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NEWS > 09 February 2007

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Mayor and 1500 police fired to
THE mayor of Baquba and 1500 police in Diyala province have been fired in a bid to end corruption in the force and violence in the region north-east of Baghdad.

Ghanim al Qureyshi, the provincial police chief who took over operations when his predecessor was sacked last month, said Mayor Khalid al Senjeri, a Sunni Muslim, was dismissed over suspicions he was collaborating with Sunni insurgent fighters.

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 Article sourced from

Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney
09 February 2007
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Officer off sick, but at work

THE former head of the NSW Water Police, Graeme O'Neill, started working for the cruise ship company P&O while on sick leave from the office of the Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, the inquest into the death of Dianne Brimble has been told.

Mr O'Neill said yesterday he did not seek approval for the work because he was disappointed by the police and did not care, but admitted "perhaps I should have".

He told Glebe Coroner's Court it had been a regular practice for police to go on free cruises in their holidays, and be recalled to duty if they needed to investigate any incidents.

The relationship between water police and P&O has come under criticism after it was revealed one of the officers investigating Mrs Brimble's death, Erdinc Ozen, had been on a schoolies cruise a year earlier.

Mr O'Neill was no longer in charge of the officers when Mrs Brimble died in September 2002, but he had approved the participation of six officers on schoolies cruises in 2000 and 2001.

The Herald reported last month that officially 10 per cent of officers in the water police have approval for a second job, ranging from videoing weddings to plumbing, but that the Police Integrity Commission suspected many more may not have declared their outside employment.

Second jobs had become so rife the Police Commissioner's office was conducting biannual audits.

The Herald revealed last year that almost 2000 of the state's 15,000 police were officially allowed to work second jobs.

Mr O'Neill said he worked in the office of Mr Moroney from about March 2002 in charge of Project Viking, which tackled street crime, which he said could have been handled better.

He went on sick leave in May 2003 after a back injury related to an armed robbery, had surgery, never returned to work, and retired "hurt on duty" in late 2005. He is entitled to a pension for life of at least $91,600.

He started working for P&O in about 2004, initially without pay, but was soon paid $1000 a month. He said he worked for about 30 to 40 hours a month.

Since 2005 he has been working full time for P&O, which ran the cruise on which Mrs Brimble died, to improve security.

He said despite working for the police for 28 years, when he was sick "no one from the police force ever contacted me to check on my welfare".

"My care factor to what the police service may have been thinking and what my official requirements were were pretty much zero," he said.

But Mr O'Neill, who was commander of the water police from 1999 to about April 2002, said he believed police would have approved a secondary employment request while he was on sick leave.

He said P&O's procedures for dealing with crimes on board had "significant weaknesses", but many improvements had been made. P&O had doubled the number of security officers, had established clearer procedures and responsibilities, and introduced security cameras. Many of the officers it employed had police or military backgrounds, he said.

The captain now reported all incidents to head office, which informed police. He said he had not heard of any crimes on cruise ships which had gone unreported.

Until the mid 1980s, police officers from across the force travelled regularly on cruise ships for free while on leave.

This was stopped because of concerns about insurance, work cover and the carrying of guns, handcuffs and capsicum spray on the ship, Mr O'Neill said.

The captain now reported all incidents to head office, which informed police. He had not heard of any cruise ship crimes which had gone unreported.

Police involved in the Brimble inquiry have been asked about several incidents, including having danced in the disco with passengers, having taken a day off in Port Vila during the investigation, and even a claim that a detective laughed when one of the persons of interest, Leo Silvestri, described Mrs Brimble as a dog.


 

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