Recently a police officer applied to the Association for financial aid to help fund his defence on an assault charge.

The application was initially favourably considered until a routine check at National Office revealed that the officer was not a member of the Association.

The officer will now have to meet his own costs, which could be in the vicinity of $20,000.

You must be a member of the Police Association to access the benefits of the Legal Assistance Scheme Police staff who join the Association within three months of joining the Police are eligible for legal assistance.

However those staff who do not join within that three-month grace period cannot receive legal assistance until they have been a member for six consecutive months.

In other words, if you wait until you have a reason for wanting Association help before you join, you are ‘stood down’ from assistance until you have been a member for six months, (Rule 7(a)).

How do you class Association membership?

Membership of the Police Association means financial membership in terms of payment of the Association’s membership fee - $16.50 per fortnight for sworn and $10 per fortnight for non-sworn members.

A proportion of this subscription is set aside each fortnight for the Legal Assistance Fund, from which financial payments are made to lawyers defending members against charges arising from their employment in Police.

There is no adequate substitute for the Association’s Legal Assistance Scheme except self-insurance. If you are rich enough to pay your own legal costs come what may, this may be a viable option. However, for many this is not an option they can take their chances with, especially with the nature of Police work and the Administration’s crusade for the Police organisation to be seen as ‘whiter than white’.

No substitute for Legal Assistance Fund

From time to time the Association examines alternative ways of funding the Legal Assistance Scheme, such as an occupational insurance type arrangement. Every time such alternatives have been looked at they have turned out to be much more expensive than the current arrangements.

The reason for this is simply the number of uncontrolled and uncontrollable variables, which enter into the policing occupation, making it especially subject to judicial risk.

These make the odds very hard to calculate.

A doctor in the operating room can see to it that all the variables are known and as many risks anticipated as possible. So can a fire-fighter, or paramedic, or even a lawyer. In other words, the legal risks for these occupations can be reasonably well controlled.

A member of police attending an incident or going about his or her work cannot control their legal risks in exactly the same way. Split second decisions are required in situations where there are bound to be aggrieved individuals. Situations, which appear ‘normal’ can quickly change into highly charged and even dangerous events and these possibilities do not cease for sworn officers when their work hours end.

In short, so far no substitute has been found for the Association’s Legal Assistance Scheme, which remains a key benefit of Association membership.