2 months then I think this has to be considered..
And by the way, i don't subscribe to notion that the children would EVER be 'mentally prepared' to losing their father after what they have gone through, BUT the QPS have a job to do. But perhaps this has been taken into consideration.
I would like to hear from the likes of dark shadow, key boredom, hawkins etc if this could even be legally possible for the wheels of justice to work like this i.e someone signing off on 'delaying' an arrest when they have enough to be able to carry it out??? The Attorney General for example??
Fair call on the arrest timing and respect all opinions. The point I raised earlier which had been raised with me earlier and I thought was an interesting one, as I know for a fact the welfare of the children's mental state will be a huge priority right now for the authorites, if indeed their father is on the 'radar'.
This is what I mean by this is not your 'typical garden variety arrest'. The police don't make an arrest of this nature (father kills mother of 3 young children) every day of the week.
However the other point to the post was simply to ask the likes of hawkins or dark shadow "even if the QPS wanted to delay an arrest, CAN THEY"?
is this even possible in our legal or legislative system??
I don't expect anyone without actual experience or knowledge in this matter to be able to answer this question. My lawyer friend couldn't this morning put it that way..
curious is all
Hi MH,
Sorry for being a slow-mo...I thought i had better answer this now rather than read the rest of the thread (seeing you have mentioned wanting to know 3 times, lol), so i have no idea if this has been addressed in detail by someone else.
Anyway, AFAIK (and i will look into it tonight), there is no set provision for this type of situation and in some very rare situations, any delay in arrest would be completely at the discretion of the officer in charge of an investigation.
Having said that, I really don't think a delay in arrest would be extended under these conditions (that is; if a parent was an accused party in the unlawful death of their partner, and the children were to be left parentless), and i think that the police would be chomping at the bit to make an arrest in similar circumstances.
However, if a delay (during the commission of an arrest)were to occur for the sake of allowing explanation to a child of an accused person, it would only be an extremely short delay (i mean, less than half an hour), and would be supervised by an arresting officer, and even that could land the arresting officer in hot water if s/he didn't have a decent excuse, but it does occur sometimes.
Also, whoever it was that mentioned that child protection would be called in...you were spot on
Child protection are responsible for the care of any children in these circumstances, even if they only supervise for 5 minutes until a grandparent or other relative is called.
If anybody wants to read the basic police responsibilities of arrest procedures, the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act is the place to look (s. 365, or chapter 14 on the side menu)
http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/current/P/PolicePowResA00.pdf
HTH
Cheers.