Zachary Rolfe didn’t have to tell me he was found to have lied, sergeant says

Former police officer Zachary Rolfe was under no obligation to tell his officer in charge that a court had found he had lied about what happened during a violent arrest, his old boss at the elite Immediate Response Group said.

Zachary Rolfe. Picture: Jason Walls

Former police officer Zachary Rolfe was under no obligation to tell his officer in charge that a court had found he had lied about what happened during a violent arrest, his old boss at the elite Immediate Response Group said.

Sergeant Lee Bauwens praised his former close colleague on Thursday during the inquest into the death of 19-year-old Aboriginal man Kumanjayi Walker.

The hearings resumed for what is expected to be at least seven more days of evidence about the circumstances that led to Walker’s death in the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu in ­November 2019.

Walker was a troubled man but also vulnerable. The inquest has previously heard he had post-traumatic stress disorder, an intellectual disability and was partially deaf.

Rolfe shot him three times during an attempted arrest in which Walker stabbed him with scissors.

Sergeant Bauwens told counsel assisting coroner Elisabeth Armitage he was not aware at the time Mr Rolfe was dispatched to Yuendumu that southern crime command, an internal NT Police unit, was investigating Mr Rolfe over a 2018 case in which judge Greg Borcher found he lied in a statutory declaration.

Counsel assisting Patrick Coleridge said he accepted Sergeant Bauwens’ evidence but asked him if, in hindsight, he or a superior should have considered standing Mr Rolfe down from the immediate response group before November 2019 given there were complaints about unjustified use of force, a perception among people in the Alice Springs Police Station that he was developing a reputation for the use of force, the findings against him by Judge Borcher “that he lied to conceal his use of force”, that there was an ongoing criminal investigation by southern crime command into ­potential allegations of perjury, and that this was occurring against a backdrop of a decline in Mr Rolfe’s mental health and his transition onto medication.

Sergeant Bauwens replied that if he had known all of those things at the time, “the ball would have been put in motion through the higher command”.

Sergeant Bauwens was also presented with an exchange of messages between him and Mr Rolfe from July 2019 after Mr Rolfe had arrested an Aboriginal man in a remote community.

One of Sergeant Bauwens’ messages to Mr Rolfe was as follows: “These bush c..ns aren’t used to people going after them”

Sergeant Bauwens said he “absolutely” accepted the term “c..n” was racist. He said had no recollection of sending that message.

“It’s not who I am but it’s there I have to accept it … there is no excuse,” he said.

Later, Sergeant Bauwens was asked again about the findings of Judge Borcher against Mr Rolfe in 2018, and he said that based on the little he knew at the time “it didn’t seem to be that serious of an offence”.

When Andrew Boe, lawyer for the Walker family, asked Sergeant Bauwens if Mr Rolfe should have told him – his officer in charge – about the judge’s findings against him, Sergeant Bauwens replied that no, he shouldn’t.

“We are talking about a judge’s comments,” he said.

Mr Rolfe, who was found not guilty of Walker’s murder, is due to give evidence to the inquest next week.