Delivering Justice !

It is an inescapable fact that the senior ranks of the New South Wales police are in disarray and this comes at a critical time because we are just a few months away from the retirement of the present police commissioner.  The two people locked in battle are the deputy commissioners from whom the government would be expected to select the present commissioners replacement.

There is no doubt that about ten years ago the Police Special Crime and Internal Affairs ( SCIA ) division persuaded a judge to sign off on multiple search warrants that lacked the evidence required to support such action, and as a result over a hundred very senior police had their homes and offices bugged, and were subjected to a turned criminal policeman wearing a wire trying to trap them at social functions.

It is concluded that when the Ombudsman was tasked with holding an enquiry, the direction of this enquiry ignored the wrongdoing of SCIA and concentrated on harassing the victims and minutely examining the rectitude of every minor decision these officers had made in the execution of their duties.    It took the form of a witch hunt that resulted in at least the suicide of one senior police officer and the attempted suicide of several more.

One of the deputy commissioners involved in this matter was the head of SCIA at that time and the other was the victim of the bugging. In the interests of justice, it is important that all the facts be tabled - and guilt determined.  If there are suspicions of corrupt conduct, those should be clearly stated - and dealt with.  This is a major police operation that can not be explained away by blaming "mistakes " by underlings.   As that saying goes :   The buck stops on the desk of the person in charge !

There is a very real danger that the government may decide that tension within seniority levels in policing makes it impossible to recruit a new commissioner from within.   We could see a search for a new commissioner from other states or even overseas.   Many will remember when we previously recruited from Britains Scotland Yard - and what a disaster that proved to be.

This present parliamentary enquiry is supposed to settle what has been lurking in the shadows for over a decade.   There is no doubt that many of the actions taken crossed the bounds of legality and the bugging of phones and emails extended beyond police ranks.  Some journalists were caught in the net and their sources compromised.   This could rightly be called a personal vendetta - and that has no place in the structured operation of a modern police force.

Unfortunately, the ugly reality of politics usually intrudes into enquiries of this nature and there is a tendency to reach an inconclusive finding.  Various searches over a ten year period have delivered nothing and it will be a complete travesty of justice if this present enquiry peters out with a whimper and is consigned to a musty report hidden away somewhere in the state archives.

Justice demands that guilt be determined - and if that means that the guilty person gets the sack - then so be it.   Justice also demands that if the other party is innocent, then that person be exonerated.  It is the job of those assisting this enquiry to diligently pick apart the web of facts and establish the truth, and if that offends some sensitive souls -  such is the outcome of getting to the truth.

This has been a particularly ugly imbroglio and a lot of careers have been compromised and a lot of family lives wrecked.  Unless it is cleared up, lock stock and barrel - it will continue to fester away in the shadows.   We do a serious disservice to our police force if we allow that to happen !