Kumanjayi Walker inquest: ‘Disturbing’ Zach Rolfe texts should be admitted as evidence, court hears

Text messages sent to Zach Rolfe from a superior officer prior to the fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker are ‘very disturbing’, an inquest into his death has heard.

“Overtly racist” text messages sent to Zach Rolfe from a superior officer prior to the fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker are “very disturbing” and should be admitted as evidence at an inquest into his death, a court has heard.

On Monday, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage resumed her inquiry in the Alice Springs Local Court into Mr Walker’s death, where she heard submissions about the admissibility of the text messages.

In arguing that they should be tendered, counsel assisting the Coroner, Peggy Dwyer, said they included “many more” than the two that prosecutors unsuccessfully sought to put before the jury at Constable Rolfe’s trial.

He was acquitted on all charges in March and police have since elected not to refer an unrelated perjury charge for prosecution.

Dr Dwyer said the messages, downloaded from Constable Rolfe’s phone during the police murder investigation, involved other members of the Immediate Response Team dispatched to Yuendumu on the night of Mr Walker’s death and at least one superior officer.

“The text messages reveal very disturbing attitudes, I anticipate submitting, in relation to the use of force, or the proposed use of force, by a number of NT police who were communicating with Constable Rolfe,” she said.

“I expect to submit, your honour, that they reveal disturbing attitudes towards Aboriginal people, they reveal attitudes of contempt towards the NT community police, or bush police, and they reveal a disregard for the way that community or bush police approach policing.

“They reveal attitudes of contempt towards senior police management.”

Dr Dwyer said while there was currently no evidence the attitudes expressed in the messages were “more widespread”, it was important for the inquest to explore “whether they are attitudes that are held by other members of the police force who they work with, who might be likely to exercise force”.

Counsel assisting the Coroner, Peggy Dwyer, outside court on Monday. Picture: Jason Walls

“That evidence would not be being called to demonise those officers, it’s being called to get to a level of understanding, because if your honour does find that they’re relevant, we need to understand why those attitudes develop and what the implications of them are,” she said.

Barrister for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency Phillip Boulten SC said there was one exchange between Rolfe and a superior officer “where the other senior officer is undoubtedly speaking in overtly racist terms”.

“If that person was involved in Mr Rolfe’s training, if that person was involved in the decision making about when and how IRT operatives should be deployed,” he said

“Then that is a matter that we would argue is sufficiently connected with your functions and your statutory powers of investigation that would allow an examination of the attitudes, with both Mr Rolfe and his superior officer.”

Mr Boulten said it was “not hard to think of how it might be relevant” to the inquest.

“Did you talk like this to all of the people that you worked with? Was this something that you discussed regularly? Was this an attitude that was held by all the other people in the unit? Or are you just a vagabond out on your own?” he said.

“Let’s see what the argument is when the text messages are tendered, but we would argue that there is going to be relevance in all of these ones. We have others that are of a similar ilk that we will be attempting to tender as well.”

Counsel for NT Police, Ian Freckelton KC, earlier waived a previous claim to legal professional privilege that meant the other parties to the inquest had only seen a redacted copy of a document provided to Ms Armitage.

Constable Rolfe’s legal team had flagged a potential application for Ms Armitage to recuse herself from presiding over the hearing if the privilege was not waived, but Mr Boulten said it was always “obvious” the redacted material related to advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions to lay a murder charge.

“To then foreshadow, on Mr Rolfe’s part, a challenge to your honour’s ability to sit in these proceedings was entirely specious, unless my friends didn’t figure it out for themselves,” he said.

“We all know he got charged, we all know that the DPP recommended that he be charged, we didn’t have to read it this morning, it just follows that he must have because he got charged.

“He’s gone on trial and he’s been acquitted and your honour knows all of that … it could not possibly have formed the basis for a concern that you might be biased.”

The inquest continues on Tuesday.