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| NEWS > 03 May 2010 |
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UK: Police superintendent will
A POLICE disciplinary panel has overturned a recommendation from the Independent Police Complaints Commission that a senior officer involved in reinvestigating Wales’ most notorious miscarriage of justice case should be disciplined for misconduct.
Instead, despite a finding of misconduct, Superintendent John Penhale is to be offered “suitable advice”, without further penalty.
Lynn Powell, a former police officer with more than 20 years’ experience who worked as intelligence officer on the Lynette White reinvestigation, complained she was humiliated in front of colleagues when... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Herald Sun
03 May 2010
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To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Ethics in Policing
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Australia: Brave cop in sack f
A POLICE hero who took a bullet for the community has been forced to spend more than $300,000 in a legal battle to clear his name.
The Office of Police Integrity, which sacked Valour Award winner John Kapetanovski, has been found to have acted unfairly by dismissing him.
The OPI has also been ordered to pay him the maximum amount available under unfair dismissal laws.
The decision is another setback for the OPI, which has suffered a series of embarrassing results in high-profile cases.
It may increase pressure on the anti-corruption agency as a review of the state's integrity bodies prepares to report to the Government by the end of next month.
Mr Kapetanovski, then a detective sergeant in the Victoria Police major crime squad, was shot twice in 1986 by Max Clark, a notorious fugitive gunman known as Mad Max.
Clark, who had been on the run for eight months after shooting four policemen, opened fire on Mr Kapetanovski and his partner when they intercepted him, but was shot dead in the gunfight that followed.
Mr Kapetanovski, 59, told the Herald Sun yesterday he had spent a large part of his police superannuation payout on legal fees during a long fight to try to win back his job and his reputation.
"This has destroyed my reputation, my savings and my future," he said.
"And to this day I can't understand what motivated them to behave with such vindictiveness and venom. At least with Mad Max I knew why he was shooting at me. I still don't know what motivated these people to pursue and humiliate me the way they have.
"They've probably spent more than $500,000 of taxpayers' money on what was essentially a disciplinary matter that could have been dealt with by management intervention at a low level."
Fair Work Australia found last October that Mr Kapetanovski had been unfairly dismissed and ordered the OPI to pay him $58,000 (six months pay) in lieu of reinstatement.
Evidence in that hearing was heard in secret in a closed court after a successful OPI suppression application.
Another hearing in December, also in a closed court, refused Mr Kapetanovski's application for reinstatement to the OPI or an equivalent public service position.
Mr Kapetanovski retired from Victoria Police in 2005 after a 32-year career and went to work for the OPI as a senior investigator.
He was in charge of the OPI's integrity testing unit when he was suspended in May 2008, by the OPI's then acting director, Graham Ashton, after an external inquiry.
Mr Kapetanovski was sacked in February last year by new OPI director Michael Strong, after a second inquiry and told he'd been found guilty of serious misconduct.
The second investigation, by a city law firm, is believed to have found that all seven serious misconduct allegations against Mr Kapetanovski were unsubstantiated or unfounded, but said some OPI management issues could justify misconduct or disciplinary charges.
Mr Kapetanovski said yesterday all he was guilty of was failing to follow OPI management processes and properly supervise an OPI undercover operative.
The Herald Sun believes no findings of dishonesty or corruption were made against Mr Kapetanovski by the OPI.
A spokesman said the OPI could not comment on the merits of the proceeding because of a non-publication order made by Fair Work Australia.
Mr Kapetanovski, who was represented by a QC at Fair Work Australia hearings, said he had been forced to use his police superannuation to pay his legal expenses.
"If I'd still been a policeman the Police Association would have looked after me, but without their backing I was on my own - financially and in every other way," he said.
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