Top cops fed lines to thug police

Corrupt behaviour from those supposed to be investigating improper behaviour. Truth and justice come second to protecting fellow police -- even if the police concerned are killers

THE Crime and Misconduct Commission has recommended two senior officers, picked by Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson to review the discredited investigation into the 2004 death in custody of Palm Islander Mulrunji Doomadgee, face disciplinary charges for an alleged whitewash.

A draft CMC report has accused the Ethical Standards Command officers of running a biased investigation to protect other police. It is alleged that witnesses were guided in their answers in interviews, with some provided in advance with copies of the questions they were to be asked.

A further allegation is that some key witnesses were not even interviewed by the officers, privately described by Mr Atkinson as among his "most respected".

Last night, a Queensland Police spokesman would not comment on whether the Ethical Standards Command report would be released, although the CMC has committed to putting it out within weeks. The Queensland Police Commissioned Officers Union is considering legal action to stop publication of the report.

The revelations in the draft are a further embarrassment to Mr Atkinson, who has led the service for the entire six years since the violent death of Doomadgee sparked riots in the Aboriginal community off Townsville.

The internal police review was launched in 2006 after Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements slammed the death in custody investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence". Palm Island Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley was charged and acquitted in 2007 of Doomadgee's manslaughter.

The Ethical Standards Command handed its 266-page report -- which was vetted by an independent barrister -- to the CMC in 2007. It recommended only "managerial guidance" for the four police -- two of whom were friends of Sergeant Hurley -- who initially investigated the death in custody. But the CMC rejected the report and has recommended tougher disciplinary action against the four investigating officers.

For almost 18 months, since receiving the police report, the CMC -- Queensland's corruption watchdog -- has revisited all evidence and all witnesses. "There is a long list of problems with the Ethical Standards Command report, it was a totally unsatisfactory investigation," a source told The Australian.

Last year, The Australian revealed that the CMC had accused the top-level police unit of "protecting their own". The then-CMC chair Robert Needham later went public, confirming that his body was "not going to be complimentary " of police.

"In effect, what we have done is we have gone back to ground zero and gone right to the primary documents, right to every interview that has ever been had with all the relevant officers, to the evidence of the coronial inquiry and gone back to every single thing in great detail," he said.

The police issued a statement saying: "In the circumstances that currently exist it is not appropriate that we comment on the Palm Island matter at the present time."

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