Allan Sutherland’s submissions to CCC inquiry partially censored
A deposed South East Queensland mayor’s submissions to the inquiry into the state’s corruption watchdog had key sentences mysteriously blacked out before public release.
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Ousted Moreton Bay region mayor Allan Sutherland says his submission to Tony Fitzgerald’s recent inquiry into the state’s corruption watchdog had key sentences mysteriously blacked out before it was released to the public.
And he wants to know why.
The redactions dealt with allegations of misbehaviour by officers from the Crime and Corruption Commission, who discussed the need to charge Sutherland to make him ineligible to contest the March council elections.
About 30 sentences and as many phrases were omitted in what Sutherland says was blatant censorship.
Sutherland, 66, was cleared of misconduct after a long CCC investigation.
No one from the Fitzgerald team, the police or the CCC contacted him to discuss a possible conspiracy and the fabrication of evidence he alleged in his submission.
“I expected some justice from the recent Fitzgerald inquiry, but I didn’t get it,” he said.
“It was patently obvious from the start they (the CCC) didn’t have a case against me.
“I was stitched up. The charges against me were trumped up so I would be ineligible to recontest the mayoralty. The tactic worked.”
Later he learned his phone had been tapped, with 8000 conversations intercepted in six months.
“And they found nothing,” he said.
The CCC’s failed crusade against Queensland mayors was described as a travesty of justice in Parliament.
Profoundly disturbing questions remain about the CCC’s watchdog role and the administration of justice.
While Fitzgerald recommended safeguards to prevent future sacking debacles such as the one at Logan, the investigators and some staff from the CCC who had adverse findings made against them in parliamentary reports have neither been punished nor exposed.
That rankles Sutherland, as it does the elected councillors from Logan and Ipswich who were unfairly ousted.
In December 2019, Sutherland was suspended from his position at the helm of the Moreton Bay region after three carloads of armed police surrounded his house, seizing computers, phones and documents and telling him he was under house detention.
Just three months before the election, Sutherland was charged with two counts of misconduct while in public office.
The CCC alleged he had tried to influence the council to change the timing and scope of a road upgrade from 2017-18, which may have affected the value of a block of land on Paradise Rd, Burpengary, with the intent to dishonestly gain a benefit.
Sutherland and his wife Gayle purchased the block in 2010 but had not applied to develop it.
In January this year, after a three-day committal hearing, which included the cross-examination of 14 Crown witnesses, the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges.
While media attention properly swirled around the wrongful Logan council dismissal, Sutherland’s case was largely forgotten.
His submission to the latest Fitzgerald inquiry went unreported.
It makes for harrowing reading.
“The decision to bring the charges of misconduct in relation to public office against me was based on allegations that were unsupported and contradicted by the evidence obtained by the CCC during their investigation,” he said.
“In hindsight it was a decision made in the furtherance of the CCC’s relentless pursuit of local government officials, whatever the cost.
“The charges against me brought an immediate and abrupt end to my decades of service in local government.
“I was arrested, treated like a criminal, and in a matter of moments had lost not only my career but also my reputation.
“As things subsequently transpired, and as I always knew, the charges against me were baseless and based on a complete misunderstanding of the events in question.
“The CCC’s incompetence, and worse, their desire for political scalps in the local government arena, lay at the heart of their unjustified action against me.
“The evidence at (my) committal hearing revealed that the factual assumptions underpinning the allegations were entirely wrong.”
His lawyers invited the Department of Public Prosecutions to discontinue the case. The presiding magistrate commented: “I can understand why that might be the case”.
Sutherland’s submission continues: “I understand it is extremely rare to have charges dropped at a committal stage of proceedings given a magistrate has only to be satisfied a reasonable jury could convict a person in order to commit the charges for trial.
“It is telling that the prosecution could not even get past this first hurdle.’’ Sutherland said his case was “another egregious example of the CCC, through a seconded police officer, pursuing a prosecution that was doomed to fail”.
The CCC had “cherrypicked” evidence that included “objectional and inadmissable hearsay and opinion evidence in witness statements”. Evidence gathering was flawed with “questions clearly aimed at extracting particular responses that would suit the CCC narrative.”. Where to now?
Councillors in three cities who were unfairly prevented from recontesting the elections have suffered savage reputational damage. Some are considering an action to compensate them for malicious prosecutions.
That of course would lead
to an extremely costly and drawn-out court battle they could ill-afford.
It is a glaring weakness of the law that a person unfairly deprived of earnings due to an unjust, futile or needless prosecution gets no recompense.
I think it is worse for the councillors who were elected for one very good reason. The CCC is an instrument of the State. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman don’t seem to notice.
Perhaps their lack of leadership shows they are prisoners of their own legal training. They are in the “club”.
The solution? The unfairly ousted councillors should get an ex-gratia payment equivalent to their three lost years of wages, plus their legal costs. That would be fair.
And it would be cheaper for taxpayers and ratepayers. Otherwise the State, the CCC and individual councils will be forced to saddle up for costly litigation that would drag on for years.
BARRED FROM UNI OPENING
As Moreton Bay mayor, Allan Sutherland fought three tiers of government for a decade to get a new university for his city.
He first had to convince his council to buy the defunct Petrie paper mill site for $60 million.
In the end, it was then deputy premier and planning minister Jackie Trad who got the uni over the line by providing the last piece of the jigsaw: a sliver of Crown land nearby.
While QUT dithered, Sunshine Coast University snatched the right to establish a Moreton Bay campus there.
It’s already magnificent, with more than 4000 students and two more buildings under construction.
It pains Sutherland that he was not allowed to attend the opening.
With charges against him still pending, he was told he could be arrested if he attended.
His bail conditions stipulated that he not could have contact with anyone from the council.
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