Former cop jailed over Ipswich corruption

A former police officer who engaged in dodgy dealings and later wore a wire for law enforcement authorities which resulted in the imprisonment of a former Ipswich council CEO will spend the next 12 months in jail.

A corrupt Ipswich council contractor who offered a top official a $1.5 million bribe has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Ex-NSW police officer Wayne Innes, 59, was this morning given the prison sentence, to be suspended after 12 months, after pleading guilty to offences including official corruption, fraud, misconduct in public office and forgery.

The offending related to dealings by Innes with both Racing Queensland and Ipswich City Council to secure work for his earthmoving business Landfill Logistics.

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In her sentencing remarks, Judge Deborah Richards said Innes exploited a friendship with a Racing Queensland worker to obtain “inside information” about project budgets and works to gain a commercial advantage over his competitors.

He also forged higher-priced quotes under the names of other companies for projects he was vying for work on.

But Judge Richards said his Ipswich council dealings were “more serious” in that Innes fostered relationships with council officials “for that reason alone, to obtain a commercial advantage.”

His entered a corrupt deal with former Ipswich chief executive officer Jim Lindsay in 2016 and 2017.

The pair had a “mutual interest in horse racing,” the court has previously been told, and Innes had a long-standing gambling addiction.

Innes asked Lindsay to exert influence over council activities.

Former Ipswich City Council contractor Wayne Francis Innes at court in Brisbane this week. Picture: Glenn Hunt/AAP

He was vying for a material change of use over land he had an interest in that would have resulted in a “significant windfall” of $30 million.

Innes offered Lindsay an “audacious” $1.5 million bribe, to be laundered through a betting account. A betting account was then opened with about $5000 in betting credits.

But the deal was abandoned when investors got cold feet, the court heard.

Innes’ co-operation with the Crime and Corruption Commission resulted in him obtaining immunity from prosecution over a second corrupt deal.

The second deal involved an arrangement between another former Ipswich council chief executive officer Carl Wulff, his wife Sharon Oxenbridge and Ipswich businessman Wayne Myers, whom Innes had met at a conference in Thailand.

Carl Wulff at the Supreme Court in Brisbane late last year. File picture

He had asked Myers, who knew former Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale and later Wulff, to help him secure work. Wulff would benefit through kickbacks for council work.

Wulff, Oxenbridge and Myers were sentenced to prison over the dealings earlier this year.

The court today heard that Innes had assisted investigators by wearing a wire and secretly recording a meeting with Wulff.

A court hearing has previously been told that Myers had also covertly recorded Wulff for investigators.

Innes assistance to the CCC’s Operation Windage probe into Ipswich was taken into account in his sentencing.

But Judge Richards remarked that the dealings were “committed on the sly and are therefore difficult to detect.”