Victoria Police royal commission: Lawyer X action ‘seven years overdue’

The Lawyer X scandal could have been dealt with seven years ago had government ministers acted on allegations, an MP claims.

Bill Tilley is a Liberal MP who seven years ago raised concerns with then police minister Peter Ryan about serious corruption in Victoria Police. Picture: Simon Dallinger

The Lawyer X scandal could have been dealt with seven years ago had government ministers acted on allegations of systematic corruption within police and justice agencies raised by the state’s then second most senior police officer, Ken Jones.

Liberal MP Bill Tilley said he relayed deputy commissioner Jones’s concerns to then police minister Peter Ryan and corrections minister Andrew McIntosh in 2011 but nothing was done.

He accused Victoria Police and the disbanded Office of Police Integrity of conspiring to conceal what the High Court last week described as reprehensible conduct.

“Sir Ken used almost identical words to describe what he had found at our very first meeting,” Mr Tilley said.

“Had he been taken seriously then, what we are reading about now could have been addressed years ago. But instead he and his wife were threatened and driven out of Australia, good men lost their jobs and livelihoods and corruption continued unchecked.”

Mr Tilley’s intervention in the Lawyer X scandal reopens one of the most traumatic episodes in the history of Victoria Police, a crisis in command that pitted Sir Ken against then chief commissioner Simon Overland and the state Ombudsman against the OPI.

He wants the royal commission to examine concerns raised at the time by Sir Ken about Lawyer X and whether the OPI abused its power by launching an investi­gation into Sir Ken, Mr Tilley and Tristan Weston, then a ministerial adviser to Mr Ryan and a police detective.

“Sir Ken advised myself and Mr Weston that he was concerned about systematic corruption involving the Victoria Police and other justice agencies, namely the OPI, Department of Justice and the Department of Corrections,” said Mr Tilley, who lost his job as parliamentary secretary to Mr Ryan for his role in the affair.

“He indicated that in his opinion the entire criminal justice process had been subverted over a number of years, that information has improperly flowed between Victoria Police, certain justice agencies and the criminal underworld and that very serious crimes, even murders, had resulted. He strongly believed that a royal commission was required.”

Mr Tilley said Sir Ken did not refer to Lawyer X, also known as registered informer 3838, in their discussions. However, it is understood the use of a defence barrister as a police informant was one of several matters that prompted Sir Ken to turn whistleblower.

“He was well aware of what was going on and that is one of the issues he raised with the Ombudsman,” said former Police Association secretary Greg ­Davies, a confidant of Sir Ken.

Sir Ken first raised his concerns with the Victorian Ombudsman in February 2011 and then met with Mr Weston, Mr Tilley and Mr McIntosh. Mr Ryan declined to meet with Sir Ken, arguing his concerns should be directed to police command or the OPI.

Mr Weston yesterday backed the recollections of Mr Tilley. Mr McIntosh declined to comment. Mr Ryan told The Australian: “The assertions by Bill Tilley are simply wrong.”

The OPI was directly involved in two joint taskforce operations that relied on Lawyer X as an informant — the Briars and Petra investigations into suspected police links to gangland killings.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, in his former role as OPI deputy director, oversaw both investigations alongside then deputy commissioner Overland and assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius. Mr Ashton yesterday told Radio 3AW he had “regular conversations” about Lawyer X with the other members of the Briars and Petra steering committees.

The OPI investigation into Sir Ken, supported by then OPI director Michael Strong, prompted a public and political backlash after it was revealed that the OPI had tapped Sir Ken’s phone.

Mr Strong, a former barrister and judge, told The Australian his knowledge of Lawyer X’s activities was “minimal”.

“I was not aware of any impropriety,” Mr Strong said. “Sir Ken Jones did not raise with me any concerns he may have had.”

He defended the OPI’s investigation of Sir Ken and said his staff had acted “with integrity”.

Mr Tilley described the tactics employed by the OPI as “brutally intrusive”. Sir Ken, a career policeman and anti-corruption investigator who arrived in Australia from Britain in 2009 with an impeccable record, has been unable to re-establish his career despite being exonerated by successive Ombudsman and Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission reports.

“Not only did he lose his job, he got death threats, his wife’s health deteriorated to a dangerous extent and they had to leave the country,” Mr Davies said.

Mr Tilley said the OPI probe had a “chilling effect” on potential witnesses and helped keep the Lawyer X scandal under wraps.

“As a result of the now disbanded OPI’s flawed and, I believe, wholly corrupt investigation, the government, the media and the Victorian community were drip-fed a concocted account of events calculated to cover up crimes, ­silence us, destroy our reputations and discredit us while protecting those in the OPI, Corrections, Justice and Victoria Police who had questions to answer,” he said.