Majority of DV cases against police officers dismissed

There have been more than 1200 domestic violence-related allegations made about police officers since 2017, a commission of inquiry has been told, with about 70 per cent dismissed with no further action.

There have been more than 1200 domestic violence-related allegations made about police officers since 2017, including accusations they were perpetrators, failed in their duty or misused DV information, a commission of inquiry has been told.

About 70 per cent of the allegations about officers were dismissed with no further action taken and in 16 per cent a “local managerial resolution” was imposed where there was no formal sanction, the Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violence has heard.

Officers agreed to an “abbreviated disciplinary proceeding” in about 1 per cent of allegations with a form of sanction and about 2.5 per cent of allegations went to a hearing but the outcomes of whether they were substantiated were not provided to the commission, nor were the types of penalties imposed.

The commission was told a person could make multiple allegations in a single complaint, with 11 per cent of allegations, or about 135, still open.

Between January and June this year DV-related allegations against police were 10.2 per cent of the total made against police, higher than any period since 2017 when the number had ranged from about 3 to 6 per cent.

The inquiry also heard the Ethical Standards Command, which investigates police misconduct, wasn’t always previously aware of private DV applications made against police officers.

ESC Inspector David Nixon said some members had duplicate entries in the police database, with one a personal file and the other as a police officer. He said the issue had been resolved.

“Going back to 2019, we started to identify … where particularly private DV applications were getting made, we weren’t becoming aware of those,” he said.

“There were instances where we were not seeing some of them come through and we’ve corrected that now.

“They were missed previously,” he said.

The inquiry heard the Crime and Corruption Commission referred back to police or took no further action in 93 per cent of allegations made about police relating to domestic violence matters in their duty, between July 2020 and May 2022.

The CCC investigated 0.5 per cent of allegations, or five out of 925 allegations, and referred a further 6 per cent of cases that underwent CCC monitoring.

In terms of police officer-involved DV allegations, in 94 per cent of cases no further action was taken by the CCC or the matter was referred back to the service. There were 5 per cent of cases sent back with CCC oversight. The CCC did not investigate any of the allegations.