Stuart Bateson: Victorian top cop who inspired Underbelly character fined over leaking
A top Victorian police officer who inspired a character on popular TV series Underbelly has found out his fate for leaking confidential information.
A top cop who inspired a character on TV hit Underbelly before he was found guilty of leaking confidential information has been fined and spared a conviction.
Former Victoria Police Commander Stuart Bateson was charged in June 2019 with three counts of leaking confidential information from the state’s anti-corruption commission to a junior female police officer.
The former commander was fined $6000 and spared a conviction in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday after he was found guilty of the charges in June this year.
“It has been an ignominious fall from grace,” magistrate Simon Zubrowski said in his sentencing remarks.
But he took into account the former officer’s “unblemished” prior character and said the offending was towards the “very lower” end of the scale.
The magistrate found the 52-year-old guilty of three charges of disclosing restricted matters contrary to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) Act.
Bateson leaked information between August and October 2018 that was mentioned in a Confidentiality Notice served on him by the Victorian anti-corruption watchdog after he was ordered to give evidence in a secret probe.
He told the junior officer what the commission was investigating, shared evidence used in the probe and the fact he gave evidence, Mr Zubrowski found.
The lauded cop had gone to the junior officer’s house four days after he gave evidence and shared details of the secret investigation, the court was told.
Bateson retired from the force earlier this year but was suspended with pay after the charges were laid.
At an earlier pre-sentence hearing his lawyer told the court the former officer was studying to be a counsellor and asked for him to be spared a conviction.
“Hopefully one day (his degree) will equip him to help other police officers who are experiencing mental health issues,” lawyer Belinda Franjic told the court.
The magistrate said the junior police officer was able to give details of the secret IBAC hearing which she would have been unlikely to learn from a source other than Bateson.
“It (her) evidence had the ring of truth about it, in my view Bateson’s evidence was a dull thud,” Mr Zubrowksi said when he handed down the guilty verdict.
Bateson was the inspiration for the character Steve Owen in Underbelly, who struggled for years to find evidence pinning down underworld boss Carl Williams before finally succeeding at the end of the first series.
The highly commended former officer joined the force in 1987, lead a crew of detectives on the Purana Taskforce which was established to stop Melbourne’s gangland war, and joined the Homicide Squad, among other roles.