By Clare Sibthorpe
The police officer son of former NSW premier and senator Kristina Keneally faces an anxious Christmas after learning he could be jailed for fabricating evidence that wrongly landed a man in custody for three weeks.
Daniel Keneally, 25, was due to be sentenced in Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday over the incident at Newtown police station in February 2021.
Daniel Keneally enters the Downing Centre court complex on Thursday for his sentencing for fabricating evidence.Credit: Nick Moir
The prosecution sought full-time custody for Keneally as punishment for falsely accusing a man of threatening to kill a police officer, but magistrate Rodney Brender reserved his judgment until February.
Speaking to journalists outside court, defence lawyer Paul McGirr accepted Christmas would be a nervous time for Keneally.
“When jail’s hanging over your head, of course it [will be],” McGirr said.
“We maintain our innocence… there’s a long road ahead, but my client keeps his head held high,” he added, referring to their intention to appeal against the guilty verdict.
Keneally was working a night shift when he answered a call from Luke Brett Moore, who complained about police strip-searches.
However, Keneally incorrectly wrote in his statement that Moore had made threats to police, including naming an officer he allegedly threatened to kill.
As a result of his statement – which Keneally earlier told the court high-ranking officers had pressured him to make – Moore was arrested and charged with using a carriage service to menace and threaten to kill.
On Thursday, the court heard Moore was charged at the time with an additional offence of menace or harass regarding his alleged website content.
Daniel Keneally (left) with his lawyer, Paul McGirr, on Thursday.Credit: Nick Moir
Moore spent 23 days in custody. He was only released on bail and the charges were dropped after it emerged he had recorded the initial phone call with Keneally, which revealed no threats were made.
Keneally pleaded not guilty to one count of fabricating evidence with intent to mislead a judicial tribunal.
But, last month, magistrate Rodney Brender found him guilty of the offence, rejecting McGirr’s claim that he made an honest mistake while looking at many sources of information in a busy station.
Brender found Keneally knew evidence of a threat to a police officer could potentially lead to a prosecution, be used in court proceedings and mislead tribunals.
At Keneally’s sentencing on Thursday, McGirr conceded the threshold for a jail sentence had been crossed, but sought it to be served in the community by way of an intensive correction order.
The prosecutor called for full-time custody as the charge “is an interference with the administration of justice, and [is] very serious in that regard”.
“There was a statement containing many falsehoods,” he said.
“There is no basis to suggest anyone affected him by pressuring him … the offender received a phone call and, by his own accord, elected deliberately to give false evidence in his statement.”
In response, McGirr told the court it was an “extremely isolated incident” in which Moore “appeared to be a bit unhinged”, was “ranting” and led Keneally to discuss the potential meaning of certain words with other officers.
“We all concede it’s serious, but is this person going to reoffend? The answer is no – and I don’t say that for all my clients, with respect to them,” McGirr told the court.
Keneally was suspended from NSW Police without pay but would “certainly lose his job” over the proceedings, McGirr said, adding he’d also lost friends and sought psychological help for mental health issues since being charged.
Due to his political family, Keneally would have a “particularly hard time” in custody, McGirr claimed. He said Kristina had “purposefully stayed away” from court due to unwanted media attention.
The prosecutor argued the media attention was not usual.
“A police officer has falsified evidence that led to someone being incorrectly charged … there is public interest in that,” he told the court.
The court heard Moore was in the process of launching civil action against the state over his wrongful arrest.
McGirr said Keneally was “extremely upset by the fact Moore was arrested and put into custody”, which he claimed was a result of Moore’s alleged website content in addition to his client’s false evidence – a factor Brender described as “pretty important”.
Brender reserved his judgment to noon on February 1, without elaborating on his decision.
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