Civil libertarians have called for Queensland’s corruption watchdog to investigate police handling of a brutality complaint, amid claims that police whistleblowers are being ignored by the system.
The president of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O’Gorman, has written to the Crime and Corruption Commission asking for an investigation into whether police were properly investigating a bashing by officers when video footage of the incident was leaked.
Sergeant Rick Flori, accused of giving the Courier-Mail the footage showing officers assaulting chef Noa Begic at Surfers Paradise police station in 2012, faces a possible jail term for misconduct in public office.
Police dropped public nuisance charges against Begic and settled his complaint out of court in what O’Gorman said he believed was a substantial confidential payout, but the officers involved in the incident faced no charges.
O’Gorman told the ABC on Thursday the CCC needed to “reinvigorate” its oversight of the police complaints system, which had faltered.
He said police had told him complaints made under the Public Disclosure Act were not adequately dealt with.
“There are a number of police who contact me, including relatively recently, who are telling me that their complaints within the system are simply being ignored and that they’re being victimised,” O’Gorman said.
“So in my experience as a civil libertarian, Sergeant Flori is not a one-off.
“Police contact the civil liberties council, contact me, and say this sort of thing, where we try to make complaints and they’re in effect being swept under the carpet – [it] is a common enough problem.
“That’s why we’re saying to the CCC, reinvestigate this particular bashing incident, tell the public why police were not charged, and tell the public of Queensland what is wrong with the police complaints system.”
O’Gorman separately wrote to police commissioner Ian Stewart on Thursday calling for him to engage an independent QC to review whether the prosecution against Flori should continue.
He told Stewart the prosecution appeared to be “at best misconceived and, arguably, a miscarriage of justice”.
“On the facts currently in the public arena, sergeant Flori was charged after a ‘police-investigating-police scenario’ against a background where it was asserted that no investigation had been instituted by the police service in respect of the police bashing until the media published the video,” O’Gorman wrote.
It also appeared that police did not consult the director for public prosecutions before charging Flori, he wrote.
O’Gorman drew a comparison with the investigation of state MP Billy Gordon over domestic violence claims, on which police are seeking advice from an independent QC before deciding whether to prosecute.
“In the Flori scenario of police investigating police, it is even more pressing and appropriate that the advice of an independent QC be obtained as to whether the prosecution … should be continued,” O’Gorman wrote.
He said the lawyer to review the Flori charges should be “a QC who is not regularly briefed by [police] and, desirably, a QC who has not been briefed at all by [police]”.
A spokeswoman for Stewart said he was unavailable for comment today. Comment was being sought from the commission and Queensland police.
