ACC ruling quashed

Dunedin ACC clients Bruce Van Essen and Jason Patterson will seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against a recent Court of Appeal finding arising from a dispute over ''flawed'' search warrants executed in 2006.

The Court of Appeal has quashed an earlier High Court ruling ordering the Crown to pay damages over the matter.

Mr Van Essen said he was ''disappointed and aggrieved'' with the latest finding, while Mr Patterson said it had been emotionally draining.

The court found Mr Van Essen was not entitled to an earlier award of $10,000 in damages, partly because he had gained redress through going to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, which had made a favourable finding over his complaint.

Approached for comment, Dunedin barrister Warren Forster said ''serious'' public policy issues were involved in the findings.

Mr Forster, who represents Mr Van Essen over another matter but not in this case, said the IPCA did not deal with compensation matters.

From a public policy standpoint, people wishing to raise matters of concern with the IPCA in the public interest should not feel that their separate claims for compensation could be undermined by having gone to the authority, he said.

The decision arose out of joint High Court proceedings brought by the two claimants, who were subjected to police search warrants in 2006.

ACC's fraud unit, suspecting the men were working while claiming benefits, requested their homes be searched by police, based on information provided by private investigators Peter Gibbons and Graeme Scott.

An IPCA report subsequently criticised the way police handled a conflict of interest in their execution of Mr Van Essen's warrant.

The watchdog said there was no evidence of illegality by police, but they did not properly manage an ''apparent conflict of interest'', and the officer who sought the search warrant relied on information provided by Mr Gibbons, who was his father-in-law.

A High Court decision in 2013 found Messrs Van Essen and Patterson failed to establish bad faith on the part of the police officers or the investigators, but found the men's rights under the Bill of Rights - to be free from unreasonable search and seizure - had been breached.

Mr Van Essen was awarded $10,000 in damages for the breach.

Mr Patterson's claim for damages was unsuccessful.

Other costs were awarded against the Crown in favour of Messrs Gibbons, Scott, Van Essen and Patterson.

The Crown appealed against damages and costs and, in its recent decision, the Court of Appeal found in its favour.

The Crown must, however, pay some of the ACC claimants' costs involving ''all attendances up to the commencement of the High Court trial''.

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