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Australian Broadcasting Corpor
03 October 2006

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Tensions mount over police ass

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

MAXINE MCKEW: Welcome to the program. Well, we take a look tonight at the lengths to which authorities should be able to go in extracting a confession from a suspect. Now it's a matter at the heart of a continuing debate on the conduct of the war on terror, but it's also a burning issue at the moment for the Victoria police. Allegations of police threatening and assaulting suspects backed by secretly filmed video evidence have caused a rift in the force. Now, while tensions can probably be traced back to the establishment of an Office of Police Integrity two years ago, things came to a head recently when chief commissioner Christine Nixon disbanded the force's Armed Offenders Squad. The Commissioner's action seems to have been prompted by a Police Integrity investigation, that later produced video evidence of squad members allegedly assaulting suspects. But the powerful Police Union is standing behind the squad, calling the hearing a kangaroo court. And in some sections of the community there's support for the notion of police using so called old fashioned techniques to extract information. Greg Hoy reports.

GREG HOY: There's a bitter power struggle within the Victorian police surrounding a secret video recording created when the Office of Police Integrity filmed members of the recently disbanded Armed Offenders Squad holding down, kicking, punching, threatening, with further allegations of beating with a telephone or even holding a gun to the head of various suspects to extract evidence.

NEWS REPORT: Allegations of bashings and torture at police headquarters.

REPORTER: After one of the beatings he was told to stop bleeding everywhere.

SNR SGT PAUL MULLETT: They've been hung out to dry by their chief commissioner.

REPORTER: The video was recorded by a camera installed in the ceiling by the OPI.

GREG HOY: So what was your first reaction to the video?

CHRISTINE NIXON: I was shocked, as anybody would be when they saw that. It's a very confronting video. It shows, obviously, a fair degree of violence and also threats made and language that I thought was entirely inappropriate and it was a surprise to see.

GREG HOY: Deputy commissioner Simon Overland described it as sickening and it begged the question, should police be allowed to break the law to force a confession? Snap opinion polls in Victoria have suggested they should, to the alarm of criminologists and law enforcement academics.

ASSOC PROF COLLEEN LEWIS: I think it's of great concern that if we have a culture of brutality - that's the kind of conduct you expect in a totalitarian regime. In a liberal democracy such as Australia we have rules, we have regulations in terms of the interview process and I don't know of any rules and regulations that say we beat confessions out of people.

PROF ANDREW GOLDSMITH: I don't think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. It's against the law. To some extent we can understand that these things occur, but I think we need strong supervision to ensure it doesn't happen. We need strong forms of accountability to make sure that when it happens appropriate responses are put in place.

SNR SGT PAUL MULLETT: It was nothing short of a show trial and a Spanish Inquisition that we witnessed this week.

GREG HOY: On 8 September, the Armed Offenders Squad was disbanded. Two detectives have since been stood down. However, those accused reacted more with outrage than embarrassment when the video was aired at a recent public hearing. The officers questioned at the hearing claimed they were victims of public humiliation in a kangaroo court. The politically powerful Victorian Police Association, whose secretary Paul Mullett is a former member of the very same squad, has challenged the disbanding of the squad in the Industrial Relations Commission, amidst calls for the Office of Police Integrity to instead be disbanded and for the Police Commissioner and her deputy to resign. Today, Paul Mullett would not be interviewed by the 7.30 Report.

COLLEEN LEWIS: There are many Victorian police officers who I am sure are absolutely sickened by the kind of behaviour they saw on that video and yet they have an association which to this point in time has yet to speak out and condemn that behaviour.

ANDREW GOLDSMITH: It's somewhat unfortunate, I think, that Police Associations are not taking a more, a broader point of view on the problem at heart here and it's a shame that they're reacting so defensively rather than seeing this as an opportunity to acknowledge a problem and propose some solutions for it.

CHRISTINE NIXON: They've expressed that view and in this case they've expressed it very strongly. I don't happen to agree. I think it is a process we need to have. We need in Victoria Police to demonstrate that we are clean and accountable and held to the highest standards.

GREG HOY: But the Victorian Police Association is adept at flexing its political muscle. Both sides of Victorian State politics vie for its support. With an election to be held next month the State Opposition joined the call to disband the Office of Police Integrity, suggesting police morale had hit rock bottom.

GREG HOY: Now the State Opposition is saying that they're going to review your contract. What was your response to that?

CHRISTINE NIXON: I don't get involved in politics in that regard. I understand the comments made. I heard them. I guess, if the Opposition is able to win government, then they will have discussions with me and we will look to see the best way we could go forward.

GREG HOY: It's become intensely personal and it's a two-way tussle. The Victoria police has just concluded an investigation into allegations of bullying and harassment within the Victorian Police Association, including against the association's secretary himself.

SNR SGT PAUL MULLETT: I've already rejected that. The real issue again is the Chief Commissioner's direct interference with the running of the Police Association.

GREG HOY: In this atmosphere of acrimony the two sides are tonight struggling to strike a peace over the formation of a new armed defence task force and who amongst the old guard will be allowed to join it. The problem for Victoria Police is that this messy affair follows hard on the heels of other controversies, including a resurgence of fatal police shootings, with six suspects killed since 2003, the gangland murders and ongoing prosecutions following the disbanding of the drug squad five years ago, amidst allegations of corruption.

COLLEEN LEWIS: I think that Victoria would benefit from a royal commission that has wide-ranging terms of reference. It doesn't have to be a witchhunt. That's not the purpose of royal commissions necessarily but it can expose some of the improper practices and procedures that can go on in police services and it can also help establish the way forward.

GREG HOY: Some say all of this only shows there's a need for a royal commission in Victoria, what do you think of that?

CHRISTINE NIXON: Look, I have said all along that I don't think that's necessary within Victoria. The decision the Government came to in terms of thinking about the best way to go forward was, in effect, a standing royal commission. That's the powers that the Office of Police Integrity have.

GREG HOY: But critics doubt that the Office of Police Integrity, which was hastily established two years ago, has sufficient power. Following incidents of police brutality and corruption interstate, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia have now held police royal commissions to improve the standards and reputations of their police forces. Not surprisingly, royal commissions are never readily welcomed by politicians or the police themselves.

COLLEEN LEWIS: Governments do not like to establish royal commissions or commissions of inquiry because, when they do, they actually lose the levers of control and the power to put spin onto things, because the royal commission is independent and can go off in a direction that governments can't predict.

CHRISTINE NIXON: I think within Victoria police we are also very committed to making sure that we are accountable, that those who do not live up to the standards we require of them are, in fact, appropriately dealt with and moved out of Victoria Police if that's the appropriate way. So I think what happens is we have an organisation in the Victoria Police who is making sure we're corruption free or at least as best you can to be corruption resistant.

GREG HOY: Holding the thin blue line will always be a challenge in big cities like Melbourne.

ANDREW GOLDSMITH: I think probably if you scratch beneath the surface in most Australian police forces you'll find some similar kinds of problems. I think it goes with the terrain, the kind of work, people that the police are dealing with in some of these areas.

GREG HOY: It's a debate that goes to the very nub of police work and the difficulties the old guard have coming to terms with modern realities.

COLLEEN LEWIS: They have very, very strong and coercive powers which does set them aside and they also have temptation in a way that most other professions and occupations don't have. But it's because we do live in a liberal democracy and because our freedoms are sacrosanct and it is the police who have the right to take those freedoms away that they must be accountable for the way in which they use their power.

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Australian Broadcasting Corpor03 October 2006

Tensions mount over police ass

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Australian Broadcasting Corpor
03 October 2006