Warning: This story contains graphic content
Senior Sergeant Peter Hanna outside court in 2022.Credit: ABC
A senior police officer who was sacked after being charged with possessing child abuse material sent to him by an inner west priest has won his bid for reinstatement to the force.
Peter Hanna, a NSW Police senior sergeant with 21 years of experience, was charged in 2021 with possessing child abuse material. Police had alleged Father Joseph Kolodziej, at the time the parish priest at Five Dock’s All Hallows Catholic Parish, had sent him three illegal videos.
Kolodziej was also charged over the videos, but the director of public prosecutions dropped the charges nine months later.
Hanna was convicted in the Local Court in May 2022 over possessing a video that depicted a toddler walking in on a couple having sex, who continue to do so as the child climbs on top of the woman.
He was found not guilty of possessing two other videos because they may have been downloaded to his phone from WhatsApp automatically and without his knowledge.
Hanna replied, “very funny” to a series of messages that included two of the videos and “love them” to another series of messages on a different day. He told the court that the replies were a general response to a series of texts, and the “love them” response was about a text from Kolodziej titled “Words of Wisdom”.
The DPP also dropped a charge of possessing child abuse material in relation to a fourth video sent by someone else.
Hanna successfully appealed his conviction in the District Court in October 2022, where Justice Phillip Mahoney SC found that the video did not meet “the requisite standards of offensiveness” to be child abuse material.
His role at NSW Police had been terminated two months earlier.
“The possession of any child abuse material is abhorrent ... Your conduct demonstrates contempt and disrespect for the law,” a notice of dismissal sent to Hanna from Police Commissioner Karen Webb in August 2022 said.
“These matters would go to the very heart of your personal judgement and integrity. Given the magnitude of your misconduct, I see no additional mitigation … that would provide me with any basis not to lose confidence in your suitability to remain a police officer.”
After making the order for dismissal, the commissioner brought new allegations, including claims that Hanna “constantly” talked about his penis and had shown a colleague the video of the toddler walking in on the couple having sex. Those assertions were rejected in a hearing before the industrial relations umpire that began in 2023.
In a judgement last month, Industrial Relations Commissioner Daniel O’Sullivan found Hanna did not know the videos were on his phone and agreed with the Local Court that his “love them” and “very funny” messages did not relate to the videos but were a general reply.
“There was no basis to remove the applicant from the Force,” he wrote in his judgement which found Hanna’s dismissal was unreasonable and unjust, and ruled he must be reinstated.
Commissioner O’Sullivan did not make any orders for compensation because Hanna had been receiving income protection payments for five months before he was removed from the police.
NSW Police and Hanna’s lawyer were contacted for comment.
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