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Wood Royal
Commission on
Police Corruption
- Submission outline
- JA Submission
- Prisoner Survey
- Interim Report
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by Tim Anderson
Wood Royal Commission into Corruption in NSW Police Service
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On The Police Royal Commission's Interim Report
Most analyses of police corruption focus on a perceived need to protect the institution of the police and meet its needs, at the expense of protecting those abused by police power. Yet this very bias helps explain why police corruption is as "entrenched and systemic" as Justice James Wood now acknowledges.
Analysts are now talking of police restructuring, management regimes and police training. Wood rightly rejects the complacent view of the Police Association that corruption will always exist, but at the other end of this spectrum Premier Carr claims he will deliver to the public "a Police Service in which they can have absolute faith". However 'absolute faith' in anything, let alone a police force, is for the terminally naive or the overly religious.
A series of weak police excuses have emerged for the fiasco the Royal Commission has begun to expose. Ex-Commisioner Tony Lauer, denying the extent of corruption to the bitter end, weakly claimed to Wood that his submission was not an exercise in "damage control". Acting Commissioner Neil Taylor, having also claimed there was little police corruption, now simply says "my views were incorrect". And despite Wood's finding that "on a prima facie basis, widespread corruption, criminal conduct ... and perjury existed within the NSW police force", former head of Internal Affairs, Jeff Jarrat, could only offer the lame excuse that police corruption was "like a relationship when one partner is cheating; the other is often the last to know."
In fact all the hierarchy knew. Many were involved, many turned a blind eye, and those who made it to the top were all experts in damage control. Experts with a big budget. Tony Lauer, along with Assistant Commissioners Dennis Gilligan and Bruce Gibson, worked closely with the squads which verballed and loaded up suspects. They, and all senior police involved in internal affairs, were thoroughly familiar with police perjury and cover-ups. As spokesperson for the Police Association in 1981 Lauer attacked as "anarchist elements" those who criticised Roger Rogerson, when he shot Warren Lanfranchi dead in a Chippendale back lane. Lauer was accused by other police of planting heroin on suspect Frank Hakim, but was cleared by ICAC boss Ian Temby, in 1989. Lauer was not unfamiliar with allegations of criminal process corruption.
The failure of ICAC under Temby, which Framed has detailed in past issues, is now widely accepted. Wood correctly calls Temby's feeble pretence to deal with police corruption as "an opportunity lost"; Temby's 1994 plea to leave police to themselves was "unfortunate". Temby aligned ICAC so closely with the police hierarchy that the anti-corruption body publicised and distributed the police policy on informers. Little wonder that Lauer tried to employ Temby as the police barrister, when the Wood Royal Commission began. Little wonder, too, that a public outcry blocked Temby's lucrative opportunity.
The reasons for the failure of ICAC are worth reconsidering, when we look at the newly proposed Police Corruption Commission. Will it do any better? Perhaps. ICAC under Temby was concerned to establish close working relationships with law enforcement bodies, to influence their training, education and management practices. Temby identified with the goals of the police, and attempted to build public confidence in police effectiveness. For these reasons he gave senior police soft treatment and avoided forms of corruption (such as organised perjury) which strengthened the police hand. A higher than normal standard of proof in the Hakim case meant Tony Lauer would not face charges of perjury and fabrication. Inspector Aarne Tees, when caught out lying to ICAC, was excused. Temby refused to deal with Rogerson' 1991 admissions of widespread fabrication.
Things have now changed. While Temby called fabrication to secure convictions the pursuit of "noble ends by wrongful means", the Police Board in its submission to Wood rejected any linking of the term "noble" with police perjury and fabrication. After the revelations of the Royal Commission, both the Police Service and the Police Board accept the need for an external body to investigate serious corruption. They also both offer tentative support for drug law reform. But there is a pressing insistence to allow police to move their new management tools, such as a 'Professional Standards Program', into centre stage. This is to 'rebuild confidence' in the force, where the Royal Commission had destroyed it. But this is the heart of the problem: no strategy which is focussed on building confidence in the police can at the same time unearth substantial and destabilisingcorruption and so trigger change. A 'hit and run' Royal Commission may do so, but what about a permanent complaints body, such as ICAC or the PCC, concerned for its place in the bureaucracy?
Former barrister and judge Jim Staples proposes "demilitarisation, democratisation and decentralisation" of the police. Criminologist Russell Hogg speaks of the need for changes in police structure, training and management. But this focus on police needs means that the political confidence-building process — which no-one dared upset in the past, and which strengthened the police culture of cover-ups and lies — resumes centre stage. 'Retooling' the police force has its dangers. The worst example to follow would be the response to the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report, where several hundred million dollars have been spent on police and prison officer training and education, suicide proof cells and so on, yet Aboriginal imprisonment and deaths have risen.
Justice Action has suggested that addressing police corruption requires something more. There must be special structures outside the police to protect the vulnerable from the worst abuses of police power. In addition, ongoing exposure of police abuses is an essential and necessary part of a democratic society. The destabilisation caused by such exposures is a healthy thing, and must not be avoided, as it is the motive force for further reform. We wrote to the Royal Commission late last year, proposing:
- • the establishment of a Criminal Cases Review Authority
• a requirement that the police hierarchy publicly admit and accept responsibility for organised perjury, and then detail a plan to deal with criminal process corruption.
- While acknowledging these problems Wood has not suggested measures to deal with them, in his interim report. This might be seen as a reflection of Wood's priorities, or it may be that the Royal Commission is in a jurisdictional dispute with the Attorney General, who has so far taken no real initiative on the matter. Whatever the case, the responsibility for implementing such proposals lies with the government. Watch to see if as much political energy is spent on dealing with police perjury and the victims of miscarriages of justice, as on 'rebuilding confidence' in the police.
| | Author: Tim Anderson: | Further Reference:
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