A former UN diplomat has spoken of how his family was “obliterated” after he was the target of a false work harassment complaint by the wife of a Queensland detective, who secretly recorded him while he was being pursued in a failed child neglect prosecution.
Brian Riley was a federal public servant working in the Torres Strait Island regional authority in 2012 when police charged him after finding his 9-year-old son walking down a street at night to where he was dining in a nearby restaurant.
Riley, who had left his son at home playing computer games 150m away, was the first person to contest the newly legislated Queensland charge of “leaving a child for an unreasonable time without making reasonable provision for supervision and care”.
The landmark case prompted civil libertarians to criticise police for over-zealous use of laws intended to target parents who left their children in cars while gambling.
The charge was struck out in 2013 when a police prosecutor offered no evidence in court following a 10-month investigation.
Riley, who returned last month from an 18-month posting with the UN in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Sudan, has written to the Queensland police minister calling for a review of a prosecution he calls a “travesty”.
A separate administrative appeals tribunal case in January revealed that after Riley was charged, his co-worker Janelle Polkinghorne secretly recorded a conversation in which she “convey[ed] that she and others were a threat to him” as witnesses and possibly in a bid to gather evidence against him.
The tribunal dismissed a worker’s compensation claim by Polkinghorne, the wife of a local detective, whose account of alleged harassment by Riley after he was charged was wholly rejected by tribunal deputy president Ian Molloy.
Riley said the experience of fighting the charge had left his family in need of counselling.
Riley said his son, who had been interviewed at school by police without his parents’ knowledge, “couldn’t go out on the weekends without his mother”.
“All the impact that had on his health and relationships … he basically continued to live under lock and key,” Riley said.
Riley’s family was no longer living with him on Thursday Island, to which his wife has refused to return.
“It’s basically obliterated the family unit, to the extent that it could,” Riley said. “That was the most traumatising thing for a family and a child to go through.”
Riley said he had been obliged to disclose the charge when obtaining security clearance for his most recent overseas posting with the UN.
“I tell you, the fact that I had to disclose the fact that I’d just been charged with something to do with the welfare of a child, my own, was pretty traumatic,” he said.
Riley flew back from Manila to appear at the tribunal, which heard Polkinghorne was claiming compensation for “work related stress and anxiety” caused by Riley’s alleged harassment.
However, Molloy found that Polkinghorne, who he said “clearly disliked” Riley, fabricated bullying claims which she had said began after he admonished her over a work-related phone call and she responded by criticising him in an email.
Polkinghorne claimed in the tribunal that Riley’s bullying of her resumed when he was charged by Thursday Island police.
She claimed the harassment sprang from Riley’s “dislike of the police which … extended to her because her husband was a Thursday Island police officer”.
Polkinghorne told the tribunal that Riley had also complained to police that her husband had shared confidential information about his case with her.
But Molloy said police records showed Riley had made no complaint at the time. An internal investigation later found no evidence of misconduct by the detective.
“As to Mr Riley’s conduct towards her, again I accept the evidence of Mr Riley over Mrs Polkinghorne,” Molloy said.
Molloy found that Polkinghorne’s testimony about a conversation she recorded with Riley in his office regarding the child neglect charge, and the fact police were questioning her and other co-workers about him, was “particularly unimpressive”.
“The more she tried to explain why she chose to speak to Mr Riley, the less convincing her evidence became,” he said.
“The direction in which Mrs Polkinghorne took the conversation suggests that she was intending to convey to Mr Riley that she and others were a threat to him, and possibly to obtain some admissions from him.”
He said this was clear from an exchange in which Polkinghorne told Riley that the police interviews put his co-workers “in a position”.
“Like, I know we’ve discussed, and other people have been here and, you know, heard your comments about leaving kids at home and stuff like that,” she said on the recording.
“I know we’ve had a conversation before and there were witnesses to it.”
Riley replied that he did not recall any such conversation.
Polkinghorne tells him: “I’m just saying, but I wasn’t the only one there at the time. There were three other people there at the time, so I don’t know, do you know what I’m saying, I’m just saying whether they go ahead with that. I’m just giving you that.”
Molloy also rejected Polkinghorne’s claim that her recording device was “in full view when she spoke to Mr Riley”.
“She started the recording device, as she admits, in a toilet cubicle so that no-one would know about it,” she said.
“Surreptitiously recording the conversation is not the conduct of someone motivated as Mrs Polkinghorne claims.”
Police and the then crime and misconduct commission have examined several previous complaints by Riley about the conduct of the child neglect investigation and concluded there was no evidence of misconduct.
A spokeswoman for Queensland police said the matter was not currently being investigated.
Polkinghorne could not be contacted for comment.
