Royal Commission Into The New South Wales Police Service - Investigations and Powers

Investigations and Powers

The Commission was granted considerable powers, even by the standards of a Royal Commission; in addition to the usual power to compel attendance, the giving of evidence and the production of documents and self-certification of warrants for electronic surveillance, bugs and telephone intercepts. Commission officers were permitted to carry firearms and were conferred the powers of a constable of the NSW Police Service. Most notably, lying to or misleading the Commission was an offence carrying a sentence of up to 6 months imprisonment.

In contrast to the usual structure of Royal Commissions, which are staffed primarily by lawyers and administrators, the commission had three investigation teams composed of lawyers, accountants, investigators and current and former officers from every Australian and common-law jurisdiction excepting New South Wales. The commission also acquired the equipment and expertise so that it possessed the sophisticated covert surveillance capabilities it would need to effectively monitor the activities of groups of corrupt police officers and organised criminals.

By 1995, the Commission had uncovered hundreds of instances of bribery, money laundering, drug trafficking, fabrication of evidence, destruction of evidence, fraud and serious assaults in just the detective division of the Kings Cross patrol. Participation in misconduct was universal in the detective division of the Kings Cross patrol, and the senior levels of the branch had detective sergeants and the chief detective in a permanent corrupt relationship with major drug traffickers and the local criminal milieu. The Kings Cross detectives received payments akin to a "rent" from individuals like Bill Bayeh, Stave Hardas and "Fat" George; the payments totalled thousands of dollars per week, collected by Sergeant Trevor Haken and shared amongst the six detective sergeants and the chief detective ("Chook" Fowler). This corrupt practice was known in police circles as "the laugh".

In 1994, the Trevor Haken was summonsed for an examination at the New South Wales Crime Commission. They had become aware of his relationship with drug traffickers and his corrupt practices. The Wood Royal Commission had assessed Haken as being the individual most likely to co-operate with the Commission in a covert capacity, and took the opportunity to put to Haken an offer to work with the Commission. He agreed and he was instructed by the Commission to simply carry on as normal; his car was fitted out with bugs to record video and audio and his phones were permanently tapped. Over the following 6 months, Haken continued to collect payments from traffickers, distribute them to the other corrupt detectives and collected an enormous amount of intelligence and data for the Commission.

In 1995, the Commission scheduled a hearing about the Kings Cross patrol. It summonsed the detective sergeants and Chook Fowler and asked them whether they had ever accepted or asked for a bribe. They emphatically denied they had. Having these denials on the record, the Commission then played video footage and audio recordings from the bugs in Trevor Haken's car. The recordings showed very clearly the handing over of large amounts of cash and discussion of bribes and corrupt activities. Following this bombshell hearing, resistance to the work of the commission from the police service and media crumbled and they were inundated with calls from serving officers seeking to determine whether they could make a deal.

The next day, Commissioner Wood declared a conditional amnesty for disclosures of corruption or misconduct by serving officers. The Commissioner emphasised that the goal of the inquiry was to ascertain the prevalence and nature of corruption in the NSW police and advise on the reforms necessary to address the problem. Removing corrupt officers who would simultaneously provide a full account of their conduct and end their ability to engage in further corrupt practices. It would allow the NSW Police to obtain a large amount of information that would not otherwise come out in criminal proceedings, and it would serve as a clean break for the NSW Police Service.

In addition to the Kings Cross hearings, hundreds of police officers were compelled to resign as evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct was brought to light. Specialist officers from the Fraud Enforcement Agency, Northwest Regional Crime Squad and Drug Squad were implicated in particularly serious abuses and criminality. A large number of generalist, uniform officers also left the service due to the disclosure of misconduct.