It was Christmas, 1999, and NSW police commissioner Peter Ryan was
winding down after a hectic year. With his then wife, Adrienne, he was
enjoying a few drinks after work at the Marriott Hotel, a short walk
from police headquarters in College Street in the city.
Unbeknown to Ryan, he and his wife were under surveillance.
Not by the dark forces of organised crime, but one of his own officers,
an undercover cop known as ''Joe'' who was working for Special Crime
and Internal Affairs, commonly known as SCIA.
It was Christmas, 1999, and NSW police commissioner Peter Ryan was
winding down after a hectic year. With his then wife, Adrienne, he was
enjoying a few drinks after work at the Marriott Hotel, a short walk
from police headquarters in College Street in the city.
Unbeknown to Ryan, he and his wife were under surveillance.
Not by the dark forces of organised crime, but one of his own officers,
an undercover cop known as ''Joe'' who was working for Special Crime
and Internal Affairs, commonly known as SCIA.
SCIA's job? To root out corruption. It was supposed to operate to the highest ethical standards.
The surveillance of the state's top cop had been ordered by the then
head of SCIA, assistant commissioner Mal Brammer, who believed the
Ryans, under the influence of alcohol, might be loose-lipped about
confidential police affairs.
We know of these three SCIA surveillance operations, from May 1998 to
early 2000, because the two undercover police involved, Joe and Jessie,
later told their story to Clive Small, the man they had been told was
meeting Hurley at the Woolwich Pier.
Small, now retired, and his co-author Tom Gilling revealed the extraordinary saga in their book
Betrayed, published in 2010.
Remarkably, the assertion that an ''out of control'' SCIA
under Brammer had put its own commissioner, among others, under
surveillance did not garner any publicity in the media.
Nor was there any reaction from NSW Police headquarters or
the Police Integrity Commission, which is supposed to take a keen
interest in allegations of wrongdoing and improper conduct.
But all these years later, those operations have become
relevant because of an aspect of another controversial SCIA
investigation that did hit the headlines.
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| Mal Brammer. Photo: Nick Moir |
It was called Operation Florida and it started in early 1999.
At its centre was a corrupt NSW police officer, code-named
M5, who ''rolled over'' and, wearing a listening device, secretly
recorded dozens of his colleagues to obtain evidence of corruption.
At first it was a covert operation run by police from SCIA and the secretive NSW Crime Commission.
By July 2000, Florida had gathered a large amount of evidence
of serious police corruption and the Police Integrity Commission joined
the still-secret investigation.
As the then boss of the PIC, Terry Griffin, told a
parliamentary committee, ''Operation Florida … is a joint effort between
the [Police Integrity] Commission, the NSW Police and the [NSW] Crime
Commission.''
For M5 to legally record the conversations, approval for him
to wear a listening device had to be sought from the NSW Supreme Court.
On September14, 2000, Justice Virginia Bell approved NSW Crime
Commission listening device warrant number 266 of 2000.
Nothing unusual about that, you might think. But in fact the
warrant was highly unusual in that it gave approval for M5 to record
conversations with no fewer than 114 serving and former police and two
civilians, including a journalist.
Some of those named, about 15 or so, were undoubtedly
corrupt. But many of those named on the warrant were officers with
unblemished records. Among them were Nick Kaldas, now a deputy
commissioner, and Bob Inkster, a distinguished detective now retired.
Many others are still serving in some of the most senior positions in
the NSW Police.
At the time, the names on the warrant were obviously unknown except to a handful of people within SCIA and the crime commission.
But clearly, someone with inside knowledge was troubled by
what had happened, because in April 2002 the warrant leaked to the media
and all hell broke loose. Many named on the warrant were senior
investigators. They were furious.
A copy of the warrant found its way to journalist Steve
Barrett, a crime reporter with some of the best police contacts in the
country.
Barrett recalled last week how he read through the names with
growing amazement, saying to himself, ''Know that one, know that one,''
until he came to a name he knew very well - his own. He complained in
writing the next day to the NSW attorney-general.
Such was the outcry that Ryan, then in his last days as commissioner, went on Channel Nine's
60 Minutes.
''From what I can gather, the officer [M5] was going to a
function at which a lot of people would be present and therefore he may
be talking to a hundred people, all of whom had to be named in the
warrant.''
Reporter: ''I see, so it wasn't aninvestigation of 110-odd individuals?''
Ryan: ''Oh no. No. If I was at that function my name would have probably been on the warrant, too.''
From the outset, nobody believed it. ''Absolute bullshit,''
was the reaction of more than one senior detective, and they had good
cause to be sceptical. The date on the warrant was September 14, 2000.
September15 was the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. Police leave had been cancelled. It was all hands on deck.
Further proof that the ''social function'' explanation didn't
hold water emerged when another, almost identical warrant with 113
names was leaked. It was dated April 4, 2000.
Even by NSW Police standards, a social function lasting more than five months is one almighty piss-up.
According to some of those on the warrant, Ryan was misled. So who was behind the warrant?
Tim Sage, then assistant commissioner of the PIC, distanced
his organisation. He told a parliamentary committee in May 2002, ''They
are not integrity commission warrants.''
Asked who applied for them, he said: ''The officers of
Special Crime and Internal Affairs attached to the NSW Crime
Commission.''
In other words, officers under the command of Brammer, who
was also in charge when the undercover cops Joe and Jessie undertook the
dubious surveillance of Ryan, Small and Wallace.
While Brammer and others involved have retired, one officer
has since risen in the ranks. Catherine Burn, an acting inspector in
SCIA at the time the warrants were obtained, is now a deputy
commissioner - along with Kaldas, whose name appeared on the warrant.
Brammer has vigorously rejected any allegation of wrongdoing.
In relation to what became known as Operation Florida, he says there
was oversight of him and his officers by Peter Ryan and the then head of
the crime commission, Phil Bradley.
He also says the current Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, was intimately involved.
''I would also suggest on reasonable grounds Commissioner
Scipione in his role as chief of staff to Commissioner Ryan and later as
the Commander Special Crime and Internal Affairs had informed knowledge
and more than a passing interest in the investigation and its various
activities, more particularly from December 2000 when he was nominated
by Commissioner Ryan as the next Commander Special Crime and Internal
Affairs which he took up and exercised in April 2001,'' Brammer says.
Brammer says PIC officers also had ''day-to-day interaction
with the investigators at the Crime Commission and access to
information. This included examination of listening device and telephone
interception documentation to ensure the product could be legally used
by them.''
In regard to the controversial listening device warrants,
Brammer says that ''at no time was I involved in directing, preparing or
approving the affidavit or any other affidavits prepared under the
auspices of the NSW Crime Commission.''
''I might also add I am not aware of any evidence or tangible
allegations of impropriety on the part of any of the NSW Police
officers involved in the investigation, including Deputy Commissioner
Burn.''
He says any suggestion he acted improperly in regards to the
issue and execution of the listening device warrant was ''false and
mischievous.''
Ms Burn declined to comment, saying through a spokesman on
Friday that it would be ''inappropriate'' while the Inspector of the
PIC, David Levine, QC, was investigating the matter. It's not the first
investigation of the controversial warrants. In April 2002, the then
inspector of the PIC, Merv Finlay, QC, found the warrants were
justifiably sought and complied with legislation.
But such was the outcry by so many senior and experienced
police that in July 2003, Strike Force Emblems was formed to look at
seven complaints about the warrant and SCIA from the Police Association.
(The final Strike Force Emblems report has never been made public.
Levine has been asked by the state government to see whether it should
be.)
What we do know is that in a letter to the association in
May 2004, Emblems investigator Detective Inspector Mark Galletta said
among the complaints investigated were the:
❏ ''Impropriety regarding listening device warrant numbers 95
of 2000 dated 4 April, 2000, and number 266 … dated 14 September,
2000.
❏ ''Failure by NSW Police to process and deal with complaints
relating to then Commanders, Assistant Commissioner Brammer, Detective
Superintendent [John] Dolan and Superintendent [Catherine] Burn.
❏ ''Unacceptable operational risk taking - strategies concerning the deployment and management of M5.
❏''Breakdown of relations between the [crime commission] and the NSW Police.''
Strike Force Emblems was an experienced team. Of its eight staff, five were detective inspectors.
A total of 35 of those named on the warrants formally complained to Emblems and were interviewed.
While those on the warrant vented their fury, those NSW
police from SCIA involved in obtaining the Florida warrant remained
tight-lipped. Attached to the secretive and largely unaccountable crime
commission, they invoked the commission's secrecy provisions. Nor could
investigators get access to the sworn affidavits that allegedly
justified the 114 names.
Inspector Galletta's letter outlined the problem. ''After
protracted negotiations between the NSW Police and the NSW Crime
Commission, including representations made by Ian Temby, QC, the subject
affidavit and associated material has not been obtained.
''This restriction, coupled with NSW Crime Commission
legislative requirements (S.29 secrecy provisions) saw investigators
unable to interview police that were part of the NSWCC Florida
reference.
''This included the deponents of the subject warrant and/or involved officers in the investigation.''
In other words, the NSW police from SCIA did not have to
answer any questions from their colleagues in Strike Force Emblems. This
appears to fly in the face of section 27 of the NSW Crime Commission
Act which states that NSW police task forces attached to the commission
are ''subject to the control and direction of the Commissioner of
Police''.
Nevertheless, Galletta said: ''Investigators objectively
concluded that there were persons whose inclusion on the subject
warrants may not have been justified …''
The invoking of the secrecy provisions further enraged many
of the detectives named in the warrants who saw it as further evidence
of double standards: if they did something questionable they were hauled
over the coals. If SCIA did the same thing, it was allowed to ''go
through to the 'keeper'.''
One of the 35 who formally complained, a former detective
posed this question in his complaint to Emblems: ''Have the NSW Police,
NSW Crime Commission and Police Integrity Commission for their
organisational, personal and collective interests knowingly and
corruptly withheld their knowledge of misconduct, unethical and unlawful
actions by members of SCIA?''
He also referred to yet another SCIA operation that in mid-1998 targeted alleged police corruption in the NSW town of Young.
It was called Operation Banks.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported in March 2001
that it was sparked by suspicions that some local police were involved
in drug dealing with members of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang.
Initially hailed as a triumph, it backfired badly. The
Herald
reported in July 2001 that criminal charges against one man for
supplying a kilogram of cannabis were dropped after ''police legal
advisers revealed that Internal Affairs officers lied to Supreme Court
judges to get search warrants and permission to install listening
devices''.
A police officer suspended for 26 months and reinstated
complained. An investigation into that complaint found affidavits
supplied to Justice Hubert Bell and Justice Graeme Barr to obtain search
warrants and listening devices were flawed. ''A large amount of
exculpatory evidence from the source documents was omitted from the
affidavits,'' the investigation found. ''This resulted in affidavits
which were not balanced, and therefore misleading. In one particular
area, the affidavits were false.''
In their book
Betrayed, Small and Gilling reveal
adverse findings were made against seven officers from SCIA involved in
Banks. The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed
with criminal charges of perverting the course of justice against some
of them.
Eight internal police investigations were launched into complaints about the operations and management of SCIA under Brammer.
As
Betrayed revealed, one of them found Brammer had a
''manifest conflict of interest'' in one operation and that he
allegedly perverted the course of justice by improperly arranging an
internal investigation against an officer. Another quite separate
inquiry into the reform process found Brammer ''was affected by bias''
and that he had shown ''a lack of fairness''.
It appears there has been scant interest from the PIC in looking at SCIA's behaviour from a ''big picture'' point of view.
Many former and serving police believe it was compromised
because it worked hand in glove with Brammer and SCIA for years in
Operation Florida. (The PIC's Florida inquiry, with M5 its star witness,
sat in public for 78 days, heard from 99 witnesses, 32 of whom were
serving officers.
Fourteen of those left the police, 11 as a result of
Florida. It took evidence of wrongdoing that dated from the 1980s to
2001.)
The former officer who wrote to Emblems said: ''Prima facie,
there have been numerous NSW Police investigations and inquiries into
the allegations of systematic misconduct, unethical and criminal
behaviour on behalf of Brammer during his command of SCIA.
''It is beyond belief that these historic and current
investigations are unintentionally being isolated, treated as
independent, separate or coincidental of each other.''
Relations between the police and the PIC are at a low ebb.
The PIC's previous inspector, Peter Moss, QC, repeatedly criticised its
investigations as being grossly unfair and biased. In some cases,
evidence exculpatory to the officer being investigated had been ignored.
Levine is reviewing the recommendations of Strike Force Emblems but how far his inquiries might go is unclear.
The Police Association recently passed a motion of no confidence in the PIC and called for the Emblems report to be released.
Twelve years after the listening device warrant was obtained, old closet doors are rattling.
At least 100 cops are waiting and watching to see how far Levine is able to open them.
