Senior Qld police accused of setting traffic ticket quotas to sting motorists

Explosive emails suggesting Queensland police are being set quotas for traffic tickets by their superiors, have been filed in court by a Gold Coast cop as evidence in a bullying case.

POLICE have been set targets for traffic tickets and other driving offences, confidential emails tendered in an explosive court case have revealed.

The emails have been lodged in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission in a bullying case launched by stood down Gold Coast cop James Treanor, who has accused senior officers of setting quotas to sting motorists.

The emails, which reveal frontline cops were ordered to write a minimum number of tickets or face the wrath of their bosses, fly in the face of longstanding police denials that they set quotas.

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Senior Const. Treanor was stood down, stripped of his gun, badge and uniform and later charged with public nuisance after an alleged altercation with the Coast’s top cop, Assistant Commissioner Brian Wilkins, at a police mental health function in March.

The emails have been lodged in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission in a bullying case launched by stood down Gold Coast cop James Treanor. Picture: Glenn Hampson

He allegedly swore and threatened to ‘blow my brains out in the carpark’ after Mr Wilkins was claimed to have called him a ‘smart arse’.

Sen-Const. Treanor alleges the treatment was part of a pattern of years of victimisation after he complained of misconduct by fellow officers and became a police union rep.

A hearing has been set down for next month and Sen-Const. Treanor has tendered documents, which include emails from senior officers which appear to suggest a quota system.

“Broadbeach as a whole is underperforming with regards to traffic enforcement,” senior cop Leanne Major told officers in one email.

“We are GD (general duties) crews and there is an expectation that you WILL write tickets, and I don’t think 10 per month is an unrealistic expectation.”

The emails, which reveal frontline cops were ordered to write a minimum number of tickets or face the wrath of their bosses, fly in the face of longstanding police denials that they set quotas. Picture: Evan Morgan

In another circular, Broadbeach officer-in-charge Senior-Sergeant Paul Hunter noted that 16 officers had written a total of 15 traffic tickets in three months which was ‘very disappointing’.

In another email edict, Runaway Bay officer-in-charge Myee Arandale ordered every officer at the station to write at least five tickets for ‘LEOs’ (life endangering offences such as speeding, running red lights and using mobile phones while driving).

“This is not hard given the amount of people on their mobile phones, speeding, running yellow or red lights and (doing) burnouts,” she wrote.

In an email to fellow officers, Sen-Const. Treanor quoted then-Police Commissioner Ian Stewart who told media in 2014 that ‘there are no quotas … we don’t put quotas on our people’.

A senior Queensland police officer denied the existence of quotas but said there were ‘benchmark’ expectations that officers would detect a reasonable number of offences.

“It has nothing to do with revenue-raising, it’s about enforcing the law,” he told The Sunday Mail.

Originally published as Senior Qld police accused of setting traffic ticket quotas to sting motorists