Police lose contents of Stuart MacGill’s phone

The drug case involving former cricket star Stuart MacGill has provided more than enough shocking headlines and now comes news that an important piece of the puzzle has vanished.

If the kidnapping and drug case involving retired Test cricketer Stuart MacGill didn’t have enough twists and turns, it has emerged key evidence in the case has gone missing.

To wit, a USB stick containing the complete download extraction of every bit of data that was on MacGill’s phone.

Readers may remember it was the phone taken from the spin bowler when he was allegedly kidnapped, stripped naked and bashed at a Western Sydney property after being blamed for a failed cocaine deal.

The phone was then delivered to this writer at our Surry Hills headquarters.

A disguised man put it in a bubble-wrapped envelope and tossed it in the front door of the Holt St foyer, resulting in security evacuating the building and calling in the bomb squad to investigate.

Images found on the phone belonging to Stuart MacGill, which was thrown into the Sunday Telegraph office addressed to reporter Brenden Hills.

We handed the phone over to police, who then did a Cellebrite download on it.

This is a service the police use to extract every bit of data you can imagine off the phone – photos, texts, internet history and all the other good stuff.

But on Wednesday the Sydney District Court was told that police have now lost the USB that contained the contents of the download.

The contents of the phone have now gone missing.

Barrister Avni Djemal SC told Judge Graeme Henson: “There’s a missing USB. I’ve been advised of today which involves (MacGill’s) phone.

“Police apparently have lost the Cellebrite download,” Mr Djemal said. “That’s got some issues in itself that could lead to certain consequences.”

So are we supposed to believe that despite having technology that can extract a mind-boggling amount of data from a phone that it has not been backed up anywhere?

Police didn‘t want to talk about this because “the matter is before court”.

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