Deputy Premier Peter Ryan furious over aide's secret meeting with 'bugged' top cop

THE Victorian Police Minister, Peter Ryan, has rebuked his Premier's chief of staff over a secret meeting with former deputy commissioner Ken Jones.

THE Victorian Police Minister, Peter Ryan, has rebuked his Premier's chief of staff over a secret meeting he held with former deputy commissioner Ken Jones that has dragged the Baillieu administration into the centre of the state's police command crisis.

Senior government sources said yesterday the two-hour meeting in February between Sir Ken and Premier Ted Baillieu's chief of staff, Michael Kapel, took place at Sir Ken's Melbourne home.

In an extraordinary email, believed to have been sent to his wife in England, Sir Ken said he would be "toast" if Chief Commissioner Simon Overland learned of the meeting. Mr Overland subsequently made a complaint to the Office of Police Integrity, which bugged Sir Ken's phone and those of his wife and at least one government aide.

As the Jones affair continued to erode confidence in Victoria Police command, sources close to Sir Ken said yesterday he planned to return to live in Australia despite the turmoil in the senior ranks of Victoria Police. The highly decorated police officer, who was ordered on leave by Mr Overland after handing in his resignation last month, won't give up on "his dream" of settling in Australia and believes he has strong support.

The Australian has been told Sir Ken is confident the facts surrounding his departure would eventually be laid bare and the "truth will out".

"Ken and his wife love the place, the people, their friends there and the lifestyle, and have no intention of giving up on their dream of settling permanently there," the source said.

The government claims the meeting between Sir Ken and Mr Kapel, who is regarded as Mr Baillieu's right-hand man, led to nothing and had not influenced policy.

But Mr Ryan, who is also Deputy Premier and Nationals leader, expressed concern yesterday that he was not told about the meeting, at which the crisis in policing under Mr Overland was discussed. "I'd have preferred to have known that the meeting was happening -- as it turned out I didn't," he said.

Mr Ryan pointedly refused to say whether the meeting had angered him as evidence grows that senior Liberals wanted to sack Mr Overland earlier this year, but instead backed a sweeping inquiry into police command at Mr Ryan's insistence.

Mr Baillieu did not comment on the furore yesterday, but Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said it would have been impossible for Mr Baillieu to have been kept in the dark about the Kapel-Jones meeting and said the inquiry into police command by lawyer Jack Rush should be expanded to include the meeting.

"Why would the chief of staff to the Premier, his most trusted, most senior adviser, be meeting with Sir Ken Jones in secret without informing, it would seem, even the Police Minister?" Mr Andrews asked.

In an explosive email, believed to be to his wife and reported by the Sunday Herald Sun, Sir Ken said the meeting took place after a "private approach from government" in which he was given the private mobile phone numbers of the Premier and two staff.

Deciding it was "much too risky to speak to B direct", he contacted Mr Kapel and arranged a meeting, in which he formed the view that the government was "on to Overland". He said he made it clear he was not interested in Mr Overland's job, but would be "toast" if Mr Overland became aware of it.

Sir Ken said he was shocked to be told by Police Association secretary Greg Davies the day after he met Mr Kapel that Mr Ryan was "livid" about the meeting. He said he feared the decision to leave Mr Ryan out of the loop "could easily push Ryan and Overland together against me".

Sir Ken said when he attempted to contact Mr Kapel, he found his tone "aloof/cool".

"In short, his message to me was that this has stuffed up and you are on your own," Sir Ken wrote. "He . . . will take the blame for meeting me if it blows up -- he will also be saying that he believed that it was me approaching them and not the other way around. "

Mr Ryan also yesterday attempted to play down phone-tapping in Victoria amid reports one of his advisers was under OPI surveillance, allegedly linked to a group of people trying to encourage Sir Ken to remain with Victoria Police. "The simple fact is we have not had any confirmation from (any) authority that phone taps are even in existence," he said.

State cabinet is due to meet today, with ministers certain to discuss the controversy that threatens to further undermine the government.

The government was elected to power on the back of a hardline law and order agenda, which has been overtaken by the Overland controversy and chaos in the Office of Public Prosecutions.

Both Mr Baillieu and Mr Ryan have attacked Mr Overland's handling of key issues, including a $100 million budget overrun on a new police database and the fact parolees were free to kill when they could have been behind bars.

But Mr Overland, a Labor appointee, is hanging on to his post as Mr Rush, QC, conducts an inquiry into police command and the Ombudsman prepares to release a report on police crime statistics, which were allegedly released before the election only after pressure from the former Brumby government.