Legal hurdle delays review into Tasmania Police’s use of covert surveillance devices
Earlier this year, prosecutors were forced to drop a case against Sue Neill-Fraser’s former lawyer due to a botched surveillance operation by Tasmania Police. Now, a review into the force has been delayed. Find out why.
Police & Courts
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A REVIEW into Tasmania Police’s use of covert surveillance devices has come up against a legislative hurdle and will be delayed.
In August, former police commissioner Darren Hine announced the force would face scrutiny by way of an independent review, following revelations a surveillance device had been left illegally recording continuously at Risdon Prison for two months.
It was also announced the review would be conducted by former Solicitor-General Michael O’Farrell, with a resulting report made public.
But on Thursday, new commissioner Donna Adams said legislation first needed to be amended to “facilitate a full and transparent review”.
She said since the review was announced, it had been identified that a provision of the relevant legislation prevented the sharing of necessary information to allow the review to take place transparently.
Commissioner Adams said she’d asked for parliament to consider an urgent amendment to the Police Powers (Surveillance Devices) Act 2006.
“Currently the majority of the information that will need to be considered by Mr O’Farrell is considered ‘protected information’ and the Act prohibits this information from being communicated for the purposes of a review,” she said.
Once the amendment is passed, the protected information can be released, and the review conducted.
According to the review’s terms of reference tabled in parliament on Thursday, the review and report are now expected to be completed by mid-2023.
The review was announced after the Supreme Court of Tasmania decided to exclude evidence against Sue Neill-Fraser’s former lawyer, Jeffrey Ian Thompson, finding the evidence against him was obtained under an invalid warrant.
Mr Thompson had been charged with two counts of perverting the course of justice by allegedly influencing Risdon Prisoner Stephen John Gleeson, a potential witness in Neill-Fraser’s second murder appeal.
But with the evidence excluded before Mr Thompson was due to stand trial, the case was abandoned with a nolle prosequi.
Justice Michael Brett, in his judgment, noted the police had not deliberately set out to break the law, but there was an “obvious misunderstanding or ignorance of the significant risks inherent in their task”.
The review will look into all surveillance device warrants issued to Tasmania Police since 2012 that authorised the installation and use of such devices in prisons.
It will consider the adequacy of information given to issuing officers, including the risks of the devices capturing private conversations unrelated to the investigation.
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