Silk-Miller: Officers pressured into lying under oath, inquiry hears

A veteran police prosecutor has told the Silk-Miller IBAC inquiry of the mounting pressure junior officers are under to “improve” their official notes and falsify the dates of statements when giving evidence in court.

A veteran police prosecutor has warned an inquiry of the mounting pressure junior officers are under to “improve” their official notes and falsify the dates of statements when giving evidence in court.

Retired Sergeant Ian Dunn, who spent 50 years as a Victoria Police officer, including 28 years in prosecutions, said poor note taking and demands from superiors to lie under oath was a problem that had been around for years and was “getting worse”, because police were under more pressure now than when he left the force in 2012.

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Mr Dunn gave evidence today to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, which is probing alleged police misconduct during the Silk-Miller murder investigation.

Part of the high-level inquiry is reviewing how witness statements were taken and disclosure of evidence.

Mr Dunn said there was a long-running practice of officers falsely referencing ‘contemporaneous’ notes in their evidence, which had actually been made weeks, months or even years later than when they were listed as being made.

He said the ruse often involved sergeants instructing constables to “mould” and “improve” their notes to suit the case.

Mr Dunn said despite the risk of perjuring themselves, it was often downplayed by officers who referred to it as “white lies”.

The inquiry heard Mr Dunn had been calling on force command for years to address the issue of “systemic perjury and subornation of perjury”.

He first raised his concerns in a letter in 1988, again in 1994, then followed up with submissions to the Ombudsman in 2004 and multiple emails to the then-Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon in 2008.

In February 2009 he wrote to the Director of Police Integrity and warned: “there seems to be a growing carelessness in the way members are now required to ‘improve’ their notes. The root cause seems to be ignorance on behalf of sergeants making demands.”

His letter added such “improvements” were often counter-productive and unnecessary, and put cases at risk.

“Any fiddling with the truth at all has the potential to damage your case tremendously,” he told the commission today.

“On any basis it’s simply not on.”

Former prosecutor Janine Gleeson, who now serves as Deputy Public Interest Monitor, told IBAC that fabricating contemporaneous notes was a “well known practice” but that “everybody knew they weren’t contemporaneous at all”.

Ms Gleeson agreed with Mr Dunn’s testimony that it was more of a potential problem for young, inexperienced officers following orders.

The inquiry heard more evidence from the head of the investigation into the Silk-Miller murders, Detective Superintendent Paul Sheridan.

In his second day in the witness stand, Supt Sheridan said this morning he had no knowledge of statements being amended.

IBAC has heard evidence that two uniform officers who were witnesses to the dying declarations of Rodney Miller were instructed not to include descriptions of offenders in their written statements.

Supt Sheridan said today he knew nothing about that directive.

“That would be an isolated practice on the part of one or two people who, to be honest, it’s an aberration in terms of how things were done,” he said.

Supt Sheridan also denied a claim made by high-profile former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina that it was common for officers to sign backdated statements.

He said that was “absolutely incorrect”.

“I would have thought, if that was occurring, Bezzina would have raised that issue through the chain of command,” he said.

He added: “I’ve had a number of senior people (from Victoria Police) come to me and refute what he (Mr Bezzina) has said.”

The public hearings continue.

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