|
February 10, 2008
The police union boss Paul Mullett is in the spotlight. He faces serious criminal charges arising from a report by the Office of Police Integrity and former Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox into top-level leaks in Victoria Police. Wilcox held that Mullett undermined a murder investigation and recommended serious criminal charges be laid against Sergeant Mullett, former police assistant commissioner Noel Ashby and former police media chief Stephen Linnell.
Matt Golding
The OPI report found that Ashby, Sergeant Mullett and \Linnell were part of a chain of leaked confidential information that helped undermine a murder investigation, Operation Briars. The OPI report alleged Sergeant Mullett headed a plot to undermine force command and install Mr Ashby as a "puppet" police commissioner instead of Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon. Wilcox recommended that the Office of Public Prosecutions consider four charges against Mullett, including perjury, providing false evidence, breaching confidentiality obligations and perverting the course of justice.
Mullett made no secret of his dislike for Nixon's attempts to clean up and modernise the force or the reform agenda driven by Nixon and Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland.
The Victorian police force is struggling to persuade a sceptical public that corruption is not endemic. Will the report by the OPI and its delegate, retired Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox, spark fresh calls for an all-encompassing royal commission into corruption?
|
Why does Australia have such problems with police corruption? While not as bad as it was in the 80s, it has been endemic.