Former officers condemn Police Commissioner over mental health pledge

Police have voiced their fury over comments the Territory’s top cop made during a memorial for their fallen colleague.

POLICE have voiced their fury over comments the Territory’s top cop made during a memorial for their fallen colleague.

After years on the front lines of abuse, assaults and trauma, Nick Carter said he was angered by Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker’s pledge to reform mental health services during a memorial service for Michael ‘Micky D’ Deutrom on Wednesday.

Mr Carter, now an advocate for the invisible scars of PTSD, was once the bloodied and bruised face representing abuse of Territory police.

In 2016 then-Constable Carter was the victim of a brutal coward’s punch outside Monsoons, in Darwin’s party district.

A drunk 27-year-old being booted from the Mitchell St nightclub swung and knocked out Constable Carter.

NT Police officer Nick Carter was coward punched outside Monsoons. He was knocked out and left bloodied and bruised from the attack.

“The first thing I do remember is I was kind of half bent over. It felt like I’d been hit with a bat or something like that, the force was that great. Not knowing what had happened I felt the pain in my eye socket,” Mr Carter said at the time.

Constable Carter suffered two cuts and a black eye but scans cleared him of an eye socket fracture.

Six years later these moments of abuse and horror, among many others, continue to impact him.

The now Adelaide-based former officer has publicly pleaded for NT Police to call him and other sufferers from PTSD to provide support, but no one has since called.

“I asked for a phone call. Not from the Minister, not from the Commissioner, just from the welfare people,” he said.

“That’s all I wanted and I haven’t got that.”

Police officer, Constable Nick Carter was brutally attacked outside Monsoons in 2016.

Mr Carter said he was angered after hearing comments from Mr Chalker at the memorial for Michael ‘Micky D’ Deutrom, a beloved 44-year-old Territory officer who took his own life in April.

He was one of three suicides among current and former NT police officers in three months.

Mr Chalker pledged to the grieving loved ones that he would reform mental health services and implement recommendations from an independent review of NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services Support and Wellbeing programs.

“The health and wellbeing review unfortunately was not able to be completed in time to prevent us being here today,” he told the service.

“We have to acknowledge PTSD, mental illness, depression and life are challenging, and there is no one size fits all.”

Mr Chalker’s comments, that the review was not completed in time, has prompted anger.

One source told the NT News that he had been inundated with angry messages about the remarks.

NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker at the memorial for Michael Deutrom, who took his own life in April.

Mr Carter said NT Police had been repeatedly urged for more to be done to address mental health and wellbeing.

He questioned why the recommendations were not already going ahead, saying several weeks ago Assistant Commissioner Janelle Tonkin had publicly said the report was “as good as done”.

“That was weeks and weeks ago, and since then three members have taken their own lives.”

Earlier this month Police Minister Nichole Manison said work to implement the review’s recommendations was underway.

“Once implemented, the outcomes of this review will see a stronger delivery of support and wellbeing services for our officers,” a spokeswoman for her officer said.

But opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro said the recommendations were moving too slowly.

“What we know is it was a review into mental health into our police force and so far that has been sitting on desks and no action has taken place,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

NT Police have been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Former officers condemn Police Commissioner over mental health pledge