SA Police employee altered cadet application to help relative of ‘very senior’ officer pass, parliament told

An SA Police employee altered a cadet application to help the relative of a “very senior” officer pass the test, The Advertiser can reveal.

Debbie Barr's husband Doug Barr was a chief inspector with SA Police. Doug Barr took his own life during an investigation into him. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

An SA Police employee altered a cadet application to help the relative of a “very senior” officer pass the test, The Advertiser can reveal.

The details have emerged in testimony from the widow of a senior officer to a parliamentary inquiry.

Former SA Police chief superintendent Doug Barr took his own life in October 2019 while under scrutiny.

Mr Barr’s wife Debbie told the committee on Monday her husband was cleared of any wrongdoing over his management of police recruitment.

She told the committee the same cannot be said of an SA Police member who marked test results for a group of applicants seeking to join the force as part of a recruitment drive called Recruit 313.

“This staff member was observed changing the spelling results for one applicant,” Mrs Barr said.

“This applicant was a close family member of another very senior SAPOL officer.

“The results were changed so that the applicant would pass rather than fail the test.”

Recruit 313 began in September 2016 and ran for 10 months.

Mrs Barr last week blamed delays and a lack of communication during an investigation into Mr Barr, which ran for about three years, for her husband taking his own life.

While The Advertiser can reveal the details presented in evidence to the parliamentary committee, it has been prevented from publishing any details from a top-secret report that was mysteriously tabled then removed from the public record by the same committee on Thursday.

SA Police declined to comment, citing legal reasons.

It came as MPs from the Crime and Public Integrity Policy Committee were called to an emergency gathering at Parliament House on Thursday morning to discuss the secret report, amid confusion over whether an unredacted copy, which contains sensitive information, may have been inadvertently tabled in parliament and therefore available to the public.

It is understood the committee was originally prepared to release the report, with names redacted, but at the meeting on Thursday it decided against the move.

Mrs Barr supported the decision.

Last week, she detailed how delays in the investigation into her husband, who served as a police officer for 43 years and was awarded the Australian Police Medal in 2017, brought extreme stress.

“The stress had become unbearable. Doug had become despondent waiting. Doug took his life over this investigation. He did this in our family home,” she said.