Ex-cop Neil Mellon’s glittering career ends in disgrace with three month stay at His Majesty’s Hilton

For the next three months, Neil Mellon will share an address – and a string of convictions – with some of the same crooks he spent more than a quarter of a century putting behind bars.

Prosecutors described former NT Police Sergeant Neil Mellon as a ‘police officer who’s significantly fallen from grace’. Picture: Jason Walls

Tuesday, 5pm: Neil Mellon will spend the next three months incarcerated alongside the crooks he once stared down from the other side of the thin blue line after he “allowed the power of being a senior police officer to go to his head”.

The decorated one time acting senior sergeant and current convicted criminal was handed the eight-month sentence, to be suspended after three months, in the Darwin Local Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to a string of offences.

In jailing Mellon for destroying evidence, obtaining benefit by deception and leaking sensitive police secrets, judge Tanya Fong Lim said he was no less morally culpable than Michael Burbidge in the destruction of their friend Chris “Willow” Wilson’s phone following his death in 2022.

But it was the latter offences Ms Fong Lim said reflected “a police officer who did not think the law applied to him” and put “a serious dent in the public faith in the justice system”.

“A police officer is held to a higher standard than an ordinary citizen by the nature of their career, they are expected, and swear, to uphold the law in the exercise of their extensive powers and to obey the law in their own personal lives,” she said.

Ms Fong Lim said Mellon’s illegal disclosures included leaking information in a domestic violence case “not knowing what that information would be used for” that “may very well have created risks for a victim or protected person”.

“The disclosure of a person’s mental health condition to another who has no business knowing that could cause that person to become mentally unwell,” she said.

“The general disclosure of sensitive information to others which related to a high-profile investigation could very well have affected how those matters resolved.”

Former NT Police Senior Sergeant Neil Mellon left court through the back door under guard on Tuesday afternoon. Picture: Jason Walls

Ms Fong Lim said in using his “friendship and rank” to pressure a junior officer into falsifying a defensive tactics certification in a bid to secure a promotion, Mellon “had little regard for that person’s future, only of his own selfish gain”.

“(He) not only put his friend at risk of criminal prosecution and also put him at risk of demotion, which in fact occurred, he could have been dismissed from the force but he was not,” she said.

Ms Fong Lim said jailing Mellon would “demonstrate the court’s denunciation of his offending” and “ensure that other police officers realise the gravity of such behaviour”.

“While I accept Mr Mellon comes before the court with a prior good character and his record as a police officer is littered with commendations and his personal references confirm his strength of character,” she said.

“It is my view he has allowed the power of being a senior police officer to go to his head – he believed he was above the law.”

Mellon hugged supporters in court as they wiped away tears before being led out into the cells by prison guards ahead of a 30km trip down the Stuart Hwy to prison.

Ms Fong Lim is now expected to release the full details of Mellon’s offending on Wednesday.

Once ‘idolised’ ex-cop Neil Mellon should go to jail, prosecutors say

Earlier: Once “idolised” former Territory cop Neil Mellon should pack a bag for Holtze Prison after he “effectively took the law into his own hands”, prosecutors have argued ahead of his sentencing.

Mellon previously pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court to destroying evidence, disclosing confidential information, possessing a prohibited weapon, obtaining benefit by deception and possessing a protected animal.

The charges stem from a fatal helicopter crash that killed Netflix star Chris “Willow” Wilson in 2022 and a subsequent investigation into Mellon’s role in destroying Mr Wilson’s phone.

In sentencing submissions on Tuesday morning, prosecutor Steve Ledek said the information disclosed by Mr Mellon was so highly sensitive “we can’t state their names or declare who they are”.

Mr Ledek said the disclosures included one case in which “the persons involved in that were actively being sought by others”.

He said as there was “no real benefit” to Mr Mellon in disclosing the information, it was “even more unfathomable why he would engage in such a blatant breach of his rules of conduct and so improperly disseminate information which is so highly sensitive and personal”.

“When was it that he decided that his rank or his position in the police force entitled him to behave in certain ways where he effectively took the law into his own hands?” he asked.

Former NT Police Sergeant Neil Mellon will return to court in Darwin for sentencing on Tuesday afternoon. Picture: Jason Walls

“It got to a point where, and this preceded almost immediately his resignation, where he decided he would rely on a friend (and fellow officer) to fudge a report essentially, as to tactical training so he could qualify to be considered for a senior sergeant’s position.”

Defence barrister Sally Ozolins said Mellon acknowledged sharing the confidential information was “obviously wrong” but “had a misguided belief that he was simply helping friends”.

“None of the facts of those disclosures are of a nature … where it was done with any intent … to interfere with police operations or to produce a particular outcome,” she said.

Ms Ozolins said unlike other cases where information had been “disclosed as to witness addresses so that the person receiving the information might then have opportunity to interfere with witnesses”, Mellon’s actions were better categorised as “careless”.

“Maybe with some level of complacency, given that as a long standing police officer, information that was discussed in general circles was often of a confidential nature,” she said.

“And maybe there is an element of that, your honour, but it wasn’t done with any wilful intent to achieve a particular outcome.”

Judge Tanya Fong Lim is expected to release the full facts of Mellon’s offending to the media after sentencing him in the Darwin Local Court on Tuesday afternoon.