Policewoman’s suicide: Husband slams the way she was treated by NSW Police

THE husband of a police sergeant who killed herself after an affair with an officer said he was “sick to the stomach” with the way she was treated by police.

• COP’S SUICIDE RAISES QUESTIONS OVER DUTY OF CARE

THE husband of a police sergeant who killed herself after an affair with a senior officer said yesterday he was “sick to the stomach” with the way she was treated by the NSW Police.

The police officer in 1996.

The husband, also a police officer until he left the force for health reasons, said he and the couple’s two children would do anything to turn back the clock.

Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon last week criticised aspects of the force’s handling of the sergeant’s mental distress as she battled depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mr Dillon said her affair with the senior officer — an old friend of the couple — had not only “ruptured” a friendship but caused her husband “sadness and disappointment”.

The coroner asked the police to add extramarital affairs to the force’s conflict of interest policies because of the harm that could be caused both psychologically and professionally.

He suppressed the names of everyone involved with the tragic case, including that of the sergeant, 43, who killed herself in July 2013 on the day she was told she would be moved to another police station.

“(I’m) sick to the stomach and numb over the coronial findings and the way my wife was treated by the NSW Police Force,” the husband said yesterday. “I miss my wife and my children miss their mother terribly. I am bitterly disappointed that there were so many missed opportunities by the NSW Police to help my wife.”

Mr Dillon said it had been extraordinary there had been no investigation into an attempted suicide by the sergeant at work eight months before she killed herself.

He was also critical of her “flawed” meeting the day before she died with a police medical officer, who reported that her earlier suicide attempt had not been genuine and reassured her bosses it was safe to move her to another station.

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