Integrity Commission audit finds police handling of complaints in Tasmania ‘adequate and professional’

A POLICE officer who potentially put lives at risk when using excessive force with a firearm never faced disciplinary action despite a history of misconduct, an Integrity Commission report has found.

An audit of complaints against police finalised in 2015 has been released by Tasmania’s Integrity Commission.

A TASMANIA Police officer who potentially put lives at risk when using excessive force with a firearm never faced disciplinary action despite a history of misconduct, an Integrity Commission report has found.

The audit of complaints against police finalised in 2015 was released today by the Commission.

The commission found police handling of complaints was “adequate and professional”.

However it raised concerns about two “particularly serious” matters involving excessive force and unlawful access to information, involving firearms, where legal advice about prosecution was obtained but no court action was taken.

The Commission said “given the seriousness of the allegations” police should have sought independent legal advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The firearm incident, which took nearly 1000 days to resolve, was used as a case study by the Commission.

“It is acknowledged that this was a complex matter in which opinions diverged as to whether the officer was culpable,” it said.

“However, even given the circumstances, the time taken to get to this point seems excessive.”

The first report into the complaint, which was made by a fellow officer, took seven months by which time the ability to prosecute the officer for “alleged minor offences had been lost”.

The officer was returned to operational duty immediately after the incident.

The allegations, found proven, were later reviewed by a senior police who withdrew a sanction against the officer despite agreeing the misconduct occurred.

“This means that there were no disciplinary outcomes for the officer, although there were professional development outcomes,” the commission said.

Tasmania Police said the level of force used by the officer was initially warranted but its continuation after the need for self-defence had passed was not.

This was the only allegation of excessive force, out of 108 claims, that was sustained by police.

Nearly 400 allegations across 123 complaints were finalised by police in 2015.

Of those, 37 misconduct allegations against 19 officers were sustained.

All proven allegations were for breaches of the police Code of Conduct including:

Nine for bringing discredit on the service;

Seven for failing to act with care and diligence;

Seven for failing to behave with honesty and integrity;

Three for failing to comply with the Tasmania Police manual;

Three for failing to maintain confidentiality;

Two for conduct prejudicial to the service; and

One each for failing to comply with lawful direction/order by senior officer, failing to disclose or avoid a conflict of interest, improper use of information, omitting to provide information, providing false or misleading information, and unlawful access to information.

Follow @patrickbillings

Originally published as Integrity Commission audit finds police handling of complaints in Tasmania ‘adequate and professional’