A Melbourne man accused of stalking and sending vile emails to police officers almost didn’t get to court because of a bizarre bungle.
Rohan Michael Brown was representing himself in front of the Supreme Court of Victoria for a bail bid but did not appear on Tuesday morning.
The 51-year-old wasn’t put on the prison van to take him to court because he was “misplaced” by corrections staff, Justice Lex Lasry explained to the court
But after a more than three hour delay the Hampton Park man was brought in wearing a grey tracksuit where he argued he was not an unacceptable risk of committing further offences including sending abusive emails.
He is charged with 51 offences including stalking, intimidating a law enforcement officer or a family member of a law enforcement officer, harassing witnesses and breaches of bail and personal intervention orders between August 2020 and August 2021.
Mr Brown is accused of sending vile emails where he allegedly called various police officers a “dumb c***”, “cowardly pissant” and a “perverter of justice and all around weak c***”, the court was told.
He was asked whether he would continue to conduct himself this way if he was granted bail.
But he said he couldn’t expect members of Victoria Police or the Office of Public Prosecution to comply with the law and they refused to respond when he spoke nicely to them.
“Obviously I just have to cop it on the chin that I won’t get any justice from bringing any attention to higher members of police,” Mr Brown said.
The man, who runs an online marketing business, also said the court had the jurisdiction to strike out charges that were an “abuse of power”.
“That’s not what this hearing is about, this is an applixjmtzywcation of bail,” Justice Lasry said.
The man took to the stand and after giving an affirmation said he would desist from sending emails to members of the police force unless it was of a “respectful and non-abusive manner”.
But in his submissions aired in court he argued the offences were not serious examples, labelled his emails as “non-threatening and truthful” and called the statements of the officers involved as “misleading and fraudulent”.
The prosecution’s case was also “frivolous, vexatious and had little chance of success” because his conduct was carried out as an act of self-defence, Mr Brown wrote in his submissions.
However prosecutors were concerned the father would continue to offend, he had little regard for court orders and some witnesses were worried about giving evidence because of his “intimidation tactics”, the court heard.
The judge said Mr Brown was an intelligent man and granted him bail on stringent conditions including he must only email the police force or prosecutors if they contacted him first, abide by a curfew and must not send or use social media to send communication that is menacing, offensive or threatening.
“You won’t be going down this road again,” Justice Lasry warned.
“You either comply with the conditions or you will go back into custody,” he said.
Mr Brown will return to court next month.
