Ex-aldermen win fight for legal costs

THE state has been ordered to pay legal costs of two former Glenorchy City Council aldermen who were charged with criminal offences only to have the prosecution abandon the case at the 11th hour.

Speaking after the decision was handed down, Jennifer Branch-Allen and David Pearce said they were relieved the case — which related to allegations dating back to 2016 — was now over.

Mr Pearce said they had both suffered reputational damage as a result of the charges.

“It’s difficult for both of us to recover from that emotionally,” he said.

Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce were charged in June last year with breaches of conflict of interest rules alleged to have occurred at a council meeting in June 2016.

Magistrate Glenn Hay yesterday said the two were charged with just one day left before the limitation period expired. He said the charges — about which Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce’s solicitor had written to the prosecution outlining what she said were “fundamental flaws” — could not be amended once the limitation period had expired.

It was alleged Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce voted, along with five other aldermen, against a motion that the council “had not and would not use ratepayers’ money to cover [legal] costs” incurred by Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce during Supreme Court action launched by Ms Branch-Allen against a board of inquiry investigating the council.

On June 25 this year, the day the case was to be heard in the Hobart Magistrates Court, the prosecutor said no evidence would be tendered and Mr Hay dismissed the charges.

Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce then sought to have their costs associated with defending those charges paid by the state.

Mr Hay yesterday said it was just and reasonable to make an order for costs.

He said the prosecution had given no reason for its decision not to continue with the case, Ms Branch-Allen and Mr Pearce had tried to convince the prosecution that there was reasonable defence, and the pair could never have, by law, received legal expenses from the council.