The Court held that a police officer's reliance on bail conditions incorrectly recorded on the COPS database can constitute reasonable grounds for belief under s 77(1) of the Bail Act 2013 (NSW), even where the arrested person protests the conditions are wrong and offers to produce bail paperwork, provided there is no evidence of systemic database errors and the officer's assessment of the person's credibility is reasonable in the circumstances. The Court rejected the contention that s 77(1) requires arrest to be treated as a last resort, holding that s 77(3)(d) requires consideration of alternatives but does not impose a hierarchy among the available options. The false imprisonment claim for the First Event failed on lawful justification, but the Second Event arrest for 'intimidate police' was found unlawful on the basis that the arresting officer lacked reasonable grounds to suspect an offence had been committed and/or lacked a contemporaneous intention to charge.
The full text is available to signed-in members.