By Perry Duffin
The NSW Police inspector who crashed his police car in the NorthConnex tunnel and then fled the scene, but whose name is suppressed for 40 years, has been found guilty of the drunken smash.
However, attempts to keep his identity secret momentarily backfired on Friday, with a magistrate saying the courts had breached their own suppression order over his name.
Detective Inspector “AB” was charged in November 2023 over the drink-driving crash in Sydney’s NorthConnex in May that year.
The inspector was caught on CCTV sinking more than 20 standard drinks of beer and spirits, and dancing drunk in a McDonald’s in the hours before the crash in the northern Sydney motorway tunnel.
The officer, who serves in a “prestigious” posting in the leadership team and is known only as “AB”, moved the damaged car to a suburban street in Wahroonga and fled the scene. He was charged with high-range drink-driving and driving under the influence.
Prosecutors and AB’s legal team struck a deal that allowed Magistrate Rachael Wong to find him guilty of mid-range drink-driving on Friday, instead of high-range. The charge of driving under the influence was withdrawn.
It came after Wong told the Downing Centre Local Court on Friday the document outlining the charge against AB was “defective” – to the surprise of both prosecutors and AB’s own lawyers – before she relented and allowed him to be convicted.
“We fought hard to enter a plea,” AB’s lawyer, Warwick Anderson, told reporters outside court.
Wong also raised concerns that AB’s full name had been published on a court list circulated in the Downing Centre, apparently in violation of the strict 40-year suppression order.
Court officers immediately scrambled to locate and delete any potential breaches on internal lists and systems.
The Herald had fought the order, made at the request of NSW Police, to have AB’s name suppressed until 2063.
Solicitors for the masthead said the public deserved transparency in how AB was prosecuted, and warned the order could cause problems in the court.
Prosecutors told the court the potential breach was “quite extraordinary” given the Downing Centre Registry had for months ignored calls to even list AB by his pseudonym on the public court list.
Magistrates, prosecutors and even the NSW Attorney-General’s Department have intervened to force the courts to release times and locations of AB’s hearing to the press and public.
A report from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission concluded AB had “deliberately left the scene” of the NorthConnex crash “to avoid being breath tested”.
Further, the watchdog found he was “deliberately dishonest”, omitting any mention of alcohol in an insurance claim made through the force for the damaged car.
It was “serious misconduct”, the LECC said in July.
The LECC found the officers who investigated and charged the inspector acted properly, but said his boss, known only as HAR12, showed a “partiality for and loyalty to Officer AB [that] blinded them” from making decisions on AB’s risk management.
“The Commission found that Officer AB was treated more leniently in the way in which he was managed by his commander and in the police review of his driving,” the LECC said.
AB will be sentenced next February.
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