Corrupt officers still serving in Vic Police Force: Detective Sergeant

AM - Monday, 23 October , 2006  08:11:00

Reporter: Josie Taylor

TONY EASTLEY: Weeks out from a state election in Victoria, politicians and Victoria Police management have publicly declared a triumph over police corruption.

But a serving detective sergeant tells a different story.

Victorian corruption investigator Detective Sergeant Bill Patten says there are dozens of corrupt officers in the force, and police management refuses to fully address the problem.

The serving detective says there are undeniable links between police corruption and Melbourne's gangland murders, and without a royal commission, the lives of corruption investigators are being placed in danger.

Detective Sergeant Patten admits his decision to go public with his concerns could mean he and his family are put at risk.

Josie Taylor reports.

JOSIE TAYLOR: With 28 years of police work under his belt, Detective Sergeant Bill Patten describes himself as a hard-nosed investigator.

It goes against the grain for him to speak publicly about his work, but the detective sergeant says he has no choice.

BILL PATTEN: There's people that I say are corrupt, have been corrupt, have acted inappropriately, are still within the Victoria Police.

It's just something that I say the public need to know about, and the greater police population needs to know about it, what really happened, and what the fallout really was.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Bill Patten was a member of the Ceja Taskforce, set up four years ago to investigate corruption in the former Victoria police drug squad.

A number of corrupt police have been convicted and sentenced as a result.

But Bill Patten says numerous allegations of corruption were never investigated due to a lack of resources.

The Ceja Taskforce was closed down last year, a decision Bill Patten says was premature, and left dozens of suspect police officers within the force.

BILL PATTEN: I'd put a figure between 12 and 24 that I could confidently say were either corrupt or contributed to corruption.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Still serving?

BILL PATTEN: Still serving.

JOSIE TAYLOR: And what sort of rank are we talking about?

BILL PATTEN: They range from senior detectives right up to commissioned officers.

JOSIE TAYLOR: How high up the ranks does it go?

BILL PATTEN: Ah, well I think I'd go as far as superintendent.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Bill Patten believes the Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon was kept at a distance from the true extent of corruption.

He also says commissioned officers suspected of corruption have been protected.

And now Bill Patten says the police who pursued corruption have been ostracised within the force, and abandoned by senior police.

BILL PATTEN: Well, we shouldn't have investigated it, end of story. It should've been done by another standing body, whether it be a royal commission or a standing commission, either, either.

Because we were then made vulnerable, bullets in people's letterboxes, following people around, making phone calls, you know, talking about murdering a Ceja investigator. You know, we were put at risk, and we shouldn't have been put at risk.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Bill Patten says corruption is not widespread within Victoria Police, but the kind he uncovered was extremely serious.

BILL PATTEN: Trafficking drugs, laundering money, involved in some degree in murders. The whole thing just was so interwoven. I mean, the general public would just be horrified.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Force command have always denied that there's any link between corruption and the gangland murders. Were they lying?

BILL PATTEN: I don't know if they were lying, but they were certainly, they were either misinformed, didn't want to be informed. But as I said, from what I've been exposed to, that's not the case. There is clearly a connection between corruption and the underworld.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Three detectives resigned whilst serving in the Ceja Taskforce.

Bill Patten is now considering leaving the police force. He believes more corruption investigators may follow.

His major concern is that corrupt police may now target him and his family for speaking out.

BILL PATTEN: At the end of the day, I mean, you're vulnerable. You're always vulnerable. And what I've done and what I've said, people aren't going to be happy.

TONY EASTLEY: Detective Sergeant Bill Patten ending Josie Taylor's report.

What lies beneath

Nick McKenzie

October 20, 2006

DETECTIVE Sergeant Bill Patten is not one for visible displays of emotion. But his eyes glisten and his body tenses when he recalls the late-night phone call from fellow anti-corruption investigator, Mick O'Neil.

It was 10pm, and O'Neil had just opened his letter box to find two police-issue .38 bullets. Engraved on the bullets were the names of O'Neil and his wife.

"Mick was just a blabbering mess," says Patten. "I still get the hackles up the back of my neck, just talking about it."

It has been two years since the phone call and almost five years since Patten, 47, became one of the first investigators to join the Ceja taskforce, whose work would uncover some of the worst police corruption — from drug trafficking to money laundering — in Victoria's history.

This week marked the official end of Ceja. With suppression orders lifted, the public learned that five drug squad officers had been convicted of drug trafficking. Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon praised the success of Ceja: "The investigators did a terrific job … and they put them before the court and I think that's the important part for the community to understand," she told ABC radio. But Patten, a policeman for 28 years, tells a darker, inside story of Ceja. He says he wants, for the first time, to "set the record straight".

According to Patten, the rot uncovered by Ceja went further than has ever been exposed. The response from force command to all that Ceja found led to missed opportunities to stamp out corruption; no senior officers have been brought to account; internal disciplining was "pathetic" and the official refusal to acknowledge links between corrupt police and the underworld was deceptive.

Patten tells, too, of the ostracisation, the harassment and the death threats against the men who worked in the taskforce, who were treated — and are still being treated, he says — as outcasts in a culture which often values loyalty above all. It is that betrayal that he has found so devastating. "We formed our own self-help group because we are the only ones who care for each other," he says. "The organisation doesn't care. We have just been cut loose."

Police officers are forbidden to speak publicly without authorisation, and Patten knows the risk he is taking. "I have been one of the most loyal, devoted police members for just short of 28 years," he says. "I gave the force 150 per cent to the detriment of my family. I have nothing to gain, but this is a public interest issue."

In early 2002, Patten told his boss at the Ballarat Regional Response Unit, Detective Sergeant Ronnie Cosgrove, that he had been approached to join a taskforce investigating police corruption. Police who investigate police are traditionally known as "the filth" or the "toe-cutters" and the now-retired Cosgrove, whose 33 years of policing included stints in the drug squad and internal investigations, warned Patten that he would be "walking into another world". "You become an outcast, I told him to have a damn good think about it and where he would end up. Sure enough, he ended up in shit creek," he says.

Patten was "one of the finest, hard-working investigators" Cosgrove had ever worked with, a "born policeman". Now retired senior AFP investigator Bill Laing, who was Patten's boss in the late 1980s during a joint taskforce targeting drug syndicates, says that "at the time he was with me, I couldn't speak more highly of him".

Patten spent much of his first two decades of policing in Melbourne's tough western suburbs, the breeding ground for a host of young petty crooks who would later emerge as armed robbers and gangland figures. Colleagues describe Patten as a man either loved or loathed; his intensity led to a stellar arrest rate, but also clashes with colleagues whom Patten considered lazy or uncommitted, including his superiors.

"All I wanted to do was do police work. I would put myself as someone who consistently worked hard, who consistently dragged the crooks in."

It was that reputation that led Ceja investigators to seek him out. In early 2002, Patten headed to Melbourne to meet Detective Inspector Peter De Santo, whose Operation Hemi had recently charged two detectives, Stephen Paton and Malcolm Rosenes, with drug trafficking. Patten was told police command wanted a taskforce to examine allegations about drug squad corruption that had spilled over from Hemi. It was the first time Patten heard the name "Ceja". He had no inkling that, in a matter of months, he would begin "stepping on landmines".

"As far as I was concerned, I went to do a job like any other job. We were told it was going to be a six-month test of the allegations to see if it had been all wrapped up by Hemi." Three years later, he was still there.

Patten was one of 11 recruits who began a covert intelligence probe into the drug squad practice of using criminal informers to supply raw chemicals sourced by police to drug-making syndicates. The "Controlled Chemical Diversion Desk" was a way of leading police to the so-called "big fish". It was a high-risk strategy but it was the potential for its abuse by police that Ceja was interested in.

The probe centred on claims that police corruptly sold huge amounts of chemicals to criminals and pocketed the profits and it took Ceja deep into Melbourne's criminal underworld. The task of corroborating or eliminating allegations was painstaking, given that many of Ceja's sources had little credibility. Ceja's eventual boss, Commander Dannye Moloney, called his team "the super-toe cutters", which members took as a reference to their thoroughness.

Their detractors thought otherwise; as Ceja's existence became known, its members were slagged as "promotion-seeking lightweights at the filth", according to one crime department source. Whispers turned into threatening phone calls and warnings to back off.

All up, the list of threats against Ceja investigators could have been dreamt up in a film studio: bullets in the mail sent to one investigator; another investigator's wife and young daughter followed; one detective's house was broken into, but nothing taken. A criminal was found with a list of police car registration numbers, including several belonging to Ceja officers. "Mental torment is the thing that can f------ break people," says Patten, "and we had threats that someone from the underworld was physically going to murder an investigator. Vulnerable is not the right word."

There is ongoing disgust among the Ceja investigators about a lack of support from police command. "The bullets Mick got in his letter box; Ceja investigated it, no one was thrown into the investigation to support us. We were investigating our own threats! I mean, spare me!"

The threats reflected the gravity of what Ceja was discovering. What started as 14 allegations against suspected corrupt police snowballed to more than 100. In one secret briefing to force command, 30 officers were singled out as possibly corrupt, including several who had left the drug squad and were working elsewhere in the force. Ceja's resources also grew; more than 40 staff members, including financial investigators and a barrister, fed into what ultimately became an almost five-year investigation into police drug trafficking, evidence planting, theft, drug taking and "green-lighting" (allowing criminals to commit crimes). "No one realised the gravity of what we found," recalls Patten. "It literally blew up in everyone's faces."

CEJA began to charge officers in 2003. Chief Commissioner Nixon committed to reforms, including overhauling drug investigation and informer management practices. But Patten says the reforms and Ceja's achievements fell far short of what Victoria deserves. "It has been five years now. Some of it (the corruption) is very significant and some of it has just gone out into the ocean. It is long lost.

"There are probably a dozen to two dozen policeman in the Victoria police who haven't been charged who I say are crooks or who turned a blind eye to corruption. Some are commissioned officers (above the rank of senior sergeant) and senior detectives."

Those never dealt with range from officers who had active involvement in corruption to those who turned a blind eye, "selling their jobs by leaking information, inappropriate (criminal) associations, to those who had knowledge but were not strong enough to stand up and be counted."

Some of Ceja's unfinished work has been passed on to police internal investigators at the Ethical Standards Department and the Office of Police Integrity for review or examination; the OPI has questioned some officers in private hearings on the basis of Ceja intelligence. But Patten insists the opportunity to properly examine much of what Ceja initially found has been lost. To properly investigate all of the taskforce's corruption files would have meant a trebling of resources. Even then, he says, it would not have been enough.

"There would have only been one successful way to investigate this stuff and that would have been a royal commission. No one else could walk away and say that Ceja was the appropriate investigative body to do the job. We did a good job, I'll still say that, but I say some of the rot would have been got rid off."

In opposing a commission, Nixon, the Ombudsman and the Government have argued that Ceja achieved more tangible results, while sparing the force the demoralising trauma that accompanies such a major government-ordered inquiry.

Patten responds that officers involved in corruption remain in the force, including in management positions. While he won't publicly reveal names or detail the evidence (he can be charged for leaking such information), he bases his comments on "various things like electronic surveillance".

"Once you have been exposed to what we were exposed to, at the level we were exposed to it, there is evidence to make a decision on (as to whether someone is corrupt) as opposed to sufficient evidence to convict them."

Several investigators, closely aware of Ceja's work, back up his claims and share Patten's frustration at the "pathetic" internal disciplining of some police, which sometimes amounted to a sideways shift and a confidential admonishment.

They include a sergeant with significant unexplained wealth and numerous ties to several criminals and corrupt police, and a detective superintendent with a long history of suspected corruption. Patten blames an unspoken culture of protecting commissioned officers for the failure to bring to account those under whose watch corruption flourished.

"My opinion is that the culture at the drug squad and various other areas of the Victoria Police, managers should be held to account for it. There were certainly some managers at the drug squad who should have been brought to account for things, but they weren't," says Patten.

Despite two interim reports from the state's Police Ombudsman (since renamed the Office of Police Integrity), the last released in June 2004, there has been no comprehensive outlining of the scale and scope of Ceja's work.

There has been no official public accounting of whether the drug squad ever planted evidence, despite the decision by Crown prosecutors to quietly abandon the cases of at least three high-level drug dealers because of corruption concerns.

Open to speculation remains the question of how the drugs "lost" by the squad and the green-lighting of criminals enriched and empowered the crime syndicates that featured in Melbourne's underworld war. (Despite attempts, Ceja never got to the bottom of links between police and organised crime figures, including murdered crime figure Lewis Moran and fugitive drug boss Tony Mokbel.) Patten says that links between police and the underworld are well established and that corrupt police became "huge powerbrokers".

"Their ability to offer immunity, legitimately or illegitimately, (to criminals) allowed a lot of drugs to be manufactured and trafficked and fed on to the street — that is amphetamines, heroin and ecstasy tablets." One of Patten's colleagues remarked that "a lot of people have died of drug overdoses because of their (the squad's) actions".

In 2003, the Ombudsman's interim report stated that he would "expect the dedication of these seconded (Ceja) members, in performing what is often an arduous and thankless task, to be further recognised in due course." Mindful of this view, police command signed off on a policy authorising Ceja investigators to be subject to regulation 21 transfers, which allowed them to be slotted into new positions of equal rank and bypass the usual merit-based process. Ceja members were "upgraded" while at the taskforce; along with another Ceja member, Patten attended detective training school (during the course, fellow attendees planned to create stubby holders depicting two rats). Welfare support was organised, including visits from a psychologist and team-building exercises.

In late 2004, a special Ceja "thank-you" dinner was attended by Nixon and then police minister Andre Haermeyer. During the dinner, one Ceja detective told the gathering that Ceja had picked the Eagles' Hotel California as their theme song. It contains the line: "You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave."

THREE Ceja investigators have left the force due, at least partly, to unhappiness about the level of support offered. Others have taken sick leave. One complained to superiors of stress when, after attempting to leave Ceja, he was knocked back from seven consecutive job-selection panels. The anger continues now, Patten says, as Ceja members deal with resentment from other members about their regulation 21 transfers and upgrading.

"I don't just speak for myself, I speak for many other Ceja investigators who are too fearful of speaking out. They have been ostracised, they have been harassed, they have been criticised up until now in their current workplaces. We have not been supported in our introduction back into the work place."

Breaking point for Patten came after his regulation 21 transfer in November 2005 to lead investigator at Gisborne CIU, a small regional investigation unit, was under attack. The decision to go to Gisborne was always contentious, given that two former drug-squad detectives were based there. A police source describes Patten's move as akin to "placing his head in the lion's mouth".

Last September, the Police Association funded a still-unresolved Supreme Court challenge against Patten's transfer by two other members who argued it was unfair because it was not open to appeal and ignored questions of merit — Patten's upgrading to detective rank while at Ceja was used to attack his credibility as an investigator. Patten only found out about the court challenge when he overhead a conversation in a lift, indicative, he says, of the lack of support offered — either from the association or the force — to deal with the resulting uncertainty. "It was all just lip service. They gave us the 21s, Christine said she supports our 21s. But big deal. There is a culture that needs to be addressed and until it is addressed, how they expect people to go into internal investigations and come out and go on with their working lives is a joke."

Patten feels worn down, like there is "a huge tourniquet wrapped around my chest". He is considering resigning from a job he has held for 28 years. And he deeply regrets joining Ceja. "It has caused my family grief. It has caused a lot of other people grief. It has changed the direction of their lives and changed the direction of their careers. It has inhibited their careers. You become a leper."

Patten lives with his wife, Karen, who is also a police officer, and their two young children in a semi-rural setting in outer Melbourne. Ribbons from the local primary school swim meets adorn the fridge. The family's dog bounces around. It is an average family home.

But there is an oppressive air in the Patten household. It is fed by off-the-cuff comments during a tour of the house: "Look at where I live. If someone wanted to take me out, they had me." And there is fear about the price of speaking out, especially for his wife and children. Said one of his Ceja colleagues: "Bill will be cut off by the force."

Last month, Patten decided to take extended leave from work. On a Saturday, he drove to Gisborne police station and did five hours of paperwork — he says the station was already short-staffed and he was worried "about letting the blokes down". He then quietly packed up his desk.

"I drove away and it was one of the greatest feelings I had in my life. It was like letting the pigeon go, just letting it go and letting it fly. It was just unbelievable and I never second-guessed it."

Crooked police still at large

By Nick McKenzie
October 20, 2006

Ostracised: Detective Sergeant Bill Patten, at home with his policewoman wife, Karen.
Photo: Wayne Taylor

 

 

UP TO two dozen Victorian police, including senior managers, who were involved in corruption or turned a blind eye to it remain in the force, according to an original member of the Ceja anti-corruption taskforce.

Detective Sergeant Bill Patten told The Age in an exclusive interview that corruption had not been thoroughly dealt with in Victoria, despite revelations this week that five drug squad detectives have been convicted for drug trafficking as a result of Ceja's work.

He said the disciplining of police suspected of corruption — even if there was insufficient evidence to charge them — was "pathetic" and that Ceja taskforce members were "hung out to dry" by force command after the difficult work of investigating fellow police.

Sergeant Patten, a police officer for 28 years and a member of Ceja for almost four years, is considering resigning from the force because of his disillusionment with the way the taskforce's work was handled and because of his own treatment since leaving Ceja late last year.

His allegations are certain to embarrass the State Government and Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, who yesterday praised Ceja and said the "public can be reassured and I think that they can look to see what we've done in Victoria Police (to fight corruption). We have not stepped back on this."

Sergeant Patten alleges that:

■ Commissioned officers who presided over corrupt police were protected from appropriate sanctions or moved sideways.

■ Pressure from force command to focus only on allegations that would lead to criminal prosecutions meant that "significant" corruption was not adequately investigated.

■ Several Ceja investigators and their families had been "sucked dry, spat out the other end and left to fend for ourselves" because of the force's failure to offer support while working at the taskforce and upon re-deployment.

■ Despite two interim Ombudsman reports on Ceja, there had been no public accounting of all the drug trafficking, evidence planting, and drug use that the taskforce uncovered.

■ Links between members of the underworld and corrupt police were indisputable during Melbourne's gangland wars.

"There would have only been one successful way to investigate this stuff and that would have been a royal commission," Sergeant Patten said.

"No one else could walk away and say that Ceja was the appropriate investigative body to do the job. We did a good job, I'll still say that. But I say some of the rot would have been got rid of.

"There are probably a dozen to two dozen policeman in the Victoria Police who haven't been charged who I say are crooks or who turned a blind eye to corruption. Some are commissioned officers (above the rank of senior sergeant) and senior detectives."

Other members of Ceja have privately backed Sergeant Patten's central claims. The state's police watchdog, the Office of Police Integrity, and the police's ethical standards department continue to use and examine information gathered by Ceja, but Sergeant Patten said the opportunity to properly investigate much of it was lost.

Conduct never examined included the leaking of operational information, taking bribes, criminal associations and failing to report corruption, he said.

"It has been five years now. Some of it (the corruption) is very significant and some of it has just gone out into the ocean. It is long lost," he said. "Corruption investigations like Ceja should not have been done by state police.

"Anybody at Ceja will tell you if they are being totally honest that internal sanctions have been totally disappointing and inappropriate as far as sending a message about corruption and being involved in corruption."

Sergeant Patten said many Ceja investigators and their families were frustrated about a lack of support following their work with Ceja, including several who have taken stress leave or left the force.

Several members of Ceja had received death threats.

"They have been ostracised, they have been harassed, they have been criticised up until now in their current workplaces. We have not been supported in our introduction back into the workplace," he said.

Ceja investigators were granted direct transfers to new jobs to aid their redeployment.
 
But Sergeant Patten's move to a regional detective unit was appealed in the Supreme Court by two officers who argued it was unfair.

The case is unresolved, but Sergeant Patten said it was driven by an anti-Ceja mentality that force command had failed to tackle.

The Age has confirmed that several police officers singled out by Ceja to command remain on active duty and in managerial positions. "Once you have been exposed to what we were exposed to … there is evidence to make a decision on (as to whether an officer is corrupt) as opposed to sufficient evidence to convict them," Sergeant Patten said.

"There were certainly some managers at the drug squad who should have been brought to account for things, but they weren't."

Ms Nixon declined a request to respond to these allegations, but told ABC radio yesterday that there was no evidence to "substantiate any kind of action to be taken against senior people".

She said the force had committed to a range of corruption-proofing reforms, including a strengthening of the ethical standards department.

Regarding the Ceja investigators, Ms Nixon said: "I believe appropriate recommendations of recognition should be put in place as soon as possible."

Ex-drug squad head linked to speed sales

By Peter Gregory
Chief Court Reporter

March 1 2005

Former police detective sergeant Wayne Strawhorn arrives at the Supreme Court yesterday.
Photo: Shannon Morris

The deputy head of the former Victoria Police drug squad sold drugs to criminal gangs, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.

Chief Crown prosecutor Jeremy Rapke, QC, said Wayne Geoffrey Strawhorn, 49, made money from trafficking drugs, obtained through unauthorised police purchases, to the Bandidos motorcycle club and the group then headed by the late Lewis Moran.

He said Strawhorn, a police detective sergeant, was intimately involved in operations that targeted the two groups using a "controversial" policy of making controlled drug deliveries to criminals.

The policy involved the simple, but dangerous, practice of infiltrating criminal gangs with police informers or undercover operatives, Mr Rapke said.

He said police could make a 6000 per cent profit on the black market through sales of pseudoephedrine, used in the manufacture of amphetamines.

Normally, the drug was sold to criminals in the form of thousands of cold and influenza tablets.
Mr Rapke said police could buy pseudoephedrine for $170 a kilogram, and sell it on the black market for $10,000.

But Mr Rapke said a pure form of pseudoephedrine was sold to the Bandidos and Morans in unauthorised transactions under Strawhorn's direction.

He said police had recognised that pure pseudoephedrine was an inherently dangerous chemical.
He said it was thought to be totally inappropriate to have a controlled delivery of the drug except in the most controlled circumstances. Mr Rapke said the aim of authorised deliveries was to uncover secret laboratories used to make amphetamines, and locate those involved in the illicit drug trade.

"Selling at black market prices guaranteed enormous profits for the police involved and (provided) potential for corruption," he said.

Strawhorn has pleaded not guilty to five counts of trafficking pseudoephedrine, one alleged to be in a commercial quantity, between October 28, 1999, and May 19, 2000. He has also pleaded not guilty to making a threat to kill a police officer who was investigating police corruption.

Mr Rapke said the five transactions at the centre of the trial before Justice John Coldrey were unauthorised and illegal.

He said it was alleged a police colleague, at Strawhorn's direction, obtained 5.5 kilograms of pure pseudoephedrine in five transactions with the drug company. One police informer sold 3.5 kilograms of pseudoephedrine to the Bandidos, while two other informers sold 2 kilograms to Lewis Moran's son, Mark, who was later murdered.

Mr Rapke said evidence would be called that Strawhorn had made money out of the drug trafficking, but it was difficult to ascertain the full extent of his earnings.

"The accused's expenditure exceeds by a sizeable amount his known and identifiable source of income," Mr Rapke said.

He said Strawhorn, when under suspicion, spoke with one informer involved in the Moran transaction. Strawhorn told the informer to tell his colleague that if he was interviewed, the Moran transaction "didn't happen".

Strawhorn allegedly wore a concealed recording device when he asked another informer "Dorothy Dix" questions to have him deny that he (Strawhorn) was involved in corrupt activity.

Mr Rapke said Strawhorn, in March 2003, made comments that his police career was over, and he would have to kill an anti-corruption investigator because it was the only way he would get satisfaction.

The trial continues.

Detective took drug cash, court told

Joanne Ferguson; Ian Ferguson; Glenn Sadler; Stephen Cox.
Picture:Michael Clayton-Jones

By Steve Butcher
August 17, 2004

A suspended Victorian detective from the disbanded drug squad stuffed bundles of cash into his socks during a police raid on a heroin syndicate's house, a Melbourne court heard yesterday.

It was alleged the drug squad later declared $101,000 was found in the house but that investigators with the anti-corruption Ceja taskforce claim $370,000 was stolen.

Melbourne Magistrates Court heard that two blocks of heroin also stolen in the raid were later used by the detective as part-payment to a drug trafficker for his BMW.

Senior Crown prosecutor Julian Leckie, SC, alleged the two detectives and a colleague from the squad had a corrupt relationship with the trafficker who regularly bought heroin from them.

Mr Leckie, in his opening to a contested committal hearing, said one of the defendants, Ian Norman Ferguson, and his wife, Joanne Maree Ferguson, a co-accused police officer, increased the equity in their accounts by about $700,000 over two years.

Mr Leckie said an analysis of the couple's financial dealings between January 1999 and July 2002 showed a combined income of about $150,00.

But he alleged that a $30,000 pool was built at their home, Ferguson ordered a $64,000 Toyota LandCruiser, paid $25,000 for cattle and a $30,000 boat package was paid for.

Mr Leckie said a mortgage of $201,000 also was discharged and that there had been untraceable deposits of $175,000.

Ferguson, 36, who is suspended, former detective Glenn John Sadler, 39, and suspended detective Stephen Allan Cox, 40, are charged with offences that include trafficking and conspiracy to traffic a commercial quantity of heroin and with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Ferguson and Sadler also face money laundering, bribery, theft and other charges.

Joanne Ferguson, 37, faces four charges, including conspiracy to traffic a commercial quantity of heroin and money laundering.

Magistrate Lisa Hannan heard how the three detectives were linked to a proposal to buy a $1.1 million brothel after Sadler spoke about becoming a silent partner.

Mr Leckie said the defendants were known as the "heroin crew" at the drug squad when it targeted the trafficker, who cannot be named, in 1999 over his large-scale operation.

It was alleged the trafficker first met Cox and Sadler when he was arrested in April, 1999.

Mr Leckie said about four months later a corrupt relationship began between the trafficker and the detectives when Cox passed him an ounce of heroin as they shook hands.

The court heard that the trafficker regularly bought heroin from the detectives and that after Sadler resigned he set up a number of heroin transactions.

It was alleged that Ferguson was the trafficker's principal contact at the squad who supplied most of the heroin and who received most of the money.

But Mr Leckie said Ferguson also bought discount liquor from the trafficker, which he sold to social clubs within the police crime department.

Ferguson and an unidentified police officer were alleged to have "stuffed bundles of cash down their socks" during a drug squad raid on a house, in August 2000, that targeted a Sydney syndicate distributing heroin in Melbourne.

The hearing continues.

Anatomy of a sting

Malcolm Rosenes leaves court this week.  

By Ian Munro
October 4, 2003

Picture: MARIO BORG

It was night-time, midwinter, he was lying face down in an unlit section of parkland and someone had a knee lodged in his back and his right arm in an armlock, but Detective Sergeant Malcolm Rosenes could still see. He could see his whole life falling away. His family. His career. The house in the suburbs. He was 48 years old and he could see 15 years, maybe more, in jail. He could see his three boys, young adolescents now, growing into adults without him.

Just minutes earlier, he was a shadow among the trees in Caulfield Park, waiting to clinch a deal involving thousands of ecstasy tablets. Across the way, in Park Crescent, the houses were shut up against the bitter cold, blind to the drama about to unfold on their doorsteps.

Rosenes was edgy. He did not like Caulfield. It had a sprawling new police station down on Hawthorn Road, and he reckoned the cops there did not have enough going on to distract them. But it was not the Caulfield police he needed to worry about. Rosenes, a drug squad detective, had been running an informant, a convicted drug dealer who realised Rosenes was bent. 

About a month earlier, Rosenes had gone on leave. About the same time, Rosenes' informant had begun co-operating with the Victoria Police ethical standards department (ESD). Rosenes did not see that.

In the County Court this week, Rosenes pleaded guilty to seven drug offences, including the Caulfield Park bust: trafficking in a commercial quantity of ecstasy, an offence with a maximum penalty of 25 years' jail. He remains in custody, awaiting sentence, two years and a lifetime away from that night.

It was about 7.30 on Sunday evening, July 29, 2001. Caught in the torchlight and told to drop, Rosenes did as he was told and lay with his arms outstretched, his face against the cold grass. The knee on Rosenes' back belonged to Detective Senior Sergeant Neville Taylor, of the ESD's corruption investigation division. Taylor arrested him on charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy to traffic.
Rosenes was unresponsive. When first arrested, he had groaned an indecipherable reply. As his hands were cuffed and his pockets emptied, he was limp and mute and kept his eyes closed.

Taylor lifted him to his feet, walked him to an unmarked car in a roadside car park, and sat next to him in the back seat. The front seats were occupied by two other corruption investigators. They drove out of the immediate area and parked about a kilometre away. As far as the ESD was concerned, Rosenes had unfinished business back at the park. Taylor wanted Rosenes to complete the drug deal, to get the pills off the street.

"Malcolm, listen to me," began Taylor, who recorded the conversation for a statement, which was presented to the court. "We've been working on you for two-and-a-half months ... listen, this is it, you are done, OK?

"There are no deals. I want to get those tablets now. You have about no time to decide if you want to stand up and say that you actually helped us get the drugs back. Do you understand that? Do you understand me? It's your choice. You could do it right now."

By now Rosenes' eyes were open, but he refused to speak. Told he had a choice, and about five seconds to decide whether to co-operate, he broke a little. Rosenes said: "What's in it for me?"
"No deals," Taylor answered. "No deals, Malcolm. What's in it for you is what you are going to say."
Taylor then played Rosenes a tape recorded the day before, of Rosenes and his informant setting up the deal in Caulfield Park. Briefly, it seemed Rosenes would try to bluff, try to pass off the episode as his own, personal operation. Some sort of wildcat undercover bust.

"All right, you jump down my throat, you make me threats ... I'm going to fight, you know, in my time this was going to lead to a man who was possibly a South African who manufactures and imports ecstasy, all right, that's where it was going." 

Taylor had heard too much on the surveillance recordings to believe that Rosenes was trying to run down some dealer. "Come on Malcolm, don't ..." Taylor said. "Do you understand that we've been on you all day, all right? We've been on you for the last two-and-a-half months."

Taylor urged him to make the phone call to close the deal, to get the drugs, but Rosenes claimed the deal would be put off. 

"They'll just shut it down and it won't go any further and you'll never get past f---ing ..."
Taylor: "Well, we're wasting time now."
Rosenes: "No, we're not wasting time. We're f---ing talking about my f---ing life. All right, well take the handcuffs off."
Taylor: "No I won't take them off. They're not coming off, we're not doing anything. Look, are you going to do this or not? Mal, we've got to, we're running out ..."

Rosenes: "I want to do whatever I can do to save my soul, all right?"

But first, to help save his soul, Rosenes wanted to know what they knew, and what that knowledge meant for him.

Rosenes: "What's f---ing happening with me, then I'll f---ing think about it and everything and I'll do what you want, but I won't ..."

Taylor: "What do you want?"

Rosenes: "Where am I going, what's happening with me ... what have you got, what have you got?"
He was told that as well as tonight's deal, he was down for selling 2800 tablets and collecting $50,000 two weeks earlier.

Taylor told him the best thing he could do was to start helping right now, so it could be used to his advantage later.

Rosenes answered: "I won't be here for the trial ... they'll f---ing take me out."

Taylor: "Mal, I can't cut you a deal, all right? Mal, listen to me. I can't cut you deals but if you do nothing there's no possibility of anything."

They were sitting in a parked car in a dark suburban street in Caulfield, weighing the future.

This moment had been coming for Rosenes as if it were fated, the pieces of it locking together like a puzzle solved before its time. They were onto him before the informant came with his offer of information on Rosenes back on June 20.

They had known, two weeks ago, when he sold the 2800 tablets to his informant. And five days after that, they knew when he showed the informant a substance he said was amphetamines.

Just three days before, Taylor was at Melbourne Magistrates Court securing a search warrant for Rosenes' house. The corruption investigation division briefing followed the next day.

And seven hours before he was picked up in the park, the ESD investigators gathered at Caulfield Racecourse in readiness for busting Rosenes. The sole hitch was that the drug deal was running a few hours behind schedule and the arrest was made in darkness.

Rosenes was close to making the phone call, but first he wanted to know his likely sentence - the "quote". "All I'm worried about is little old me, right," Rosenes told Taylor. 

He wondered if he would spend 15 years in the same cell as his informant, the man who did him in.
"I'm f---ing not going to be there for my kids growing up," Rosenes said. "How am I going to tell them that? I've got to f---ing look people in the eye."

He was told there was no quote. And no comfort either. Rosenes worried aloud that his co-offenders would give him up. A copper has to be worth more than anyone else.

Taylor spelt it out for him: "What happens is you make the call, everything's sweet. (The drug contact is) going to go and meet you. No one's going anywhere. All we're going to do is we'll follow him to the meeting place and then our people are going to move in and arrest him."

From the back of the car Rosenes made the phone call, arranging to take the money to a meeting place at the corner of Bambra and Balaclava Roads, on the park's southern boundary. The ESD police and Rosenes remained where they were, waiting for word that Rosenes' contact had been arrested.
Another hour passed before they drove back to Park Crescent, where Rosenes' car was searched by police and a sniffer dog. They searched his clothes and his shoes. For Malcolm Rosenes, career cop, life had turned full circle.

From there they travelled to Alma Road to search a flat that had belonged to Rosenes' father, which was spoken of on the surveillance tapes. Rosenes sat in the kitchen while police combed the flat.
It was approaching midnight when the search was finished. The only thing of interest found there was a receipt for a safety deposit box. 

The longest night of Mal Rosenes life grew longer still as they detoured on the way to his home to check the deposit box, which was empty. He had already told them there was nothing at his home of interest to them - "It's just a f---ing ordinary house" - but even as he said it he must have known his words counted for nothing.

It was almost 1am when they entered the house, a modest, single-storey place of pale brick and glass. The children were asleep. Rosenes' wife was seated on their bed. He locked the family dogs in the laundry so the drug dog could work undisturbed.

Taylor, Rosenes, his wife and other ESD police waited in the lounge room until the search ended about 2.30am.

Rosenes was not left alone for the rest of the morning.

From the time he was arrested almost every word he spoke was recorded, but for a brief period during the search of his father's flat. The tape formed the core of Taylor's arrest statement.

While sitting at the kitchen table in his father's flat, Rosenes mused without prompting, Taylor recalled. Rosenes spoke about having been sick and contemplating suicide, and how he probably would not last long enough to be tried in court. He would kill himself.

He spoke about having been a fool, about his own stupidity and how he thought his informant had been badly treated and how he was just trying to help him. He spoke about how people did not understand how easy it was to go bad overnight.

Ian Munro is The Age law and justice editor.

Former Detective Sergeant STEPHEN ALLAN COX Victorian Drug Squad

Supreme Court of Victoria
R v Cox [2003] VSC 245 (1 July 2003)

Last Updated: 7 August 2003

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA   
Not Restricted
AT MELBOURNE

PRACTICE COURT

No. 1453 of 2003
STEPHEN ALLAN COX   
V   
THE QUEEN   
---
JUDGE:   
REDLICH J
WHERE HELD:   
Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:   
24 June 2003
DATE OF JUDGMENT:   
1 July 2003
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:   
R v Cox
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:   
[2003] VSC 245   
---
CRIMINAL LAW - Bail Application - Strength of Crown case against police members - Police Officer in protective custody - Delay before trial - Exceptional Circumstances.
---
APPEARANCES:   
Counsel   
Solicitors
For the Prosecution   
Mr W.H. Morgan-Payler QC   
Ms Kay Robertson

Solicitor for Public Prosecutions
For the Applicant   
Mr B Rolfe   
Galbally & Rolfe

HIS HONOUR:
The applicant, a former Detective Sergeant with the Victorian Drug Squad, was arrested on 26 May 2003 and charged with trafficking in a commercial quantity of heroin between 7 May 1999 and 6 December 2002. He was further charged with conspiring to traffick in a commercial quantity of heroin during the same period. Detective Senior Constables  Ian Ferguson  and Glen Sadler, members of the same investigation team at the former Drug Squad, and Senior Constable Joanne Ferguson, the wife of Detective Senior Constable  Ian Ferguson  have also been charged with these and other offences. On the day following his arrest, the applicant Mr Sadler and Ms Ferguson made applications for bail. Ms Ferguson's application was successful, but the applications of the applicant and Mr Sadler were refused. The applicant now seeks bail pursuant to the provisions of the Bail Act 1977.

As the applicant has been charged with offences under s. 71 and s. 79 of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981, it is common ground that bail shall be refused unless the Court is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the grant of bail - Section 4(2)(aa)(i) Bail Act 1977. Furthermore, the Crown submits that bail should be refused on the additional ground that there is an unacceptable risk that the applicant, if released on bail, would interfere with witnesses - Section 4(2)(d)(i) Bail Act 1977.
Unacceptable Risk - Interference with Witnesses

It is convenient to first deal with the Crown's allegation that the applicant poses an unacceptable risk that, if released, he would interfere with witnesses. It is for the Crown to discharge the onus of satisfying the Court of this fact. The Crown relies upon the fact that the applicant was a member of the Victoria Police from 1982 until his resignation from the Force on 27 February 2000. Detective Senior Sergeant John Rodger from the Victoria Police Ethical Standards Department prepared a report dated 18 June 2003, being Exhibit A to the affidavit of Peter John Andrew Atkinson filed on behalf of the Crown in opposition to the application for bail. In that report, the author observes that, because of the applicant's contacts within the Victoria Police, investigators believe that he will contact prosecution witnesses and is thereby an unacceptable risk. This appears to be the material upon which the Crown relies to substantiate this ground. During the course of evidence which Detective Senior Sergeant Rodger gave in opposition to this application, it emerged that the investigators' fear was based solely upon the fact that the applicant, as a result of his long service in the police force would have contacts which could be utilised to interfere with witnesses. Detective Senior Sergeant Rodger disavowed any claim that it was feared the applicant would personally interfere with witnesses and it was not suggested that the applicant had ever evinced any intention to do so. It was acknowledged that the applicant, were he so minded, could utilise such contacts whether he was in custody or on bail. No persuasive evidentiary basis has been provided for the assertion that the applicant poses an unacceptable risk that he would interfere with witnesses if granted bail.
Exceptional Circumstances

In support of the application for bail, the applicant relies upon the factors of delay, the weak nature of the Crown case, the significant risk of harm posed to the applicant and his family if he remains incarcerated, his psychiatric condition and his substantial and demonstrated ties to the jurisdiction as, in combination, amounting to exceptional circumstances which would justify the granting of bail. It is clear that exceptional circumstances can be established by a combination of factors, none of which alone may do so. See Re Whiteside[1] and Re Andrea Mantase.[2]

The Crown case as described in the summary of evidence, being Exhibit B to Mr Atkinson's affidavit of 23 June 2003, and as further elaborated at pages 1 to 2 of Detective Senior Sergeant Rodger's report of 18 June 2003 is that a drug trafficker and police informant named Le supplied information to Detective Sadler which resulted in the interception of suspects who were to supply heroin. Those suspects were arrested by some of the applicant's co-accused and, according to Le, and those suspects, some seven or eight ounces of heroin were seized. Only four ounces were declared as being seized. Le alleges that the following day the applicant gave him one of the ounces of heroin that had been seized. Le not long afterwards purchased another ounce of heroin from the applicant for $4000. It is alleged that shortly after this incident Le paid the applicant $8,400 for the supply of an unknown quantity of heroin and in the ensuing fortnight obtained two ounces of heroin from the applicant on some seven occasions. Despite the period covered by the charges laid against the applicant, this was the only evidence referred to in the summary of evidence by the Crown of any relevant conduct by the applicant.

In his evidence before me, Detective Rodger supplemented that evidence by referring to another meeting which Le alleges took place with the applicant and Detective Constables Sadler and Ferguson near the Shrine, when he was again supplied with drugs. Mr Le was unable to specify the quantity of drugs supplied or the date on which this occurred, but according to Detective Rodger, it must have been at some time prior to Christmas 2000. Detective Rodger also deposed as to two further occasions when Mr Le had contact with the applicant at some time after the applicant had resigned from the police force in February 2000. According to Mr Le, he was then wanted by the police and sought assistance from the then applicant to avoid detection. It appears that the applicant was unwilling or unable to assist Mr Le. Mr Rodger also deposed as to a further occasion when Mr Le alleges that he made contact with the applicant and Detectives Sadler and Ferguson and was advised by them over the telephone to travel north and to change his name to avoid apprehension.
Strength of Crown case


It was submitted by Mr Rolfe on behalf of the applicant that the Crown case should be characterised as a weak one. Mr Morgan-Payler conceded that it was not a strong case although he submitted that the evidence of Mr Le, who was clearly an accomplice, was corroborated by the suspects who were arrested in possession of seven or eight ounces of heroin. No evidence has been placed before me concerning those suspects and the quality of any evidence that they may give is difficult to assess. Whether their evidence could constitute corroboration of the accomplice Le remains unknown, as it is not clear to me whether their evidence materially implicates the applicant in either of the offences with which he has been charged.

It is clear that prior to Christmas 2000 the applicant ceased to have any ongoing contact with Mr Le, save for the further contacts between the applicant and Mr Le to which I have referred. It is nevertheless the Crown's allegation that there was ongoing trafficking or a conspiracy involving the applicant over the next two years, but no evidence was identified to support such a claim. The Crown does not have available to it any surveillance or recordings providing any confirmation of the accomplice's allegations concerning the applicant. The accomplice has prior convictions for trafficking in heroin and has outstanding charges which have not yet been finalised. It is for these reasons that it is common ground between the parties that the Crown case against the applicant cannot be described as a strong one.

It is a notorious fact charges of conspiracy involving a number of members of the Police Force have rarely been the subject of a successful prosecution. There are features of prosecutions of this type which invariably present major obstacles for the Crown. It is neither necessary nor appropriate that I attempt to explore those difficulties, but I take them into account in assessing the weight of the Crown case and the likelihood of conviction.

The applicant has no prior convictions. He was a member of the Victoria Police Force for almost 20 years. He is a married man who has three children aged 10, 9½ and 6 years respectively. Following his resignation from the Force in February 2000, he worked in a real estate agency and had completed a program which would entitle him to qualification as an estate agent in the event that he is not convicted of these charges. Reference was made to the fact that Constable Ferguson was granted bail and the fact that other detectives from the former Drug Squad who are facing criminal charges on unrelated matters have also been granted bail. The fact that other members of Victoria Police have been granted bail in relation to serious offences is of little assistance however in determining this application.
Protective custody


What is relevant is that special management considerations arise when a police officer is detained in a correctional institution. Initially, the applicant, it appears, was placed in lock-up for some 21 to 23 hours a day. It appears that he became rapidly depressed and was prescribed medication for his condition. That regime ceased and the applicant is now integrated with other prisoners. The applicant is housed with other high risk and special management protection prisoners at a unit of the Melbourne Assessment Prison. It was acknowledged on the applicant's behalf that the prison authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure that the applicant was protected. Recent experience, however, has demonstrated that prisoner safety can be breached even in a maximum security section. In the affidavit in support of this application, it was submitted that the applicant was at significant risk of harm if he remained in custody. It was claimed in the affidavit that the applicant was recognised whilst in custody at the Melbourne Custody Centre and that threats were made. The applicant was concerned that his name would be recognised by other prisoners given the publicity that his case has received in the press. The applicant's surname, unit and cell name appear on a weekly menu sheet. In answer to these concerns, the Crown relies on information provided by the Assistant Governor at the Metropolitan Assessment Prison which is set out in Detective Senior Sergeant Rodger's report and is to the following effect:

"Cox together with the other police inmates were profiled and found suitable to share the section with other protected prisoners; he is not aware of any documentation or threats against Cox."

I do not doubt that security arrangements at the prison can go some way towards ensuring that a police officer, despite his vulnerability, is not at greater risk than other prisoners, but the information from the Assistant Governor did not go to this issue or address the claim that the applicant's sense of exposure to risk was an ongoing source of stress. I am left in the position where the applicant's concerns have been largely unanswered. Mr Rolfe in reply reiterated those concerns expressed in the affidavit in support of the application that a police officer in custody is at far greater risk than other prisoners and that these circumstances have had a debilitating effect on the applicant's already depressed condition. There are difficulties in providing protection for those who require it whilst in custody. Protective custody is a more onerous form of incarceration. See R v ZMN[3].
In the absence of evidence to the contrary these factors must be taken into account.
Delay


The committal hearing for the applicant and his co-accused is presently fixed for hearing in April of next year. It was submitted on behalf of the applicant that I should have no confidence that the committal would proceed at that time. The charges which the accomplice Le faces remain unresolved and there was no confident expectation by the Crown that the outstanding matters in relation to him would have been completed prior to the committal hearing date for the applicant.

It was submitted on behalf of the Crown that there was some prospect that the trial of the applicant might take place toward the end of 2004, but this Court's recent experiences in relation to similar types of matters suggests that it is more likely that the trial will take place some time in 2005. I treat the Crown's estimate as a matter of hope rather than likelihood.

In R v Kantzides,[4] Smith J., in dealing with an application for bail by a person who had been charged with trafficking in a drug of dependence, took the view that a period of at least 20 to 21 months before trial could take place was in the circumstances of that case exceptional. In R v Alexopoulos,[5] Hampel J., in dealing with an application for bail by a person who had been charged with serious offences which related to a very substantial importation of heroin, concluded that a delay of at least one and a half years from arrest to trial was inordinate and was an exceptional circumstance.

In R v Medici,[6] Ashley J. said, when referring to the circumstances of that case:
"The situation presently seems to be this, that the applicant has been on remand since June 1992, is likely to come to trial at the earliest in April 1994, with an estimated length of trial of eight weeks, and it follows that the applicant would have been in custody for something in the order of two years before the conclusion of this trial if he was not granted bail. The estimate of two years depends on the trial getting on in April 1994 and at this stage that seems to be more a matter of hope than certainty."

His Honour went on:
"In the present case, the applicant has now been 14 months in custody and he will be in custody for not less than two years before his trial is completed. That is simply unacceptable and it must be regarded as exceptional. It does not answer the unacceptable nature of such a delay to say that the applicant is likely to incur a custodial sentence of more than two years for offences to which he has pleaded guilty. Remand and custody are quite different. In my opinion, two years on remand between charge and trial constitutes exceptional circumstances."

In DPP v Radev,[7] Beach J. referred with approval to those remarks by Ashley J. in Medici's case. His Honour regarded such a length of custody between arrest and trial as an unacceptable situation. Kellam J. in Mokbel v DPP (No.2)[8] made observations to a similar effect.


There have been a number of recent decisions of the West Australian Supreme Court dealing with legislation in almost identical terms to our own in which similar observations have been made.[9] In Outman v The Queen, Hasluck J. after referring to Alexopoulos v R and Pinkston v R said:
"These cases suggest that delay should be measured not against the state of the court list in any particular jurisdiction, but having regard to objective criteria based on the concept that a humanitarian society recognising the presumption of innocence will find abhorrent the idea that people are kept in custody for such an undue time without trial."[10]

The various decisions to which I have referred are a cogent reminder that it is in neither the community or accused's interest to be detained in custody for periods approaching two years. As Vincent J. (as he then was) said in the matter of Mantase[11]:

"Periods of eighteen months or so of detention prior to the conduct of trials is by any form of reckoning extremely long. It is not to the point to say in effect that such periods represent the norm and therefore cannot constitute part of the matrix of exceptional circumstances. This in effect ultimately negates the very justification for detention prior to the determination of guilt. What I mean by this is that such detention must be directed to serving the ends of justice and not itself constitute a potential source of injustice."[12]

There are numerous decisions of this and other courts, that inordinate delay by itself may amount to an exceptional circumstance. The length of the delay before the applicant's trial is presently a matter of conjecture. I do not stay to consider the appropriate standard of proof for such a prognostication, but I am conscious of the conceptual difficulties that can arise in applying the civil standard to events yet to occur. I do not regard it as appropriate to make any finding in the circumstances presently known as to whether the delay which is anticipated should be characterised as inordinate. There have been differing views expressed in this court as to whether such time as the Crown submits is likely to elapse should be so described. Nevertheless, delay which has not been established as inordinate, may, in conjunction with other factors, amount to exceptional circumstances. I therefore take into account the delay which the Crown concedes will occur bearing in mind that it is the minimum period which is likely to elapse.

It is apparent from the summary of the Crown case that the criminal conduct of the applicant's co-accused is alleged to have continued for a substantial time after the applicant resigned from the police force. It was not contradicted that there are a number of serious charges laid against the other accused with which the applicant is not concerned. The time frame of the charges itself suggests allegations of ongoing criminal activity by the other accused in which the applicant was not directly involved. The allegations against co-accused include claims of an attempt to pervert the course of justice, blackmail and bribery, theft of cash and drugs and a conspiracy to money launder. It was not contradicted on the hearing that there has been an intense investigation of the co-accused for the purpose of establishing betterment by them. No evidence has been placed before me to suggest that the applicant or his family were in possession of assets or income which could not be lawfully explained.

I was informed by the Crown that the investigation concerning the applicant is ongoing and the implication is that there may yet still be evidence of the applicant's betterment. The fact that there has been and continues to be extensive investigations into such matters is another reason for my conclusion that I should have reservations that the timetable suggested by the Crown can be adhered to. This is a factor which was adverted to by the Magistrate on 27 May 2003 who noted the ongoing status of the investigation and the likely delay in preparation of brief material which would be voluminous.

It was not contested that the applicant's immediate family including his mother, father, siblings and parents-in-law are all resident in Victoria and extremely supportive of him. The Crown does not take issue with the claim that the applicant has sound ties to the jurisdiction and is not regarded as a risk of absconding. The arrest and detention of the applicant has undoubtedly caused great distress within the family and has exacerbated the depressive condition from which the applicant suffers. The applicant is on anti-depressant medication which was recently increased by the prison psychiatrist. These factors considered in isolation would not be sufficient to warrant the granting of bail.

The applicant's psychiatric condition has been exacerbated by the stress arising from the risks associated with a police officer being on remand within the prison system and the gloomy prognostication of the length of time for which he will remain there before his trial. The tribulations of a long serving member of the Police Force who suffers from depression, who faces a very lengthy period in remand before his committal, who has it appears been threatened and who fears for his safety, who poses no real risk of absconding, and faces a case which cannot be regarded as strong, are a combination of circumstances which in my view can properly be characterised as exceptional and as justifying the granting of bail.
[1] (1999) VSC 413 per Warren J.

[2] (Unreported) 21 September 2000 per Vincent J.

[3] [2002] VSCA 140; [2002] 4 VR 537 at paragraphs 13 and 24.

[4] Unreported Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 August 1996.

[5] Unreported Supreme Court of Victoria, 23 February 1998.

[6] Unreported Supreme Court of Victoria, 29 September 1993.

[7] 108 A Crim R. 121; [1999] VSC 284.

[8] [2002] VSC 312.

[9] See Fawcett v R [2002] WASC 285; Outman v R [200O] WASC 303 and Pinkston v R (2000) 119 A. Crim R. 462.

[10] Outman Footnote 9 at paragraph 28.

[11] Unreported Supreme Court of Victoria, 21 September 2000,

[12] Mantase Footnote 10 at 2-3.
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