which started here http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=113347&highlight=samengo-turner last year
Ex-officer cleared over knife in bag
By Helen Nugent
A BUSINESSMAN who says that he lost a multimillion-pound Formula One deal after being arrested by anti-terrorist police was cleared of any wrongdoing yesterday.
Nicholas Samengo-Turner was stopped as he drove past the Ministry of Defence in London by officers who found a penknife and a baton in his briefcase. The former Coldstream Guards officer said that the £40,000 prosecution had ruined the “biggest deal of my life”.
Mr Samengo-Turner said he believed that he had been victimised after going public with his concerns about the case. “What I find sinister is the umbrage taken by both police and the Crown Prosecution Service merely because I exercised my right to express my views via The Spectator and the broadsheet press.”
Earlier in the three-day trial, Southwark Crown Court was told that Mr Samengo-Turner, 50, had been flagged down because he was in “a high-risk government zone”. He said: “I was on my way to my solicitors where we had effectively agreed . . . the purchase of the [Formula One racing] team from Eddie Jordan. Then I found myself getting locked up all afternoon.”
Police officers found a penknife, which had two lockable blades, and an extendable baton similar to those used by the police. Mr Samengo-Turner, who lives near Newmarket, Suffolk, with his wife, two daughters and his wife’s parents, said he had “chucked” the baton in his case after confiscating it from his daughters. He said that he carried the penknife to help him to open letters. The baton was made illegal last year and the lockable blades are illegal without a good reason.
After six hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr Samengo-Turner of possessing an offensive weapon and a “bladed article” without “good reason”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1844870,00.html
Ex-officer cleared over knife in bag
By Helen Nugent
A BUSINESSMAN who says that he lost a multimillion-pound Formula One deal after being arrested by anti-terrorist police was cleared of any wrongdoing yesterday.
Nicholas Samengo-Turner was stopped as he drove past the Ministry of Defence in London by officers who found a penknife and a baton in his briefcase. The former Coldstream Guards officer said that the £40,000 prosecution had ruined the “biggest deal of my life”.
Mr Samengo-Turner said he believed that he had been victimised after going public with his concerns about the case. “What I find sinister is the umbrage taken by both police and the Crown Prosecution Service merely because I exercised my right to express my views via The Spectator and the broadsheet press.”
Earlier in the three-day trial, Southwark Crown Court was told that Mr Samengo-Turner, 50, had been flagged down because he was in “a high-risk government zone”. He said: “I was on my way to my solicitors where we had effectively agreed . . . the purchase of the [Formula One racing] team from Eddie Jordan. Then I found myself getting locked up all afternoon.”
Police officers found a penknife, which had two lockable blades, and an extendable baton similar to those used by the police. Mr Samengo-Turner, who lives near Newmarket, Suffolk, with his wife, two daughters and his wife’s parents, said he had “chucked” the baton in his case after confiscating it from his daughters. He said that he carried the penknife to help him to open letters. The baton was made illegal last year and the lockable blades are illegal without a good reason.
After six hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr Samengo-Turner of possessing an offensive weapon and a “bladed article” without “good reason”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1844870,00.html
Good thing the jurry aquited him.
