Police Snapshot Legal Matters

with Daniel McKinnon

South Penrith: Woman’s online selling sparks police interest

A woman has been charged after stealing in South Penrith.

For the past several months the online activity of a 37-year-old South Penrith woman has been monitored by police.

It is alleged the woman was selling a significant amount of children’s clothing, which were brand new with tags attached.

It is alleged the woman would advertise new items daily, selling them below their retail cost.

The woman was seen to advertise multiples of the same item in different sizes.

About 7.20am on Friday, May 12, police attended the woman’s address in Pebworth Place, South Penrith to execute a search warrant.

The woman was arrested, and officers seized approximately 120 items that were believed to be stolen.

The woman was charged and will appear in Penrith Local Court on Tuesday, June 27.

Penrith: Man to front court over shopping centre incident

A man has been charged with ‘affray’ and ‘using offensive language in a public place’ in Penrith.

About 4pm on Friday, May 12, an 18-yearold South Penrith man allegedly attended a shopping centre on High Street, Penrith.

The man walked through the centre and allegedly started making abusive slurs towards a 16-year-old youth.

The youth continued onto an escalator where the 18-year-old followed him, before cutting in front of him and antagonising him.

The pair exited the centre before the youth and the man allegedly adopted a fighting stance and came together.

They both ended up on the ground in a wrestle and the fight continued until security attended to intervene. Whilst the 18-year-old was being held, it is alleged that he continued to antagonise the youth.

Security officers attempted to move the man away from the youth and he allegedly continued to swear profusely in the shopping centre.

Police attended and the man was arrested. He was charged and will front Penrith Local Court on Thursday, June 8.

Colyton: Man attempts to run after returning positive breath test

A man has been charged after being caught mid-range drink driving and escaping police custody in Colyton.

About 8.30pm on Friday, May 12, police were patrolling Muscio Street, Colyton when they stopped a vehicle for a random breath test.

Officers had a conversation with the driver, a 25-year-old St Marys man who was submitted to a breath test, that proved positive.

The man was informed that he was under arrest and allegedly asked “Why?”.

As police began to explain, he sprinted away and was pursued before being apprehended in Ball Street, Colyton.

He was handcuffed and taken to Penrith Police Station where he underwent a breath analysis that returned a positive reading of 0.081.

The man was issued a licence suspension notification and was charged.

He was to appear before Penrith Local Court on Thursday, May 18.

Kingswood: Drugs found in woman’s dressing gown and pram

A woman has been charged after possessing two lots of prohibited drugs in Kingswood.

About 9.15pm on Friday, May 12, police were patrolling Wainwright Lane, Kingswood when they stopped a 57-year-old Kingswood woman, who at the time was pushing a pram.

The woman was searched, and police allegedly located a small foil package containing cannabis in the pocket of the dressing gown she was wearing.

Officers searched the items in her pram and allegedly located a small resealable plastic bag in a wallet containing methamphetamines.

The woman was charged and will appear at Penrith Local Court on Friday, June 9.

Blue Mountains: Bus crash results in multiple hospitalisations

An adult and five children were taken to Nepean Hospital at Kingswood last Friday after a bus crash in the Blue Mountains.

Two other children were taken to Westmead Hospital for treatment.

Officers attached to Blue Mountains Police Area Command have commenced inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the crash, which involved two vehicles.

Police have been told one bus – containing 15 passengers – and another bus – containing 10 passengers – collided on the Great Western Highway.

None of the injuries were life-threatening.

If you are involved in an event that involves an insurer it can be a challenging time.

This might be a claim on your own insurance for something like the weather events about your home or, perhaps you are dealing with an insurance company about a car accident.

The purpose of this column is to give you some suggestions about how to deal with a Letter of Demand from an insurance company as a result of some sought of motor vehicle collision.

Quite often people will be involved in some sought of minor car accident where the Police are not called but details including insurance details are exchanged.

One or both parties then go back to their insurer, explain their version of events and usually, subject to the relevant insured person paying their insurance excess, the insurer will cover the cost of repair.

Insurance companies typically do not like wearing this kind of loss however so, they will often write to the other party to the collision or incident seeking to recover the cost they have spent repairing their insured person’s vehicle.

For example, a person is reversing out of a car parking spot at a shopping centre and collides with Person B.

There is some damage to each vehicle but nothing requiring anything like a tow truck or a Police report.

Person B reports the incident to their insurer, pays their excess and their insurer pays for the repairs to their vehicle.

The insurer then sends Person A a Letter of Demand to the effect of “we have been advised that on X date you were involved in a collision with Person B. We believe you are at fault and demand payment of the sum of $Y from you or we will sue you”.

These Letters of Demand take various forms, some insurers are more polite than others but ultimately you should not always

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accept face value that you are to blame and simply make payment.

This is because it is often difficult to determine who was actually at fault in these kinds of situations.

Further, the insurance company is usually just relying on the version of events given to them by their insured person to determine fault without any independent evidence like a third party eye witness or CCTV.

The amount of people who simply pay the sum of money that the insurance company demands without asking what evidence they have to prove their claim is mind boggling.

The reason this is important is because if you refuse to pay because you do not believe you are in the wrong the insurer will need to sue you to recover their alleged loss. To do this they will need to prove to an appropriate Court or Tribunal that you were at fault with respect to the relevant accident. So, if they only have what is often a vague version of events from their insured person and no third party witnesses or CCTV or any other evidence that actually proves you are fault, they are likely to fail in their case against you.

That is not to say that you should mislead an insurer or give evidence that is not correct, however the insurance company should be put to proof when they send Letters of Demand to everyday people which often result in people simply paying money that they may not actually be liable for because they are worried about the repercussions.

If you do not believe you are fault, ask the insurer to provide the evidence they will rely on to prove you are at fault. If they have no evidence, or their only evidence is a sketchy version of events from the person they have insured, you should consider trying to settle their claim for a lesser sum of money that recognises that the insurer will have difficulty recovering the sum from you if the matter goes to Court or getting some legal advice.