But, recognizing that there may be some occasions where we will examine retrospectively, we have prepared some guidelines, just guidelines, but guidelines that we are stuck with.
And you’ll be aware that we have occasionally checked retrospectively.
Some of my own officers, some have received penalty notices when we heard after the fact that they violated the guidelines. One or two high-profile people even, when it was clear that they had confessed, and there was good evidence, also received punishment notices after the fact, a few weeks after the fact.
And on the occasions that we’ve done that, we were seeing something that was the most serious and major type of violation, and that’s where three factors came into play.
There has to be some kind of evidence – not just someone saying something.
But I had and have three factors: there was evidence that the people involved knew or should have known that what they were doing was a crime; where not conducting an investigation would significantly undermine the validity of the law; And where there was ambiguity in the absence of any proper defence.
So in cases where those criteria were met, the guidelines suggested that we should potentially investigate further and ticket people [fines],
,