Top cops 'wanted better scrutiny'

SENIOR members of Victoria Police wanted a stand-alone anti-corruption commission rather than the Office of Police Integrity.

SENIOR members of Victoria Police wanted a stand-alone anti-corruption commission rather than the Office of Police Integrity and the new Proust model adopted by the Brumby government is a "bit haphazard".

Former Victoria Police media manager Stephen Linnell says the structure of the anti-corruption authorities recommended by public servant Elizabeth Proust and accepted by the state government may not "be the right system" and was just "adding" to the current bodies.

Mr Linnell - commenting on his time at Victoria Police and being the subject of an OPI investigation and prosecution - told radio yesterday that former police chief Christine Nixon also supported the idea of an independent corruption commission when she was in charge.

"Certainly Christine and others thought that the best way to do it was to have just an independent integrity commission. The government clearly chose a different model and now they're just adding to it as well and I'm not sure whether it's going to be the right system or not."

Ms Proust recommended in June that the Victorian Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission be established. The new authority would have jurisdiction over complaints about police, politicians and local councils and would incorporate existing bodies such as the OPI.

Mr Linnell was acquitted in June on a legal technicality after pleading guilty to giving false evidence to OPI hearings in 2007. His prosecution was part of the covert Operation Briars - run by Victorian Police and the OPI - which examined alleged police links to the death of male prostitute Shane Chartres-Abbott.

Mr Linnell confirmed revelations by The Australian that Chief Commissioner Simon Overland's decision to pass on information from a secret phone tap led to a serious of leaks and the eventual collapse of Operation Briars. He also cast doubts on Mr Overland's justification of the unauthorised disclosure that he was being subject to "collateral attack" from the targets of the operation. "I was unaware of any collateral attack," he said on Sunday.

Premier John Brumby, Ms Nixon and Mr Overland yesterday refused to comment on the allegations raised by Mr Linnell in his book Don't Tell The Chief: The Untold Story of Police, Power and Politics.

"This is a speculation and I don't want to comment on some of the assertions that are made in the book, Ms Nixon said on radio. "I am surprised he wrote the book. I thought last time I heard of Stephen Linnell, he gave me a letter of apology for having let me down and having misused his position."

Mr Brumby said he was unaware of the other allegations made by Mr Linnell - that Ms Nixon was approached to be Victorian governor - because he was not premier at the time. "I'm not going to comment though on allegations that were made in a book that I haven't read," he said.