Zach Rolfe’s fiancee denies making up Kumanjayi Walker inquest testimony
Claudia Campagnaro denied posting ‘disparaging remarks’ about her former partner, Zach Rolfe, on social media after the break up.
Police & Courts
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Zach Rolfe’s former fiancee has denied testifying against him because she was “bitter” or “furious” after their relationship ended.
Constable Rolfe was acquitted on all charges after fatally shooting Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in 2019 and his fiancee, Claudia Campagnaro, gave evidence at an inquest into Mr Walker’s death on Friday.
Under cross examination by Constable Rolfe’s barrister, David Edwardson KC, Ms Campagnaro denied posting “disparaging remarks” about her former partner on social media after the break up.
“I’m not going to use the word bitter, sorry, I will not let you put that word in my mouth,” she said.
Ms Campagnaro also rejected a suggestion that she had “accused him … of all sorts of things after the relationship breakdown” or been “furious about the fact that he’d ended the engagement”.
“I think I was more upset that the relationship had ended, just like any normal person,” she said.
Mr Edwardson also accused Ms Campagnaro of making up an allegation that Constable Rolfe had fabricated evidence against an Aboriginal man he had arrested by falsifying an injury to himself.
“There is no way you as a person would have ever allowed Malcolm Ryder to be condemned on false evidence with your knowledge, on your watch,” Mr Edwardson said.
“If it had happened, surely any common sense of decency, not to mention the law, would have required you to make sure that he could not be condemned on fabricated evidence.”
Ms Campagnaro replied: “I’m sorry sir, but it did happen and no amount of you trying to say it didn’t is going to change what I’m saying, it did happen and that’s that.”
In closing her evidence, Ms Campagnaro apologised for never having blown the whistle on her former fiance prior to being asked to make a statement by police officers investigating Mr Walker’s death.
“I thought I was in love, so you know, you’ve got these love goggles on and the last thing you’re thinking about is dobbing them in to the police,” she said.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing and you think back and think ‘I really wish I’d told someone about it’ but I just didn’t.
“I look back at that time and I’m incredibly saddened that I was part of those cascade of events.
“I should have told someone that he was doing the wrong thing, but I didn’t and all I can say now is that I’m sorry.”
Also on Friday, Ms Campagnaro explained to the Territory Coroner why she never previously spoke up about his racism or excessive use of force after she “fell for a charming fellow police officer”.
Constable Rolfe was acquitted on all charges by a Supreme Court jury in March after he shot and killed 19-year-old Warlpiri man, Kumanjayi Walker, during a botched arrest in Yuendumu in 2019.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage is now presiding over a three-month inquest in the Alice Springs Local Court into Mr Walker’s death, with Constable Rolfe’s ex-fiancee, Claudia Campagnaro, taking the stand on Friday.
The court heard Constable Rolfe and Ms Campagnaro, herself a former probationary constable, began dating shortly after she joined the force in 2017, and were engaged just weeks later.
She said Constable Rolfe rarely turned his body-worn camera on while on duty, including during the arrest of an Aboriginal man, Malcolm Ryder, in early 2018, whom he later told her he had punched in the head while he was on the ground.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I should have reported it, but I was going under the guidance of my senior police officer,” she said.
“I just remember thinking at the time it was ridiculous (but) I didn’t feel like I could speak to anyone about it.”
Counsel assisting the Coroner, Peggy Dwyer, said some “might question” why Ms Campagnaro had been “prepared to start a relationship” with Constable Rolfe in the weeks after Mr Ryder’s arrest if she still had concerns about the incident.
“At the time, I fell for a charming fellow police officer, and when you think you’re in love with someone, you know, you’re just going to listen to what they say and go with it,” Ms Campagnaro said.
“I think back to it now and I think I should have done things a lot differently but that’s hindsight for you.”
Ms Campagnaro said she later became aware that Mr Ryder’s legal team were challenging Constable Rolfe’s use of force during the arrest and while she continued to believe it had been “unjustified”, she still did not come forward.
“Do you think now, looking back on it, that even though you were a young officer, that it was your obligation to come forward?” Dr Dwyer asked, to which Ms Campagnaro replied “yes, I do”.
“I think about that all the time,” she said.
“I feel really sad that I was a part of, you know, a cascade of events that led to that, and even though I was brand new, I should have had more of a voice and reported it, but I didn’t and I’m really sorry about that.”
Meanwhile, Ms Campagnaro said she would regularly hear Constable Rolfe and other officers, including sergeants, using derogatory terms about Aboriginal people, including “c**n” and n****r”.
She said initially the “incredibly dehumanising” language had shocked her but she felt speaking out about it would be “incredibly difficult”.
“When you’re there, everyone around you is using those terms,” she said.
“When the seniors are doing it, you have no one to turn to.”
Ms Campagnaro said it was only later in the relationship that she started to have doubts about their future when Constable Rolfe started making “vile” comments about wanting to rejoin the military so he could be “paid to go out and shoot people”, and getting “a paid holiday” if he killed someone while on duty.
“This was towards the end of our relationship because I actually remember saying to him ‘No, that’s not the kind of holiday that I want to go on’,” she said.
“And I remember feeling at that time uncomfortable about him saying that.”
Ms Campagnaro said her view of her former fiance had changed significantly by the time the relationship ended in late 2018, and she felt “deeply embarrassed that I was a part of this cycle of behaviour”.
“When we first met I thought he was, well he was, he was very charming, but I thought he was so kind and generous,” she said.
“And by the end of it he was just the total opposite of what I thought he was, the charm had well and truly fallen.”
But Ms Campagnaro denied she was “saying this just to get back at him” after a failed relationship and she did not have a “vendetta” against Constable Rolfe.
“This entire process has caused me nothing but grief and stress,” she said.
“I would never go out of my way to say something negative about someone, I’ve purely been doing this to assist the NT Police and now the Coronial process.”
After the interstate video link was cut, Constable Rolfe’s lawyer, David Edwardson KC, read from an email to his client from NT Police’s Professional Standards Command informing him he had been cleared of any wrongdoing in Mr Ryder’s arrest.
The court previously heard police had elected not to refer a perjury charge against Constable Rolfe to the Director of Public Prosecutions after a judge ruled he lied under oath about having “deliberately assaulted” Mr Ryder.
Earlier, the court heard a senior police officer sent a message to be passed on to Constable Rolfe the day after he shot and killed Mr Walker which “provides a framework for providing a justification for a use of force”.
On Thursday, his close friend and fellow officer Mitchell Hansen gave evidence about a series of text messages the pair had exchanged before and after the shooting on November 9, 2019.
On November 10, Constable Hansen told the inquest he sent Constable Rolfe a text saying NT Police Association executive subcommittee member Sergeant Ian Nankivell “sent me this to send to you”.
“He was involved in shooting someone in VicPol so he said to send this through,” the text read.
“The member has to answer his critics with IAMO plus P.
“I (means) intent, the shit c*** was telling him that he was going to stab the police.
“A, ability, you have the ability to do so, because he both said it and was a young fit male who looking at Rolfe, would have had size disparity.
“M equals means. He had an edged weapon and told the police he, more like – more than like said was going to kill them.
“O, (means) opportunity. The members let him get close enough to be afforded the opportunity to stab one of them.
“And coupled with all of the above, IAMO plus P, equals preclusion: ‘I was precluded from all other options available to me, being distance, time, cover, taser, baton, spray et cetera, so I had no other option but to protect myself and those with me, by shooting the offender to gain immediate subject control and incapacitation’.
“That what I (was) taught by some very experienced old members in 1994, never forget it. IAMOplus P.”
Counsel assisting the Coroner Peggy Dwyer said Constable Rolfe then replied “Awesome awesome awesome, thank you for that brother”.
In his evidence on Thursday, Constable Hansen said Sergeant Nankivell was “my sergeant in Port Keats and now he’s a friend” and he had “naively forwarded that message on”.
“I’d been gazetted that position in Port Keats because I’d applied for it prior to this incident and he was aware that I was coming and so he had reached out to me,” he said.
“He knew that I was friends with Zach and so he reached out to me to support me and, you know, to make sure I was okay, even before I was under his command I guess.”
Constable Hansen said he had only been reminded of who sent him the message the night before taking the stand and it was hard to talk about because “it makes my friends look bad”.
Under cross examination by barrister for the family of Mr Walker’s mother, Gerard Mullins, Constable Hansen agreed he had not told prosecutors at Constable Rolfe’s murder trial about the text, saying looking back, he could understand how it “might have contaminated the legal process”.
“Of course it may have been embarrassing to tell the (investigating police) on 17 January 2020 about the Nankivell text because Sergeant Nankivell was your support person at the interview?” Mr Mullins asked.
Constable Hansen replied that he was “not concerned about being vulnerable or embarrassed in front of (anyone)”.
Mr Mullins said his clients’ family members had stood on the steps of the Supreme Court after the acquittal saying the only thing they wanted was justice, and “you might well have compromised that within 48 hours of the event”.
“I haven’t considered that until you’ve spoken to me about it right now,” Constable Hansen replied.
“And if that is the case then I wish there was something I could do to give those guys peace about it, obviously.”
The “Nankivell text” was one of a series of exchanges between the two constables, which also included racist and homophobic slurs, and for which an emotional Constable Hansen took the opportunity to apologise on Thursday.
“At the time I was really probably selfishly caught up in what was going on around me,” he said.
“I was a dad at the time but I was not long a dad, so I didn’t have a bigger view of the world as I do now.
“I think about my boy, I don’t care what that kid does, you know, if he does the wrong thing and if he’s involved in an altercation where he loses his life for any reason, whether he’s done the right thing or the wrong thing, the thought of that breaks my heart and I didn’t have that perspective then.”
Constable Hansen said the experience of being called to give evidence had “highlighted a lot about myself” and “brought up some things about the police”.
“I hope that (Mr Walker’s family) can see where I’ve come from, you know, my upbringing, the standard that I hold myself to now, and I thought I held myself to then,” he said.
“I let myself get to a place where this sort of thing wasn’t offensive to me and that was obviously, you know, I don’t fully understand how I got there but I’m still, and I am working that out.
“It’s clear to me that the things that I have said have offended not only, you know, people in this courtroom, the people I work with, but sort of most importantly, (Kumanjayi) Walker’s family.
“I’m wholeheartedly sorry for the things that I’ve said and the way I’ve behaved.”
Constable Hansen said he never intended, deliberately or inadvertently, to corrupt the evidence Constable Rolfe would give at trial.
“I’m in my seventh year of policing and I didn’t realise how foolish and naive I was back then, so this is a good opportunity for me to reflect on that,” he said.
“My only intent was to look after Zach, I didn’t have any intent to lead Zach or to school Zach or anything like that. I know that that’s the position of his lawyers, not mine. I just didn’t realise.”
The inquest continues on Monday.
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