Thursday, October 23, 2008

Illegal search warrants used by Queensland police?

Nothing about the Queensland police would surprise me

SENIOR Gold Coast police are at the centre of a corruption probe for allegedly using illegal search warrants to raid innocent people's homes. Police have launched an internal investigation into the claims, aired last night by Seven News. Self-styled whistleblower detectives told the station that Gold Coast police made up evidence for the warrants and the raids were used to enhance the careers of senior management. Senior police have rejected the allegations as "a load of rubbish", saying they were made by disgruntled officers including one who was stood down after being charged with criminal offences.

However, some detectives called for an independent judicial inquiry, claiming both the police and the Crime Misconduct Commission have failed to investigate numerous complaints about allegedly "dodgy" warrants. One detective said illegal warrants had been used in hundreds of raids for at least the past five years in a practice openly encouraged by senior management. "This is a major corruption scandal," he said. "Specific evidence is required for a search warrant application but on many occasions on the Gold Coast . . . that information is simply made up. It's unlawful and it's unethical."

The detective said police drove around carparks to pick up random licence plate numbers to use on search warrant applications, or the evidence was just invented. He said the use of illegal warrants was prolific and done hundreds of times as police management used the raid to improve their career prospects. "It is done for the purpose of arrest figures and obtaining numbers of search warrants," he said.

The detective said that on one occasion he had been sent to raid the home of an innocent, elderly couple who were terrified by the experience. A police spokesman said the allegations were "nebulous".

Source

3 comments:

Nunyaa said...

I am not surprised at all by the stories I am reading about here. I was broken into and woken by a man kneeling over me, holding my leg down, licking inside of my knee.
The investigating detective Morris Cotteral told me he thought I was lying and that kind of thing did not happen in this town. Who is he kidding, there was thousands of extra people here after cyclone larry. Then to top if off, I found a packet of tobacco that the offender had dropped, they lost it. I was asked why didnt the offender fall down the missing stair and hurt himself, well hello if they caught him or bothered to try perhaps they could ask him themselves. And if you dare to question them , you are harrassed for life, trust me, I live with this every day...just like DOCS.

Unknown said...

How true, at the moment I'm going through court in Queensland, on break and enter charges against myself, when I tried to show Queensland police where I was at the time of the alleged offense I was told buy the arresting officer that they were not interested in my evidence, and the court could sort it out. This evidence would have cleared me of any offense, they went of the word of one person who had a personal grudge against myself, their was no search warrant. I have people who stated I did not commit the offense this was after some property was located (not in my procession) not buy the police but the owner of the property who removed it with out the police present, the police were then informed.This evidence has never been used in court.This court case has been going on for nearly two years with no evidence produced by the police prosecutor, and their main witness has been caught changing his statement to this matter in two separate court appearances. Confused I am.

Unknown said...

I know how these people feel. I once woke up to find people in my house, and when I confronted them was badly beaten and dragged away. They were police, but despite not committing any crime and later released without charge, I don't have the money to buy justice.