Category Archives: Australian police and policing

‘Inadequate response’ of Queensland police to domestic violence needs to be addressed, coroner says

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Doreen Langham died after former partner Gary Hely set alight her townhouse in 2021

A coroner has called for urgent reforms to address the “inadequate response” of Queensland police to domestic violence, after investigating the deaths of a woman and her ex-partner.

Doreen Langham died after Gary Hely set alight her townhouse in Browns Plains, south of Brisbane, with the intention of killing the 49-year-old and himself on 22 February 2021.

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NSW police overreached in treatment of protesters after botched raid, civil groups say

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Human rights and environment organisations call for police to act ‘responsibly, with integrity’ ahead of planned climate action in Sydney

Unions, human rights groups and environmental organisations say police overreached in their treatment of protesters arrested after a bungled raid on the weekend, and have urged officers to act responsibly amid plans for climate action across Sydney in coming days.

The police operation targeting Blockade Australia protesters in the Colo Valley, in Sydney’s north-west, unravelled on Sunday when an activist at the remote property noticed two people wearing camouflage gear in bushland to the rear of the camp.

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Ex-Hells Angels bikie who struck police horse’s head during anti-lockdown protest jailed

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Dennis Basic, 42, had pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, assaulting police and throwing a missile following Melbourne protests in 2020 and 2021

An anti-lockdown protester has been jailed for throwing a heavy bollard at a mounted officer and hitting a police horse in the head during separate protests in Melbourne.

Ex-Hells Angels bikie Dennis Basic, 42, was sentenced to 26 months and 14 days in prison on Tuesday for a dozen offences including assaulting an emergency worker, animal cruelty and recklessly causing injury.

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Aboriginal people make up vast majority of pedestrian deaths in NT

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Families call for change as data shows Indigenous people on foot dying at a troubling rate

Kumanjayi Napurrula Dixon took the route 74 bus through Darwin’s outer south-eastern suburbs, got off at the last stop, and kept walking south along the Stuart Highway.

It was a Monday night, and the Anmatyerre grandmother was going to see her family at their camp near Coolalinga. She never made it. Between getting off the bus and making it to camp, she was allegedly hit by a car and died.

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Radio host set up meeting with Teacher’s Pet reporter and NSW police commissioner, court told

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Police ‘stonewalled’ questions from podcast host Hedley Thomas on Lynette Dawson case until Ben Fordham intervened, judgement reveals

Talkback radio host Ben Fordham brokered a meeting between an investigative reporter and then New South Wales police commissioner, Mick Fuller, to discuss a podcast series on a missing Sydney mother, according to a 2020 court judgement which can now be reported.

Fuller then directed other officers, including the detective investigating the alleged murder of the woman, Lynette Dawson, to attend the meeting with The Australian’s Hedley Thomas, after NSW police had “stonewalled” earlier inquiries by Thomas, according to the decision.

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Watchdog won’t investigate AFP reliance on flawed technique to prosecute Indonesian boys

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Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity says complaint about federal police not about corruption so does not fall within its remit

Australia’s law enforcement integrity watchdog refused to investigate Australian federal police who relied on a deeply flawed technique to use false dates of birth on sworn legal documents to prosecute Indonesian children as adult people smugglers.

Earlier this year, the Guardian used a trove of internal documents to show how police relied on deeply flawed evidence to alter the dates of birth given to them by Indonesian children found crewing asylum boats in 2009 and 2010.

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Two sisters in their 20s found dead inside Sydney unit had been there ‘some time’

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Police say deaths appear suspicious after bodies found at Canterbury apartment

The bodies of two sisters aged in their 20s have been found at a unit in Sydney’s south-west, with police saying the deaths appear to be suspicious.

Emergency services were called to a home on Canterbury Road in Canterbury about 9.30am on Tuesday.

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Queensland to hold inquiry into DNA testing at forensics lab amid accusations it failed victims

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Minister acknowledges family of Shandee Blackburn, who was fatally stabbed in 2013 in a case that sparked calls for reform

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has announced a commission of inquiry into DNA testing at the state’s Forensic and Scientific Services laboratory after accusations it has been failing victims of crime.

The inquiry will be conducted by Walter Sofronoff, the president of the court of appeal, and comes in addition to a previously announced review into the state-run forensics laboratory.

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Teen fatally stabbed during gathering at home in Sydney’s west

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NSW police say the alleged offender was the boyfriend of a mutual friend who had been invited to the party

A 16-year-old boy has been fatally stabbed at a gathering at a western Sydney home.

Emergency services were called to a house at Ropes Crossing, near Blacktown, early on Saturday morning to find the boy suffering a stab wound.

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Part of human leg found on Northern Territory highway near Darwin, police say

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It is unknown if the leg’s owner is alive or dead as no further body parts have been found despite an extensive search

Part of a human leg has been found on a major Northern Territory highway, with police unsure if its owner is dead or alive.

A traveller discovered the lower section of leg on the Stuart Highway in Coolalinga, 30km south of Darwin, about 9am on Tuesday.

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Lawyers call on NSW premier to urgently review thousands of Covid fines

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Law Society argues many fines issued to vulnerable residents are invalid, unfair and could trap disadvantaged people in debt

The Law Society of New South Wales has called on the premier, Dominic Perrottet, to “urgently” review thousands of Covid fines issued to the state’s most vulnerable, warning many were invalid, unfair, and have caused the disadvantaged to amass “debt they are unable to pay”.

Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed that small towns with high Indigenous populations and western Sydney suburbs home to the city’s most socioeconomically disadvantaged residents bore the brunt of Covid fines during the ramp-up in enforcement in the Delta outbreak.

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‘One chance to get this right’: Queensland domestic violence inquiry must address police culture

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Analysis: the landmark McMurdo report was first described as ‘just another woke report’ by the police union president

The Queensland government will on Wednesday announce the terms of reference for a four-month commission of inquiry into how the Queensland police service handles domestic violence.

For leading academics, women’s advocates and domestic violence victims, the inquiry has been a long time coming.

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Victorian detective got free tickets to boxing from Mick Gatto, Ibac hearing told

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Det Sgt Wayne Dean says on two occasions he shared tickets given to him by the alleged underworld figure with other officers

Victorian police officers received free tickets to boxing events with complimentary food and alcohol after alleged underworld figure Mick Gatto gifted the tickets to a senior detective, an anti-corruption commission hearing has heard.

Det Sgt Wayne Dean confirmed in his evidence before a public Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption (Ibac) hearing on Wednesday that on two occasions Gatto, who he had known since the mid-1990s, provided him free tickets to boxing events in Melbourne.

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Expert warned against wrist X-rays used by AFP to prosecute children as adult people smugglers

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Radiologist James Christie’s court evidence said technique had no scientific validity and was never intended to assess age

An expert radiologist says Australian federal police continued to use wrist X-rays to prosecute children as adult people smugglers after he had given unequivocal evidence of the technique’s unreliability, something he now says was “just wrong” and akin to “child abuse”.

Last week, six Indonesian boys won a major case overturning their convictions as adult people smugglers in 2010 amid the highly charged political atmosphere around border protection.

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‘They were tiny’: the Indonesians still fighting their conviction as adults in Australia

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Anto and Samsul Bahar were 15 when they were jailed in a maximum security facility in Western Australia

Staring at the camera, Anto’s face, wide-eyed and child-like, invites a simple question.

How could anyone, let alone Australia’s federal crime fighting agency, see an adult gazing back at them?

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WA coroner says police failed to monitor breathing of Aboriginal woman pinned to the ground

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It was ‘incomprehensible’ that a police internal investigation into Cherdeena Wynne’s restraint found it was in line with policy and procedures, coroner finds

A Western Australian coroner has criticised police offices for their “woefully inadequate” monitoring of an Aboriginal woman’s breathing after she was pinned to the ground and lost consciousness before being allowed to sit up.

Cherdeena Wynne, a 26-year-old Noongar Yamatji woman, died in hospital five days after she was pinned in a prone position by police officers, one of whom had his knee on her shoulder blades and leg across her upper back for almost two minutes.

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Queensland police update manual after signalling reforms to how officers accused of domestic violence are handled

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Manual amended to require additional paperwork, with reviews on a case-by-case basis

The Queensland police service appears to have balked at substantial reform to the way it handles officers who are accused of domestic violence, after promising to act on a “concerning increase” in the volume of complaints.

Last May the assistant commissioner Brian Codd told Guardian Australia that police were “grappling” with how to respond to the increase officer-involved domestic violence, and that reforms were “very much” on the agenda.

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Zachary Rolfe’s ex-fiancee told detectives he spoke of getting paid holiday if he shot someone, court documents show

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Police officer denies making comments, which are alleged in an interview and statement released by Northern Territory supreme court

Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe spoke repeatedly about how he could take a paid holiday if he shot someone while on duty, his former fiancee told detectives, according to a transcript of a police interview and a statement released by the NT supreme court.

In the wide-ranging interview the woman also said Rolfe told her at different times that he was the first to get his gun out on jobs, and did not turn on his body-worn camera as he did not want people at the police station to see what he was doing.

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Australian Border Force searched 822 phones in 2021 despite having no power to demand passcodes

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Greens digital rights spokesperson says officers should be required to get a warrant before going through travellers’ mobile phones

Australian Border Force officials searched 822 travellers’ mobile phones in 2021, despite admitting it has no power to force arrivals to give them the passcode to their devices.

In January, Sydney software developer James told Guardian Australia that he and his partner were stopped on their return from Fiji by border force officials who asked them to write their phone passcodes on a piece of paper before taking the codes and their phones to another room to examine for half an hour. The phones were then returned and they were allowed to leave.

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‘Grab and drag’ proposal will bridge gap between assault and sexual offences in Victoria, experts say

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Law reform body says there should be consequences for offenders who make victims fear they will be sexually assaulted

Offenders who grab and drag their victim in a way that makes them fear they will be sexually assaulted could be jailed for up to 10 years under a proposal outlined by Victoria’s peak law reform body.

The Andrews government asked the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) to review “grab and drag” offences after a 2018 assault in which Jackson Williams grabbed a 39-year-old woman and dragged her into an alleyway.

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