WATCH: Judge to rule on validity of Covid enforcer

Doubts raised over whether an 'Authorised Officer' had the power to shut down Melbourne gym

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A judge will rule on the validity of a DHS Authorised Officer's command as former gym owner Nick Patterson takes his fight to court after he was charged with breaching Covid restrictions and hindering the officer.

The case could open a can of worms for authorities, similar to when an administrative bungle led to hundreds of Victoria Police officers being wrongly sworn in and operating illegally. 

"There has to be an instrument to delegate these authorised officers," Nick told me outside court.

"So I've looked at all of the instruments that exist on the government gazette, 155, and none of them enable the Chief Health Officer to authorise Authorised Officers under section 30 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act.

"So there fails to be any power for the Chief Health Officer to to create an Authorised Officer under that section of the Act ... It doesn't exist."

Nick refused entry to the DHS officer, who was accompanied by Victoria Police, to his business property in April 2020.

The DHS officer advised him that he was 'allowed to gain entry to the property and/or to direct Police to have entry to that property'.

Outside court, the officer Anthony Kolmus told me that he was 'absolutely' confident he was authorised in his role on the day.

But Nick believes he was targeted for standing up for his rights at the beginning of the pandemic and explains why he is being pursued so harshly.

"I believe I was the first business that publicly kept the doors open," he said.

"The fact of the matter is that I had homeless people living there (at the gym) I had drug-affected people that needed me to be there, I ran a ministry through that place ... That is public health, that's real public health."

Court has been adjourned until December 9 where the magistrate will hand down his decision on whether the Authorised Officer was in fact authorised on the day and, if so, if he was hindered.

In a seperate incident, Nick was jailed for 29 days after confronting photo of him appearing to punch a police officer made headlines around the country.

While the mainstream media spread the image to portray him in a negative light, police bodycam footage later corroborated his version of events and he was released on harsh bail conditions and charged by police. 

Victoria Police later threatened me with jail if Rebel News didn't remove the bodycam footage of the incident from our website.

The 10-day jury trial for that case is set to begin on November 14.

You can follow Nick's case in detail at FightCorruptPolice.com, a website he's set up to detail and provide updates on his legal fight.

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  • By Avi Yemini

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