Michael Abbott QC tells parliamentary committee how a $10 wrench led to corruption charges

A top lawyer has told a parliamentary inquiry how a $10 wrench led to corruption charges and “five years of hell” for his client.

Top lawyer Michael Abbott QC gave evidence at the first hearing of a parliamentary inquiry into botched ICAC investigations.

A young female police officer was put through “five years of hell” after she took a $10 wrench from a fake crime scene, which led to corruption charges being laid, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

The woman was one of eight SA Police officers charged in 2014, following “Operation Bandicoot” – a joint corruption probe into alleged crime scene theft. All officers were either acquitted in the Supreme Court or had charges withdrawn.

“Five years of her life was effectively lost,” her lawyer Michael Abbott QC said.

Mr Abbott spoke on behalf of the female officer at the inaugural hearing of a select committee examining the damage caused by botched Independent Commissioner Against Corruption investigations.

Mr Abbott told the inquiry how his client, who had aspirations of being a detective, was transferred to the Operation Mantle drug investigation team in the Sturt local service area in March 2014.

“Unknown to her at that time the Sturt Mantle group had been under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) and ICAC since January 2014, and their activities were being watched and monitored,” he said.

Mr Abbott said in September that year, police used a “targeted integrity test”, where his client and another police officer were asked to attend a “fictitious” crime scene, which was made to look like a marijuana grow house.

Inquiry chairman Frank Pangallo.

He told the inquiry, chaired by SA-Best MLC Frank Pangallo, that a senior officer gave his client permission to take a $10 wrench from the house to be placed in the station’s toolbox, which was a “widely regarded practice”.

The female officer kept the wrench in her bag while she made attempts to find its owner.

“She then made numerous attempts to find the owner and the lessee of these premises, but because it was the Anti-Corruption Branch and ICAC, it was all done fictitiously, with false names,” Mr Abbott said.

“All their inquiries proved to be fruitless.”

While on a month of leave, the officer used the wrench on a camping trip with her young children, Mr Abbott said. When she returned, she was arrested and charged with abuse of public office and aggravated theft. All charges were eventually dropped.

“At the time, the wrench was in the console of her car with her police pass, ready to be returned back to Mantle.”

Mr Abbott said his client was hospitalised with post-traumatic stress disorder in October 2014.

“She returned to SAPOL in 2020, but she is now on stress leave and she has had five years of

hell,” he told the committee.

“Five years of her life was effectively lost, as far as her ambition to be a detective in the South Australian police.

“Whether that can ever be replaced in any small way is a matter that she is still trying to find out.”

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