A Victorian police sergeant who was accused of verbally abusing his neighbours, including by yelling “dead cat” at them, has been denied his request to access all documents related to the complaints under freedom of information laws.
The sergeant has appealed the decision in the state’s administrative tribunal.
An order published by the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal (VCAT) heard three complaints were made between 2017 and 2018 by the sergeant’s neighbours related to his alleged “incivility ... verbally abusive behaviour and inappropriate behaviour involving alleged harassment” while he was off-duty.
Police investigated each complaint but took no further action other than referring one to the dispute settlement centre, which provides free resolution services, including mediation.
An application was made by police for an intervention order against the sergeant, but the application was resolved in May 2019 when the sergeant gave an undertaking he would not come within five metres of his neighbours or come within the boundary of their property.
This application triggered a further investigation into the sergeant, the tribunal heard, but it concluded without any action being taken.
In July 2018, a separate investigation was launched into the sergeant allegedly failing to declare an association with a person who has a criminal history and to “answer a relevant question truthfully”. The investigation started after the sergeant sent a photo of one of the neighbours to a person who he was unaware had criminal associations.
The sergeant told the tribunal the photo was of the neighbour banging on his front door, challenging him to a fight.
Police took no action against the sergeant after investigating the association, but in the course of that investigation he was provided with an outline of the complaints made against him and was allowed to view video recordings taken by the neighbours.
In August 2018, the sergeant applied for access under FoI laws to all documents relating to complaints about him that had been made by his neighbours.
In November that year, Victoria police advised him they had found 24 documents, including the video recordings, and released eight of them in full, 10 of them in part and denied access in full to six documents, including the videos.
The public access deputy commissioner confirmed that the Victoria police decision in December 2019.
The sergeant appealed to the VCAT to access three documents: the witness statements, the videos and another document entitled “pages of notes provided by third party”.
He told the tribunal he accepted that people should be able to make legitimate complaints against police officers confidentially, but contends that the neighbours’ complaints are “vexatious”.
He said the complaints had adversely affected his career and he should be able to access them in order to obtain legal advice as to how to hold his neighbours “accountable”.
VCAT member Reynah Tang found the sergeant should be granted access to the video recordings, but not the other two documents.
“If the complaints were vexatious, which is arguably supported by the fact that each of them has resulted in no further action against [the sergeant], then it would be less reasonable for the parties who made them to expect that – absent any sensitive information – they would never be made available to [the sergeant],” Tang found.
