I was in court today. Not everyone can say that on this fine spring day (except for the motley mob of people also in front of the beak for drunk driving, drunk and disorderly, not wearing seat belts, malicious damage and more in Court 2 at 9:30).

And if you are sensing your editor was joining the line to contest one of these crimes against his fellow man, you’d be wrong; instead I was there to contest a $100 fine on principle for having “too dark a tint” on the Monaro. As my car had passed something like 7 roadworthiness tests, with the tint in place, it is my contention that if the powers-that-be-that-police-this-stuff – both in NSW and WA – don’t point out to me this is the case, the tint is illegal, how am I supposed know Road Rule 57 (Sub C) or whatever it was?

I figured, having run this defence past a few people, include a few Mr Plods who are friends of mine, I figured my part would take only minutes, would be thrown out and then I could sit back for a bit, check out the extensive AV stuff in the court room and maybe brew a story out of it, as I don’t think too many people get to see the inside of a court room and know the systems and protocols. Especially from a video or A/V angle.

The best laid plans of mice and men …

I was called up reasonably early (alphabetically) and stood before not one but two magistrates/judges whatever (I later learned they are called Registrars), who asked me if I knew why I was there (which seemed an odd question), did I want or had I seen a lawyer (No) and did I understand the charge of “blah… blah …” (Yes).

How did I plead?

“Not guilty”.

Fine, I was told, this matter will now be listed for mention on September 21^st to arrange a trial date.

WHAT?

I was travelling 200Kms to get 30 seconds of fame and told to come back on another date to arrange yet another date. All for a silly $100 fine that could have been done and dusted in 5 minutes with a bit of common sense and give and take.

Nope cannot be done. This is the process. Go and sit down.

Blimey. I was expecting Rumpole, not this!

The next one up before their Lordships was a rather sick and sorry gent who walked with a limp and a cane and had his right arm heavily strapped and sling-ed. Turns out he had been stopped for not having his seat belt done up properly, an accusation he vehemently denied. His bumps and scrapes had happened when he fell off his roof and he had a zillion hospital appointments in the next 6 weeks to get himself patched back up. Seems he had shattered a knee or two as well.

When he learned that he would go through the same process I would be, he immediately offered to change his plea to guilty as he just didn’t want the drama, stress and pain of going through the system as he was arguing on a point of principle (as well) as he felt it was his word against the police officer. I didn’t understand the legal technicalities of it all, but seems you cannot do that so tough. Effectively (I am pretty sure) the Registrars disqualified themselves so forcing the issue to the next court.

We did get one stroke of luck however in that a court sitting in 30 minutes time had a couple of “Vacancies” so we were both led into there where our new co-crims seems a much more hard-bitten bunch.

Luckily I was up first before a lady magistrate who lay down my “trial” for late January. When I tried to tell my story, I was told simply to get legal advice, and summarily dismissed. I have no idea what happened to the other fellow. Hopefully he got a sympathetic hearing and doesn’t have to come back, but I figure it’s a sad indictment of “the system” where someone has to go through all this as he possibly does and chooses to plead guilty to avoid it – and get a fine and non-frequent driving points to boot when he might, just might in fact be innocent.

As an aside, I was amazed at the amount of printer paper, , handed to someone, read, torn up, shredded and then thrown out. The wastage in this day and age is staggering. Surely with the technology we have, these minor offences could be handled via video link and the smaller incidents resolved by negotiation with tablets or screens used to view charges, decisions etc?

I think in future I would be inclined to attempt to record and video any altercations where they may be doubt and certainly take photographs. As a matter of routine I keep a small Casio digi-still complete with GPS and a 32GB SD card in it fully charged and in my glovebox. Kaiser Baas also make a neat little windscreen mounted video camera that has continuous recording in case of accident etc. This was reviewed by Auscam here.

As for A/V in the court? Large LCD TV panels bolted to the walls and viewable from any angle and a couple of discreetly mounted security cameras keeping an eye on things. That was it. So I guess we won’t be seeing regularly TV transmitted court cases anytime soon.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com