Senior cop denies searching police database for Deputy Commissioner’s address

A senior police officer, accused of using the police database to search the address of the Deputy Commissioner over a suspected affair, has faced court again, with a familiar figure for support.

Queensland Police officer Glenn Horan and former deputy commissioner Mark Wheeler leave the Magistrates Court in Brisbane on Tuesday. Picture: NewsWire

A high-ranking Queensland police officer claims he searched private information involving one of the state’s top cops for innocent reasons and not because of a suspected affair with his partner.

Glenn William Horan is on trial in Brisbane Magistrates Court this week for allegedly using police database QPRIME to search the home address of Deputy Commissioner Cameron Harsley for personal benefit.

Deputy Commissioner Cameron Harsley. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Barrister Kim Bryson, for the prosecution, alleged in her opening submissions that Horan was motivated by a suspicion that his on-and-off partner Celeste Batticciotto, who was also a police officer, had been in a relationship.

Horan has pleaded not guilty to using a restricted computer without consent to gain a benefit (domestic violence).

He has been supported in court this week by former Acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Wheeler, who was quietly demoted without explanation last year.

Horan’s barrister Saul Holt defended Horan’s case in closing submissions on Tuesday, saying there was no actual evidence Horan had suspected Ms Batticciotto to be in a relationship.

He said there was also a “clear absence” of evidence that Horan knew of anything linking the address to Ms Batticciotto at the time he conducted the QPRIME search.

The court heard Horan had claimed he searched the address in the course of his duty, after seeing suspicious behaviour near the Deputy Commissioner’s house while exercising on his day off.

Glenn William Horan outside court on Monday. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Horan claims he discovered who the house belonged to as a result of the search.

Ms Bryson pointed out in her closing that the Deputy Commissioner’s address was a significant distance from where Horan lived, and labelled Horan’s explanation that he was exercising there as a “considerable coincidence”.

Mr Holt rebutted that it was more credible than the prosecution’s claim that “without any apparent source of knowledge linking Ms Batticciotto to (the address), he nonetheless searched that address”.

“And even without, it seeming, any knowledge of Mr Harsley’s link to Ms Batticciotto, because it is inconceivable that one would search an address when one knew that it was linked to the Assistant Commissioner,” Mr Holt told the court.

Ms Batticciotto told the court on Monday that she had been at Deputy Commissioner Harsley’s house six days after the alleged QPRIME search to discuss home loans.

She claimed she had seen Horan out the back of the Deputy Commissioner’s property on that date, saying she recognised his face and clothes - which included flamingo patterned shorts.

Ms Batticciotto said that when confronted, Horan initially said he didn’t know what she was talking about - but that he then made admissions to making the QPRIME search.

She said Horan had told her it was her fault that he would get in trouble, as a search on the Deputy Commissioner’s address would be flagged.

“... Glenn told me that I was a slut and he said that he would tell people and that once everyone found out that I was there that everyone would say that I was a slut,” she told the court on Monday.

Deputy Commissioner Harsley, who had been an Assistant Commissioner at the time, gave evidence that Ms Batticciotto would visit his house on occasion.

He said he had seen a man that fit Horan’s description beyond his fenceline on October 16, 2021, while Ms Batticciotto was at his house, but that he hadn’t seen his face.

In closing, Mr Holt questioned why his client - a detective inspector - would show up at the property a week after the QPRIME search, knowing it belonged to the Deputy Commissioner.

Mr Holt also raised technical concerns about the charge itself, saying the prosecution had not appropriately highlighted the precise “benefit” his client had allegedly gained from the QPRIME search.

Ms Bryson submitted that Ms Batticciotto’s evidence had been truthful, whereas the Deputy Commissioner’s evidence had revealed Horan had “lied” when asked if he was in a relationship with Ms Batticciotto.

Mr Holt argued it had been accurate to say they weren’t together at that point, as the relationship had been in “serious trouble” and the two had been sleeping separately.

He said it didn’t “take much imagination to understand why a person might be coy” given the difference in rank between Horan and Ms Batticciotto and the fact Horan had been speaking to his superior.

The relationship between Horan and Ms Batticciotto had since ended, with Ms Batticciotto claiming in her evidence on Monday that their relationship had involved “a lot of domestic violence”.

Horan is not accused of any wrongdoing in that regard nor been charged with any other offences.

Magistrate Lewis Shillito is expected to deliver a verdict on the case on Wednesday morning.