Office of Police Integrity raid on Ashby kept secret

AN OPI investigator failed to disclose that she entered the office of then Victorian assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby late at night.

AN Office of Police Integrity investigator failed to disclose that she entered the office of then Victorian assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby late at night, conducted a search, located and copied his diary and helped examine his laptop during the installation of a listening device.

The events in late 2007 were documented by the OPI in internal running sheets and case logs, but deleted from the evidence the OPI subsequently provided to Mr Ashby's legal defence team in the lead-up to his committal proceedings for alleged perjury.

One of the deleted lines from the OPI's documents referred to a named investigator who would "enter VPC (Victoria Police Centre) tonight to copy diary". The investigator who entered Mr Ashby's office did not mention the incident in her affidavit, and edited it from her diary.

The investigator denied during cross-examination that the information was concealed in her diary notes "to cover up wrongdoing".

The investigator, who did not have a search warrant, told the court the main purpose in going to the office late at night with another assistant commissioner "was to recover Mr Ashby's diary or to seek copies of that diary and also both for me to conduct a search of any matter that should not be in that office", as well as to install a listening device.

The conduct of the investigator, who said she had edited her notes "in error, not done in any way to mislead defence or anyone in this court", was one of several instances cited by Melbourne lawyer Phillip Priest QC in a confidential memo he wrote about the OPI's modus operandi, which he described as "corrupt".

Mr Ashby and former Police Association secretary Paul Mullett, both of whom were acquitted of all charges after OPI public hearings in 2007, have called for a judicial inquiry.

But OPI director Michael Strong hit back yesterday, with an emphatic defence of the organisation and its investigators. He said criticisms of the OPI were ill founded and unfair and that The Australian was campaigning against the OPI following a legal battle between the newspaper and the police corruption watchdog.

The state opposition yesterday renewed its calls for an independent anti-corruption commission in light of the latest allegations about the OPI.

The Australian reported yesterday that OPI investigators had helped a favoured Victoria Police assistant commissioner, Leigh Gassner, to " mould" fresh sworn evidence after he had repeatedly and falsely denied in a private coercive hearing that he was told of secret phone taps.

Mr Ashby and Mr Mullett were treated very differently by the OPI after giving evidence similar to Mr Gassner. They were prosecuted for perjury but were acquitted.

Yesterday Mr Strong said his office did not give favourable treatment to Mr Gassner. "The allegations of corruption are strenuously denied by the two investigators . . . in whom I have absolute faith," he told ABC radio.

He said Mr Gassner was considered an "honest witness" and Mr Ashby and Mr Gassner were treated differently because there were some serious allegations raised against Mr Ashby.