Australia - chocolate frog
Aussie police to drop chocolate frog charges
Article published on the 2009-11-18 Latest update 2009-11-18 14:12 TU
The frog at the centre of the row
(Photo: Cadbury's)
The boy, who lives near Perth in Western Australia, was hit with two charges of receiving stolen goods after a friend allegedly took from a shop a 70-cent (45 Euro cents) chocolate frog and an inexpensive sign reading "Do not enter, genius at work" and gave them to him.
The boy appeared in court on Monday when police defended their decision to press charges.
The boy’s lawyer Peter Collins slammed the police action, saying that the charges would never have been filed if the boy were a "non-Aboriginal kid from an affluent Perth suburb with professional parents".
"The fact of the matter is he's 12, and these are the most trivial charges imaginable, and it can hardly be a justification for this kid to be brushed up against the courts to teach him a bit of a lesson," said Collins on Monday.
The subsequent media backlash forced the police to rethink and announce their intention to drop the case.
"Police intend to withdraw the charges," a police spokesman told AFP.
They said they would seek to resolve it via a discussion between the boy, his parents and the shopkeepers from whom the items were stolen.
The Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett described the case as “unfortunate”.
Barnett told ABC local radio the boy had a history with crime and police were trying to pull him into line.
"Maybe the police were making a statement to him, that you know, you can't carry on," he said.
"Now, probably an overaction and the fact that it's a Freddo frog holds the whole sort of police system up to ridicule, that was the unfortunate part."
