Allan Sutherland slams Alan MacSporran’s resignation as arrogant, self-serving

The resignation of the state’s corruption watchdog chief isn’t enough for one of the mayors it brought down, who says hundreds of lives were ruined.

Outgoing Queensland corruption watchdog chief Alan MacSporran has been criticised for not saying sorry to hundreds of people whose lives were wrecked in botched CCC investigations.

Former Redcliffe and Moreton Bay mayor Allan Sutherland, who was cleared of dishonesty charges after years of investigations, said Mr MacSporran’s resignation was arrogant and self-serving.

Mr Sutherland said the letter failed to address the hurt and humiliation suffered by councillors unfairly charged and who were thereby ineligible to contest local government elections.

Careers were destroyed and innocent councillors and their families made to suffer.

“In my humble opinion he may have been a very good barrister and a very good prosecutor, but (Mr MacSporran) was a very poor administrator. This is clear because the organisation he was responsible for went from one bungle to another, destroying lives along the way,” Mr Sutherland said.

“He hasn’t apologised for the hurt and suffering his organisation caused. Instead, he just packed up his bat and ball and walked.

“The first thing he should have done was sit down and pen an apology to everyone whose lives were destroyed.”

Mr Sutherland said a proposed inquiry into the CCC should not just stop at Mr MacSporran, but others down the chain who presided over what was described in Parliament as a “travesty of justice”.

He also said he now believed the charges against him were a smokescreen by his political enemies to hide “illegal practices” in council involving planning matters.

In an exclusive interview, Mr Sutherland also tells of his family’s trauma and the anguish suffered by his mother, who died before charges against him were dropped.

Then Moreton Bay mayor Allan Sutherland in 2017

Alan MacSporran has quit as CCC chair.

Mr Sutherland told The Courier-Mail his mother’s pain was the hardest part of the ordeal he went through that ultimately ended his career.

“People came up to Mum and asked, ‘Is your son going to go to jail?’ ” he said.

She and her husband Bob were reluctant to leave their home, and became “exiles”.

“It really got bad for me when Mum developed pancreatic cancer,” Mr Sutherland said.

“She was anxious to find out an outcome because she knew she was going to pass.

“To her very last days, she was continually asking how it was going to end … It was really horrible knowing Mum was passing away with the anxiety of not knowing what was happening to her eldest son.

“It was tough on her. It was tough on Dad. It was tough on the whole family.”

In December 2019, Mr Sutherland was suspended from his position at the Moreton Bay council after three carloads of armed police surrounded his house “and made themselves at home”.

He was charged with two counts of misconduct in relation to public office.

The CCC alleged he had tried to influence the council to change the timing and scope of a road upgrade between 2017 and 2018, which may have affected the value of a block of land on Paradise Rd, Burpengary, with the intent to dishonestly gain a benefit.

The prosecution didn’t agree and dropped the charges. Mr Sutherland and wife Gayle purchased the block in 2010 but had not applied to develop it.

The collapse of the Sutherland case followed a series of misadventures by CCC investigators that led to calls for Mr MacSporran to stand down. He did so this week.

One of Mr Sutherland’s biggest regrets was not being able to attend the Moreton Bay university campus he fought so hard to build.

He was not allowed to go because he would have crossed paths with councillors in breach of his bail conditions. He said the CCC needed a shake-up.