The New South Wales police watchdog has made two findings of “serious misconduct” against a high-ranking detective who crashed a work car while allegedly drunk in the NorthConnex tunnel in May 2023.
The police officer, whose identity is secret due to a 40-year court order, pleaded not guilty in December to charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and high-range drink-driving, nearly seven months after the incident happened last May.
In a scathing report handed down on Thursday, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Lecc) made a serious misconduct finding against the officer “for deliberately leaving the scene of a crash he caused … to avoid being breath-tested”.
A second serious misconduct finding was made against the senior detective for being deliberately dishonest about his alcohol use in an insurance claim made after the crash – where he said he “fell asleep” at the wheel.
“Neither was a split-second decision,” the report noted. “These were deliberate acts of impropriety.”
The commission recommended the officer, who has been stood down with full pay, be dismissed from the force.
A police summary noted in the report said the officer, referred to as AB, had consumed 13 schooners of XXXX Gold and eight mixed-spirit drinks before the crash.
“In terms of the quantity of alcohol, I don’t understand how he would have been standing let alone driving,” an officer told the Lecc.
Thursday’s report states that after crashing the unmarked police car into a concrete safety barrier in the NorthConnex tunnel, the officer drove the car into a sidestreet and left it there, with attending police reporting that when they arrived on the scene “the person had done a runner”.
The Lecc report stated that in the immediate aftermath of the crash, AB was not questioned about his alcohol consumption. That was despite officers contemplating that alcohol may have contributed to the crash.
The commission found AB “was treated more leniently in the way in which he was managed by his commander and in the police review of his driving”. This “favourable treatment” led other police officers to lose confidence in the integrity of the force, the report stated.
The report found the loyalty AB’s commander felt towards the detective meant he failed to make impartial decisions on subsequent risk-management actions.
The report noted that after learning investigators had formed the view that AB had consumed 23 standard drinks in eight hours before the crash – contrary to AB’s claim he had drunk eight mid-strength beers – the commander held firm that further action was not necessary.
This included allowing AB to continue driving a police car. The commission noted such leniency had not been extended to junior officers with “several examples of junior officers being swiftly de-certified from driving a police car”.
The report said AB’s commander had said they were not going to “walk away from him”. They wanted to make sure the senior detective “got through the ordeal with as much support as possible”.
The chief commissioner, Peter Johnson SC, on Thursday said two audiences were watching to see how allegations of criminal conduct by police officers were dealt with.
“The general public wants to know if a police officer is dealt with in the same way as the ordinary citizen,” he said in a statement.
“But there is a second important audience. Other NSW police force officers watch to see if senior officers are dealt with in the same way as junior officers.
“If there is not equitable treatment of all police, it can lead to dissatisfaction in the ranks of the police generally.”
The Lecc said while gathering evidence it became apparent that “some officers had adopted the practice of deleting messages, records of messages and calls from encrypted applications”.
It appeared that was “partially instituted” to avoid the need to produce records for the public record, the report stated.
The Lecc found no evidence that the force’s failure to issue a media release about the incident involved impropriety.
Several anonymous complaints were made some months after the incident alleging senior police had attempted to interfere with the investigation and shield AB from disciplinary action.
However, the Lecc report found no evidence of interference with the police investigation of the car crash that led to the officer being charged.
On Thursday, the NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, responded to the report’s findings, saying she had commenced an internal complaints process against AB.
“No doubt I will be asked to consider his employment,” Webb said.
Asked about the report’s finding that some officers had lost faith in the force over the favourable treatment of AB following the incident, Webb said: “this is a dark day for us.”
Webb said she had referred the report’s finding that some officers had used encrypted messaging apps to the force’s public affairs branch for review.
The NSW Greens justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said the report painted a “damning picture of how police leadership instinctively protect themselves and their own”.
“The impunity was full throttle on this occasion,” she said on Thursday.
“Without Lecc oversight and public scrutiny, it does not appear that NSW police would have issued media statements about the initial incident, or followed basic internal accountability measures following the incident. This is the culture at NSW police and it is unacceptable.”
