‘An exceptional man’: Hundreds attend funeral of former police commissioner Jim O’Sullivan

Former Queensland police commissioner Jim O’Sullivan has been remembered as a man of virtue who stuck with the truth when others were trapped by deceit, corruption and the quest for power.

Former Queensland police commissioner Jim O’Sullivan was farewelled on Thursday as a man of virtue who stuck with the truth when others were trapped by deceit, corruption and the quest for power.

“He was not only an exceptional police officer and public servant,’’ Archbishop Mark Coleridge told hundreds of mourners who packed Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church in Bowen Hills to send off the former Commissioner who died on July 17 aged 85.

“He was an exceptional man.’’

Former Queensland police commissioner Jim O'Sullivan.

Jim O'Sullivan pictured in 2018. Picture: Liam Kidston

His family remembered a father and grandfather who loved babies, the races and family get-togethers - never failing to make a big celebration out of Christmas and birthdays.

The last gift he gave his beloved daughters, Avis and Melinda who, as little kids, always waited on the front steps for him to come home from work, was a parcel of Christmas lights he had ordered just days before his death, and which arrived this week.

“For Jim, it was never too early to get ready for Christmas,’’ his son-in-law Brett McWhinney said.

A police guard of honour for former police commissioner Jim O'Sullivan at his funeral on Thursday. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

Archbishop Coleridge, the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, said James Patrick O’Sullivan, born into an Irish Catholic family in Murphys Creek in the Lockyer Valley, arrived just as Queensland needed him most.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man.’’

While others were trapped in a web of deceit, corruption and desire for power, Mr O’Sullivan had other “deep, unshakable reservoirs’’ to draw upon, including his family and his faith, and stuck with the truth because “he knew it would set him free’.’

Jim O'Sullivan died on July 17. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

While the Fitzgerald Inquiry was not mentioned during the service, the archbishop was referencing Mr O’Sullivan’s reputation as an incorruptible police officer, who headed up investigations for the corruption busting Fitzgerald Inquiry in 1987 before being appointed Commissioner in 1992 and further implementing the Fitzgerald reforms.

Archbishop Coleridge said Mr O’Sullivan was a good man, and at the heart of his goodness lay virtue.

What exactly virtue is had “haunted humanity down the ages,’’ Archbishop Coleridge said, but within virtue lay strength - one of the defining qualities of Mr O’Sullivan.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.’’

Mourners after Thursday’s funeral. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

Mr McWhinney said his father-in-law could be charming, disarming and even occasionally ill tempered, but integrity lay at his core.

“He knew that right is right even if no one else is doing it,” he said.

“And wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it.’’

Mr O’Sullivan, survived by his daughters and sons-in-law Brett and Placide Malo, along with 20 grand and great grandchildren, will be buried at a private ceremony at Drayton Cemetery, Toowoomba, on Friday.