Username:
 Password:
 

Are you not a member?
Register here
Forgot your password?
 
 
 
 
 
 



NEWS > 15 September 2007

Other related articles:

Pacific resident alleges haras
A Pacific resident has alleged Police Chief Jim Brune verbally and physically harassed him.

At the July 18 Board of Aldermen meeting, Jeff Pahlmore said Brune's harassment of him started before the April 4 election, when Brune was campaigning for office, and escalated at an incident that occurred during Cruise Night July 8.

Pahlmore has filed complaints against Brune with the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney and Sheriff's Department, Mayor Herbert Adams, City Administrator Harold Selby and the Board of Aldermen, and is considering filing a complaint with the Missouri ... Read more

 Article sourced from

<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>
The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,A
15 September 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.


Police chiefs warned of rogue

POLICE command was told five years ago by its own anti-corruption taskforce to consider an independent commission to combat a "clear link" between police corruption and organised crime.

The revelation about the secret 2002 briefing from the Ceja taskforce comes amid growing calls for a broad inquiry into corruption and organised crime.

Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon yesterday confirmed The Age's revelations of the existence of two new taskforces probing credible evidence allegedly linking police corruption to underworld murders.

Suspended detective sergeant Peter Lalor is under investigation over allegations he gave a notorious underworld hitman the address of his target, a male prostitute shot dead in June 2003. The hitman has also told police that, to confuse homicide investigators, Detective Sergeant Lalor arrested him after the murder for unrelated driving offences.

A former detective, David Waters, is under investigation for having prior knowledge of the prostitute's murder.

A separate taskforce is investigating another former detective over the killing of corruption informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine in 2004.

Ms Nixon yesterday denied the force's previous repeated denial of links between corruption and the underworld murders was a cover-up. The State Government also repeatedly dismissed such links .

But The Age can reveal that in 2002, a high-level briefing by the Ceja taskforce confirmed a "clear link between police corruption and organised crime" and that corruption had spread outside the disgraced former drug squad.

The briefing, based on six months of intelligence gathering, also recommended consideration of a permanent commission equipped with coercive investigative powers.

The briefing was prepared more than two years before the Government created a new police watchdog, the Office of Police Integrity, headed by State Ombudsman George Brouwer.

A former Ceja detective told The Age the Ceja briefing angered a now-retired assistant commissioner and was later "sanitised with an appropriate outcome, more to the liking of force command".

When asked about the Ceja briefing yesterday, Ms Nixon said the taskforce had raised a "range of concerns".

In other developments:

ĦMs Nixon said a system was in place to fight corruption and organised crime, but the force would never be corruption-free.

ĦDeputy Commissioner Simon Overland said the evidence of links between police and underworld murders was sufficiently credible to establish the joint police-OPI taskforces.

ĦOpposition Leader Ted Baillieu demanded the Government create an independent anti-corruption commission. "The OPI has c limited powers and it's constricted by its relationship with the Ombudsman," Mr Baillieu said. "It's our view that an OPI should operate connected and linked to an independent commission and with oversight from the Parliament." Premier the John Brumby dismissed the call.

The corruption expert hired to set up the OPI, Gary Crooke, QC, has told The Age the Government's formation of the OPI was inept and begrudging.

"The OPI should have been a bold new initiative that was going to be at the forefront of the fight against corruption," he said. "Instead, it was cobbled together using as much of the inadequate existing legal infrastructure as possible and resorting to different laws rather than a single piece of legislation to make clear its functions and powers."

He said the OPI was well staffed but Victorians should be asking why it lacked the ability of interstate commissions to investigate organised crime and corruption in the public sector that was not linked to police misconduct.

Former Victoria Police deputy commissioner and WA chief commissioner Bob Falconer backed the call for a broad commission to tackle public-sector misconduct and organised crime, rather than just police misconduct like the OPI. "If some level of police misconduct is accepted as being perennial and national, which it is, then why should we believe that other public office-holders in Victoria are somehow immune to those two primary corruption drivers, greed and ambition?" he said.

It is believed male prostitute Shane Chartres-Abbott was killed by a hitman in 2003 on the orders of criminals wanting to avenge his rape of a woman. Terence Hodson was murdered in 2004 after he agreed to testify in a police corruption case.

 

EiP Comments:

 


* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.


 
 
[about EiP] [membership] [information room] [library] [online shopping]
[EiP services] [contact information]
 
 
Policing Research 2010 EthicsinPolicing Limited. All rights reserved International Policing
privacy policy

site designed, maintained & hosted by
The Consultancy
Ethics in Policing, based in the UK, provide information and advice about the following:
Policing Research | Police News articles | Police Corruption | International Policing | Police Web Sites | Police Forum | Policing Ethics | Police Journals | Police Publications