Hoon officer sacked after he crashed car doing burnout
An off-duty cop, who smashed his car in Hoppers Crossing after doing a burnout, has been sacked. Now the case has revealed the one key clue he left behind.
Law & Order
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A hooning cop who crashed his car after a burnout and fled only to leave his police identification behind has lost an appeal against his sacking.
About 20 people crowded around the written-off vehicle that ploughed into a tree — one bystander yelling at attending officers: “He’s f--king one of yours. The d--khead left his badge in the car.”
The off-duty constable lost control of his Holden sedan at Hoppers Crossing after doing a 50m burnout and accelerating around a corner.
He was captured on CCTV running off “at full sprint” and told witnesses “someone” had crashed their car.
The officer stayed at a friend’s house less than 300m away and avoided police until they found him at home the next morning, meaning he couldn’t be tested for alcohol.
The constable, a serial hoon whose licence was first suspended at age 19, accumulated six speeding fines since moving to Australia from New Zealand eight years ago. The latest was just two weeks after getting his licence back from the crash that cost his job.
The officer, aged in his 30s, was dismissed and tried to overturn the decision.
But a Police Registration and Services Board panel this month upheld the ruling.
The inquiry officer called the behaviour a “flagrant disregard” of the law well below public expectations of police.
“Performing burnouts in a residential street is a public act, endangering the safety of residents and a significant breach of the peace,’’ they noted.
“The sound of screeching tyres coming from a car at very high revs would strike fear into many people that dangerous and delinquent behaviour is being carried on outside their home. That the behaviour occurred in public and placed so many people in danger and in fear of danger in their own homes is an aggravating feature of the misconduct.”
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The officer left a promising army career to join the police force and said losing his job was a “massive wake-up call” and denied drinking alcohol.
He was well regarded within the force but took out “some anger issues” on his car and fled the October 2017 crash because he “freaked out”.
“I knew I was driving like an idiot and that I was gonna get in the s--t for it so I panicked,’’ he told a discipline interview.
The review board found the dismissal was not harsh or unjust because the constable put the public at risk, was highly uncooperative with police for 11 hours and showed insufficient understanding of his conduct even though he attended more than 20 serious car crashes as a policeman, including six fatalities.