Tn April, 1988, he was accused by police of being the linchpin in a major car-stealing racket. At the time he was fixing up and re-spraying his two cars and one owned by his de-facto wife. He has been fixing and reconstructing cars for 30 years. At the time Mr Bond gave police details of where all the parts came from. The cars were seized by police to use in evidence. The cars were held outdoors in the Fyshwick yard. And there they stayed for nearly three years during the drawn out court process .
Mr Bond was convicted in the magistrates court and sentenced to three years’ jail on various charges. No-one else in the “”major car-stealing ring” was charged.
Mr Bond appealed to the Supreme Court. In the process of that appeal he had to take some paint samples from one of the cars. Police made him sign a document saying he would make good any damage when the cars were claimed by their “”true owners”.
But there were no “”true owners”. The cars belonged to Mr Bond. He was acquitted in October, 1990, by Justice Higgins who criticised the police forensic evidence. By that time he has spend a month and a half in jail pending a bail hearing.
After the acquittal he got cars back from the police security yard, but not until March, 1991. He found a radio-cassette system had been taken from one and the paint work had been wrecked on all of them and they needed respraying, the air-conditioning regassing, batteries replaced and brakes serviced because they had been left outside.
In July, 1991, he complained to the police, who three months later offered to compensate him $327 for the stereo system, but not to repaint.
He complained to the Ombudsman’s office in October, 1991, which said the police internal investigation department was investigating the claim. In November, 1991 Mr Bond was told by the Ombudsman’s office that because the police had followed Australian Government Solicitor office advice his complaint had been dismissed.
He resubmitted the complaint in December saying the police internal investigation unit should not have done the investigation. He got an acknowledgment in April, 1992, and a further letter in July, 1992, saying workloads had caused a delay.
(Eighteen months earlier, the then Ombudsman, Professor Dennis Pearce, had complained bitterly in his annual report about lack of resources in his office causing unacceptable delay.)
Mr Bond got a further letter in September apologising for the delay but saying the matter had been investigated and dismissed. Mr Bond responded to that but has received no reply, so he instructed his lawyer, Hugh Selby, to put the case to üThe Canberra Times.
Mr Bond said he had been very badly treated.
He had been charged because of police technical evidence about the history of the panels on the seized cars.
“”At my appeal I was able to demonstrate _ through rubbing back panels _ that the paint history of those panels was entirely incompatible with their hypothesis,” he said. “”Put shortly, they were plain wrong.”
The police had not only failed to prove his guilt, but he had proved his innocence.
The Chamberlain and Splatt cases had shown that police should not have been satisfied with superficial similarities, but also looked for dissimilarities. If they had done that, Mr Bond said, he would never have been charged.
They had got it wrong and had pushed all the cost on to him.
“”All three vehicles were in tip-top condition when seized by the police,” he said.
Mr Bond is angry that his cars were taken away for two years and left outside to deteriorate, when he was innocent, and he had got no compensation.
“”I expected that when the wrongs were made right, as they were by Justice Higgins, that the police and the bureaucracy would have the decency to apologise and at least try to make some amends by putting me and my de-facto wife back in the position that we were before my arrest,” he said.
After a further review, the Ombudsman’s office wrote to Mr Bond on September 7, 1992, saying it had found that the police had relied on advice from the Australian Government Solicitor that there was no legal obligation to keep the vehicles under cover.
The AGS had advised that “”the expense of providing protection from the elements for all vehicles in the custody of the police would not be warranted in view of the minor nature of any deterioration due to exposure to the elements. . . . .
“”Having now reviewed the case fully, I can find no basis to criticise the AFP for its offer to reimburse you only for the loss of the radio cassette player,” the Ombudsman’s office advised Mr Bond. If he had further material he should supply it.
Mr Bond has done this and has received further letters saying the investigation is continuing.
Mr Bond is dissatisfied with the Ombudsman’s investigation. It was taking too long to get answers to letters, he said.
“”It should be obvious that keeping a car in the open for 2{ years was unreasonable,” he said.
Mr Bond does not expect to get what he sees as justice and has begun to restore the cars himself.
The AFP now has a new warehouse at Mitchell which has under-cover room for 12 cars.
A spokeswoman for the AFP said the AFP had nothing further to add than what was in the Ombudman’s material.
The Ombudsman’s office said that the matter was still being investigated. The letter of September 7 was not the up-to-date position. Under the Ombudsman Act, the office could not comment on the details of specific complaints while they were continuing.