Police union `usurps' Coroner
25.03.2010
By: TONY KOCH, ROSANNE BARRETT
THE Queensland Police Union has declared its members have no case to answer over the state's fourth death in custody in a month, provoking criticism yesterday that it was usurping the role of the Coroner.
QPU president Ian Leavers said the union had already interviewed police on duty when a 41-year-old man died in the Rockhampton lock-up on Tuesday and they had ``done absolutely nothing wrong''.
Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission chairman Martin Moynihan QC said it was inappropriate for ``anyone'' to make assumptions until the death was fully investigated.
Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Neil Roberts also said it would not be appropriate for him to comment, saying ``all the facts'' had to be brought out by the Coroner.
Criminologist and forensic psychologist Paul Wilson said Mr Leavers's intervention was outrageous, and suggested the union was sliding back to the ``bad old days''.
``This series of deaths in custody is a cause for the utmost concern, and any investigation should be left to the Coroner,'' said Professor Wilson, of Bond University. ``I find it disturbing that the police union feels it can take over and then issue statements of some finality, absolving its own members.''
Early on Tuesday morning, the 41-year-old man was found unresponsive and not breathing in the Rockhampton watch-house. Hospital staff could not save him.
His death came after a 42-year-old child sex offender was found dead in his cell at Wolston Correctional Centre, in Brisbane, on March 16. Two days later, a 27-year-old prisoner on remand for rape was found dead in his cell at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, also in Brisbane's west. On February 20, Aborigine Sheldon Currie, 18, died in hospital after collapsing in his cell at Arthur Gorrie.
Mr Leavers told ABC radio yesterday the union had interviewed the police in Rockhampton and they were blameless. ``They acted very professionally,'' he said.
Asked by The Australian whether this could be interpreted as pre-empting the Coroner, who is required by Queensland law to take charge of any investigation into a death in custody, a Police Union spokesman said: ``We are also entitled to our opinion.''
Last June, the union came under fire over its response to the death of Antonio Galeano, who was later found to have been tasered by police 28 times.
Similar concerns were raised this month when the reconvened inquest into the death in custody of Palm Islander Mulrunji Doomadgee found that the legal representation was the same firm for most police involved in the case, including the officer who was acquitted of his manslaughter, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley.
Indigenous academics Boni Robertson and Gracelyn Smallwood yesterday called for an independent inquiry.
``There is something drastically wrong with the system,'' Professor Smallwood said.
