A long-serving police officer says he forged internal documents not for personal gain but because undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder turned him into a workaholic.
Then detective senior constable Murray Todd Treuer, 46, had been with the Drug Squad's chemical operations unit when he signed documents using the forged signature of his senior officer Detective Acting Inspector Alison Adam in October 2013.
"How many times have you forged my signature today?" Adam wrote in an email.
"Only three, I promise," Treuer replied.
This included a request for assistance for resources from the surveillance branch to find a drug lab in Sydney's west.
"It sh**s me that you have me wrapped me around your little finger. There is not a chance in hell that I would let anyone else do this. I must be f***ing mad," Adam wrote.
"If I find this superlab, u will be crowned queen don't worry," Treuer said.
An internal investigation in 2019 resulted in both officers being charged.
They have since left the force.
On Thursday, Treuer tried to have one charge of making a false document to influence the exercise of public duty dismissed without conviction on mental health grounds.
His barrister Daniel McMahon told Parramatta Local Court that after working as a police investigator for 17 years, his client had chronic PTSD and depression.
In trying to combat these then undiagnosed mental illnesses, the senior constable threw himself at his police work, forging the documents to make the processes more expedient, Magistrate Stuart Devine heard.
"He was effectively, in a maladaptive fashion, addressing the symptoms of his PTSD by becoming a workaholic," Mr McMahon said.
However, Mr Devine noted Treuer had told a psychiatrist he had merely forgotten to add the phrase "signed under the authority of" Adam when he used the forged signatures.
This was inconsistent with what the former officer was trying to claim about his mental illness being the cause of the offence, the magistrate said.
Mr McMahon argued his client was a man of good character - a "dedicated and well-respected police officer" who had not committed any other crimes and had not gained personally or financially from the forgeries.
The 46-year-old did not want to be convicted as that would make it difficult to work as a private investigator in the insurance industry as he required a clean record to get a licence, the court was told.
DPP solicitor Zachary O'Meara said the matter should be dealt with according to law rather than mental health.
He said the forgery had serious impacts including on the legality of the overall police operation.
Treuer abused the trust that the NSW Police Force had placed in him, Mr O'Meara said.
It was in the public interest that police officers tasked with enforcing the law also be dealt with by the law after offending, he argued.
Mr Devine declined to deal with the matter on mental health grounds, saying there was a public interest in actually handing down a sentence.
There was a need for deterrence to ensure police investigations were entirely above board, the magistrate said.
Truer escaped convicted and was hit with a two-year conditional release order.
He has been ordered to follow his psychiatrist's treatment plan and remain on good behaviour while in the community.
Adam was given the same sentence in December 2021 after she pleaded guilty to concealing a serious indictable offence.
