By Cop Watcher posted 8 October 05
Taking the illegal drugs leads to the officers associating with drug suppliers, stealing drugs, stealing money and supplying friends, and providing confidential information to the drug suppliers.
Lots of drugs, official reports, more police corruption.
An unknown number of officers in the NSW Police Force are drugged up to their eyeballs, according to a Report just released by the NSW Police Integrity Commission.
Taking the illegal drugs leads to the officers associating with drug suppliers, stealing drugs, stealing money and supplying friends, and providing confidential information to the drug suppliers.
The drugs include amphetamines, cannabis, heroin and cocaine.
The 4 volume Report on drugs in the NSW Police force, which received little media attention, can be seen in full at http://www.pic.nsw.gov.au/Reports_List.asp?type=Operational
A FORMER POLICE OFFICER WHO TRIED TO DO THE RIGHT THING, prosecute a senior Catholic priest accused of child-sex crimes, was drummed out of the police force, according to the October 3 Australian.
According to documents obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws 30 years after the event, Denis Ryan was disciplined by being removed to Melbourne from a remote country post: this was done to prevent him from pursuing the charges against the abusing priest.
Mr Ryan had taken statements from 16 children saying that they had been abused, but none of the matters reached court. Mr Ryan is attempting to obtain more disclosures under the FOI legislation preparatory to a civil action against his former employer.
POLICE IN TASMANIA ARE ASKING FOR MORE COPPERS TO CLOSE BROTHELS, according to the Oct 7 Mercury.
The copper's union, the Police Association of Tasmania, has said that they would need more cops and wide powers, following the state government's plan to shutdown the state's brothels.
Community groups and sex workers are opposed to the crackdown.
Tasmanian sexual-abuse support group Beyond Abuse warned that driving brothels underground would mean that an illegal and unregulated industry would allow children to become involved in prostitution.
The new law is expected to include five-year jail terms or $50,000 fines for operators of brothels.
MORE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION is being thrown like confetti to the wind, according to the Oct 5 Melbourne Courier Mail.
Acting Deputy Commissioner Noel Ashby said officers have been told not to use the backs of confidential investigation documents for note paper, which then end up being circulated.
Mr Ashby said that a pad of such documents was stolen from Frankston Police Station, in Melbourne, on Friday of last week.
Confidentiality is a sore spot at the moment, as the Victorian government decided in August to ditch the police force computer system after tens of thousands of pages of confidential information were wrongly released.
NEARLY ONE IN EIGHT HIGH-SPEED POLICE CAR CHASE ENDS IN A CRASH, for the year ending June, according to the October 6 Sydney Morning Herald.
There were 2146 recorded pursuits over 2004-2005. Of these, there were 284 collisions and 3 deaths.
'The statistics show clearly that even in relation to minor offences, police are continuing to recklessly endanger innocent bystanders,' said the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy.
Once again, NSW Police tried to hide the facts by refusing to release the information, only being compelled to do so after a successful freedom of information application.
Mr Murphy continued to say that 'At the moment it seems that when a chase goes right and someone is arrested, there's no real analysis of the conduct. The police just don't get that it isn't worth the life of an innocent bystander or a police officer in order to arrest someone for a minor offence.'
ANOTHER COPPER, ANOTHER CONVICTION, as the first piggy goes to prison following the Western Australian Police Royal Commission.
According to ABC News online of October 6, former copper Gary Mervyn Fagg, 47, pleased guilty to 7 counts of corruption and one count of aggravated burglary and was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.
Fagg was filmed stealing $10,000 from a storage unit as part of a sting operation set up by the Commission. He admitted obtaining $21,000 by corruption from a businessman he was investigating.
IN A RARE ACT BY AN OTHERWISE SUPINE OMBUDSMAN, a recommendation has been made which would make the police a bit more accountable.
The ACT's Ombudsman has 'urged' the Australia Federal Police to upgrade video surveillance in the cells of Canberra's watch-house.
The latest Annual Report highlights numerous complaints by prisoners, including minors being detained without their parents being notified, and requests for medical help being ignored.
The ombudsman says it has made repeated calls for the installation of a digital video camera system but the police have refused. Video footage from an existing camera helped prove a claim of excessive force by police against a prisoner. However, the video coverage is patchy and unreliable.
A copy of the ACT Ombudsman Report can be found at
http://act.ombudsman.gov.au/publications_information/Annual_Reports/ar2004-05/index.html
Related:
By FX 8:03pm Sat Oct 8 '05 comment#59957
But you'd better not steal their moves!
There are coppers on the dancefloor, but you better not kill the groove.
Dj, gonna burn this goddamn house right down.
Oh, I know I know I know I know I know I know about your kind. And so and so and so and so and so and so, I'll have to play.
If you think you're getting away, I will proove you wrong. I'll take you all the way, boy, just come along, hear me when I say, hey,
There are coppers on the dancefloor, but you better not kill the groove, hey hey hey hey.
There are coppers on the dancefloor, but you better not steal the moves,
Dj, gonna burn this goddamn house right down.
Oh I know I know I know I know I know I know, there may be others, and so and so and so and so and so and so,you'll just have to pray.
If you think your geting away, I will proove you wrong. I'll take you all the way, stay another song. I'll blow you all away, hey!
There are coppers on the dancefloor, but you better not kill the groove, there are coppers on the dancefloor, but you better not steal the moves.
DJ, gonna turn this house around somehow?
By Australian Story's Jess Daly posted 8 October 05
A decade after crooked cop Trevor Haken rolled over at the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption, he remains in fear of his life and says he has been left out in the cold by authorities, having reached his used-by date.
"I would have been far better off not going on side with the Royal Commission and holding the line with other members of the New South Wales police force," he told ABC TV's Australian Story.
"I still feel, and I think I always will feel, that my life is in danger because of the number of people that I implicated at the royal commission.
"I'm basically not a creature of habit anymore. I live life as though I'm being followed all the time. I drive looking out of the rear-view mirror all the time. I don't shop in the same shopping centre twice."
As a former high-ranking detective in the New South Wales police service, Haken was a member of the drug squad at the CIB, led the drug unit at Kings Cross for several years and was a member of the joint task force into drug trafficking.
But Haken was on the take.
He and his colleagues protected some organised drug syndicates in return for monetary kickbacks and information. That information was used to investigate and prosecute competing drug syndicates.
Haken says it was an arrangement that allowed the police some measure of control over crime and gave tacit approval for their criminal associates to grow their market share.
Former NSW police minister Paul Whelan says Haken was nothing more than a crook.
"Haken and his mates were the gatekeepers of crime at Kings Cross, 'please pay'. They believed that they had 'noble cause'. In fact, they were just straight crooks," Mr Wheelan said.
Rush to ruin
Haken now says accepting kickbacks was "a rush towards a ruined life".
Still, he did not set out to be crooked. With stars in his eyes, Haken joined the police force after the death of his father. It was the yearning for a "brotherhood" and strong male role models that sealed the deal.
Following the lead of others, he soon became involved with tow-truck rackets that paid kickbacks when notified of accidents. It was a seemingly harmless scheme and Haken says it wasn't long before most things could be "justified".
"When you start off into corrupt practice it doesn't take very much to go up the ladder. And the further you go up the ladder, the more acceptable things become until you reach a point where there's nothing that isn't acceptable," he said.
Haken says it got to the stage where there was no form of improper behaviour that he wasn't involved in.
"I was involved in stealing money, verballing people, giving false evidence, gutting briefs which is removing information from briefs to allow people to be exonerated," he told Australian Story.
After years of lining his pockets with the proceeds of crime, Haken realised that he was under surveillance.
"In the early 90s I was aware that I was under surveillance by police from some organisation. I wasn't aware who," he said.
"And then on one occasion I went home and found that the tumblers on my front door lock had been interfered with. I didn't know whether it was a clandestine search had been carried out on my home or whether they'd placed listening devices in the house. But I was aware that I was under surveillance," Haken said.
Pivotal evidence
It was the New South Wales Crime Commission that had been keeping an eye on Haken and in September 1994 senior officers from the Wood Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service made contact with Haken and asked him to roll over.
He says he made the choice because inevitably there was no other choice. In exchange for criminal indemnity, Haken spent nine months gathering audio and video evidence.
Some of his infamous targets included crime boss Bill Bayeh and friend and colleague detective inspector Graham Fowler. Haken says it was dangerous work.
"At one meeting with Bayeh, he told me that another police associate had told him he must have balls to be meeting with me because the rumours were all over town that I'd rolled.
"And he said, 'If anyone goes against me, I'll kill them, I'll kill their wife, I'll kill their kids'. And that's not a threat I took idly, not then, not now," Haken said.
Once his cover was blown, his then wife and four children were put in the witness protection program, separated from Haken and sent overseas without any follow-up support.
When his turn as star witness at the Royal Commission came, Haken's evidence proved pivotal.
Mr Wheelan says the evidence sent shockwaves through the force.
"Haken's public acknowledgement as a police informer sent shockwaves to those he'd been working with. It came as a bomb.
"Haken exposed a large number of corrupt police, all the way up to chief superintendent to assistant commissioner," Mr Whelan said.
"I would have to say that it was Haken's evidence that was crucial for the success of the Royal Commission."
Haken continued to give evidence for a further nine years and individuals such as Bayeh and Fowler were charged and jailed for various crimes. On the whole, the Wood Royal Commission was the catalyst for wide-ranging reforms of the New South Wales policing system, but it still rankles with Haken that there were others whom he implicated that were never charged.
Life in hiding
Haken says he has been left high and dry following his experience as a whistleblower and is devastated by a life in hiding.
"I've lost all hope that life can ever be returned to normality," Haken said.
"I believe I haven't been suitably compensated and my security hasn't been taken into consideration properly. Financially I'm in a perilous situation.
"In the eyes of those at the Police Integrity Commission I've reached my used-by date."
In the end he failed the brotherhood and the brotherhood has failed him.
"Even if I had gone to jail, it would have probably only been for a couple of years and not the life sentence that I've got now," he said.
"I just think if you do the crime, do the time."
It seems a simple logic in retrospect.
Dead Man Talking will screen on ABC TV's Australian Story on Monday October 10 at 8pm. It will be repeated on Saturday October 15 at 12.30pm.
