Police expressed concern about academics connected to ‘gay community’

NSW Police warned academics who submitted tenders to scrutinise their review of deaths suspected to be gay-hate crimes that many researchers in the field were “connected to the ‘gay community’ and may not be as independent as desirable”.

The state’s special commission of inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes has heard police set up Strike Force Parrabell in 2015 to review 88 deaths between 1976 and 2000 that potentially involved motivations of gay-hate bias.

Assistant Commissioner Anthony Crandell headed the strike force.Credit: Oscar Colman

Parrabell’s 2018 report found evidence of a bias crime in eight cases and a further 19 cases were suspected bias crimes. Two cases were excluded from the review.

The inquiry heard on Friday that police invited three groups of academics to tender to conduct a review of Parrabell’s work.

Assistant Commissioner Anthony Crandell, who headed the strike force, wrote in an internal email shown at the inquiry that the involvement of academics was designed to “introduce a degree of independence to the position of the NSWPF”.

He added that “although there is some way to go investigatively” he believed there was “clear contrary evidence” to work by academics including NSW-based criminology Professor Stephen Tomsen “that assert prevalence of gay-hate crimes and inactivity” by police.

Tomsen was among the academics who expressed interest in reviewing Strike Force Parrabell’s work and police said in internal documents that “Tomsen is the most well known researcher in this area”. The contract was ultimately awarded to a team at Flinders University.

Police tender documents, released in July 2016, show that academics tendering for the work were told they would need to take a “collaborative approach” to working with police.

NSW Police also wrote that it was a challenge finding “suitable, qualified and independent researchers” and “some researchers have had their own personal history of negative relationships with police”.

Crandell was asked repeatedly why police made those statements, including asserting that “many researchers in this area are connected to the ‘gay community’ and may not be as independent as desirable”.

“Stephen Tomsen was connected to the gay community [through his work] ... wasn’t he?” counsel assisting the inquiry, Peter Gray, SC, asked.

“So were many other researchers,” Crandell said.

Supreme Court Justice John Sackar, who is heading the inquiry, asked: “Was the person drafting this document suggesting that a person who may be connected to the gay community could not be objective?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Crandell replied.

“Well, then, why on earth would you put this in the document?” Sackar pressed.

“I don’t know, commissioner,” Crandell said. He said he did not draft the document but agreed he stood by it.

“How would you exclude, by the way, somebody who was homophobic?” Sackar asked.

“I don’t know how we’d show a homophobic researcher,” Crandell said.

Crandell said later that he did not think the document sent “an unfortunate message” but indicated “challenges that may or may not exist”.

“I can assure you I would not be excluding gay people from a gay-hate related crime review,” he said.

He said he was “keen to get objectivity” and he would not want a suggestion that he “hand-picked reviewers”.

Crandell said the Adelaide-based Flinders University team had “no connection at all” with the LGBTIQ community in NSW, and he saw this as a factor enhancing their objectivity.

Associate Professor Derek Dalton from the Flinders University team had told police he was not an expert “per se” in hate crime, the inquiry heard.

Crandell said Tomsen was “extensively referenced ... in the review from Flinders”.

The Flinders review also noted police used 10 bias crime indicators to guide their review of cases, “despite [no] empirical evidence for its efficacy”. “The academic team are reluctant to endorse these indicators,” the review said.

In an email to another police officer, sent in October 2018 after the Parrabell report was released, Dalton referred to “bad mouthing by Tomsen and his crew of imbecilic devotees”.

Dalton wrote that he was about to submit a journal article with a colleague “that accuses these players of fuelling a moral panic about homicides that is not supported by evidence”.

But Crandell said Tomsen came to a community meeting with police in December “and provided valuable feedback and input”.

The inquiry continues.

Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.