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The Soap Box: Cop search more Mary Poppins than Rambo

Author
Barry Soper ,
Publish Date
Wed, 2 Dec 2015, 6:31AM
Police search Barry's apartment (Supplied)
Police search Barry's apartment (Supplied)

The Soap Box: Cop search more Mary Poppins than Rambo

Author
Barry Soper ,
Publish Date
Wed, 2 Dec 2015, 6:31AM

The man who was voted Politician of the Year by the tipster sheet Trans Tasman gave his view of my early morning wakeup call yesterday.

MORE: Soper's apartment searched by police

ACT's David Seymour said the cops had been watching too many movies, judging by the photographs he'd seen of the early morning raid of the Wellington apartment I share for part of the week with my wife (although most of the publicity is now calling it her apartment).

In fact it seems I'm no longer an entity, other than being Heather du Plessis-Allan's hubby, which, of course, I'm privileged to be.

But it's difficult to understand the sort of movies the young ACT leader thinks the cops watch because the only photo posted of their search warrant execution on the apartment was of two young officers on their knees sorting through a messy receipt drawer.

It looked more like something out of Mary Poppins than Rambo.

And, in fact, if they usually execute search warrants the way they executed mine then it's surprising they find anything incriminating.

They telephoned me the day before telling me a warrant had been issued to search the apartment. They were told it would be a little difficult that night after work as I had to go out and they said the following morning would be alright and arrived sharp - at 8am.

There was no shattering of the door frame, just a polite knock after they'd been cleared through a security maze, and a hand shaking introduction. Two of them had flown in from Auckland and the third, a young woman, seemed to be a hand writing aficionado from Wellington.

Every drawer was pulled out and every door was opened, looking for the illusive hand writing of my wife which they apparently need to prove she committed forgery and was deceptive when she bought a mail order gun without a licence - just to show how easy it was to do.

It was put to the senior office (on his knees fishing through receipts) that surely what Heather had done with her story was to make their lives safer, by ensuring guns that were being dispatched, were going to people with lawful motives. Certainly they'd immediately closed the loophole that allowed firearms to go to sight unseen people.

The polite officer paused a moment then simply said "no comment."

So as they pursue a possible prosecution, the gun wary public can breathe a little easier and David Seymour could perhaps upgrade his movie knowledge!

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