$1.3M PAYOUT FOR BUNGLED POLICE RAID ON COMMUNE

Two years ago the NSW Police Service turned down the chance to pay a farming
commune $240,000 damages for an unlawful drug raid on its property near Glen
Innes.

Police lawyers advised that the amount was too high, and a subsequent offer
of $140,000 to be shared by 24 litigants was rejected by the commune.

Yesterday, the police decision was shown to be flawed when a Sydney District
Court awarded members of the 1,600-hectare Wytaliba commune $1.3 million
damages and court costs.

Judge Audrey Balla awarded damages of $1,048,000, ruling that police had
raided Wytaliba without a search warrant and had acted in a "high-handed
manner" in 1997. To this can be added court costs estimated at $300,000,
most of which accrued after the Wytalibans, as they are known, tried to
negotiate a settlement in 1998.

Two of them, David "Nicho" Nicholson and his wife, Michaela "Kye" Curran,
were awarded damages of $368,354 after they were injured in a struggle with
police and arrested.

The community of about 150 adults and children had every reason to be
pleased with the result, but it went about its secluded lives, shunning any
intrusion.

"We want to protect our privacy," said John, awarded more than $25,000 in
damages. "That's why I came here 10 years ago with my family. That's why we
sued the police."

They live in considerable hardship in houses made of mud brick, timber and
in some cases bales of hay. The commune, founded in 1980, has no piped
water, no grid electricity and runs on wind and solar power.

The children go to primary school in two demountable classrooms. There is a
general store, community centre and a big barn for communal use. In January,
the community had 81 Telstra subscribers, 56 satellite dishes for TV and six
computers.

Many live subsistence lives of labour and sweat, growing vegetables. Police
were also convinced they were growing cannabis and raided the community in
1995 and 1996.

On the morning of September 15, 1997, a number of Wytalibans were learning
how to make hay bales near the communal kitchen when a police helicopter
buzzed overhead and police approached on the ground, at first refusing to
identify themselves or their mission. Operation Chipoka was under way, with
the helicopter and a mobile headquarters directing operations.

In all, 13 police plus the State of NSW were sued, and accepted into
evidence were video tapes of police taken by Wytalibans.

The problem with Chipoka was that the local police ignored instructions to
get search warrants. Instead, they believed that warrants were not necessary
because they would be directed by air observation to cannabis gardens, the
so-called "hot pursuit" law.

Police found some cannabis, two people were convicted, but the convictions
were quashed when District Court Judge William Ducker found that police had
been trespassing.