A private investigator facing criminal charges has failed to stop suspension of his licence

A FORMER Queensland detective who is facing serious criminal charges has failed to stop a suspension of his private investigator’s licence.

Court

A FORMER Queensland detective who is facing serious criminal charges has failed to stop a suspension of his private investigator’s licence.

Mick Featherstone, a private investigator since 1996, in December was charged with retaliation or intimidation against a witness, attempting to pervert the course of justice and fraud.

Former Sydney Swans player Tony Smith and Clive Palmer’s media adviser Andrew Crook were also charged over the same incident.

In February the chief executive of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General suspended Featherstone’s private investigator’s licence until the end of the criminal proceedings. It did not suspend the separate private investigator’s licence of Featherstone’s company Phoenix Global.

Featherstone applied to Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a review of the suspension of his investigator’s licence, saying it would have a significant economic impact.

Featherstone said he had no criminal convictions, he was defending the charges, he was highly regarded and no public interest had been identified regarding his licence suspension.

He claimed the departmental decision-maker had relied on insufficient and inappropriate material, including a police QP9 document, which he said was not evidence.

Featherstone said he was of good character within the industry, with law firms nationwide instructing him, and there was as yet no brief of evidence to test the validity of charges.

The department chief executive officer said the alleged conduct of Featherstone in a police “court brief’’ raised real concerns about his appropriateness to hold a licence.

The charges were very serious and each carried significant terms of imprisonment.

But a tribunal member did not accept there was no public interest in the matter.

“Mr Featherstone has been charged with serious offences that go to the heart of his suitability to be licensed as a private investigator,’’ the member said in a June 17 decision. “These matters must be tested and the public is entitled to maintain its confidence in other licence holders during that process.’’

While the QP9 was a one-sided recitation of facts yet to be proven, it had to be balanced against the seriousness of the charges. The member refused to stay the suspension.

Featherstone, Smith and Crook are accused of luring Smith’s former personal banker to a villa in Indonesia on the promise of a future job and threatening him unless he recanted evidence.