CMC announcement on delay to death in custody investigation

The Civil Liberties Council today described as farcical the CMC’s announcement that it would not conclude its investigation into the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee until sometime next year.

“This case highlights the total failure of the 2001 law change which resulted in all complaints against police except the most serious being handed back to the QPS to investigate, with so called spot monitoring by the CMC” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr O’Gorman said that the Civil Liberties Council’s position for almost a decade has been that the CMC’s role of monitoring police investigating police is hit and miss, more miss than hit.

Mr O’Gorman said the complaint that police friends of Senior Sergeant Hurley wined and dined with him before investigating the death in custody as well as allegedly failing to secure the crime scene where the death of Mr Doomadgee occurred were simple and straight forward matters for the QPS to investigate.

“It absolutely beggars belief that it has taken 5 years to complete this straight forward investigation” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr O’Gorman also said that the role of the two supervising Parliamentary Committees which covers the 5 year period of the awful delay i in completing the complaint investigation hardly inspires confidence.

“The question has to be asked whether the supervising Parliamentary Committee over the CMC with its constantly changing membership has become inefficient in supervising the CMC, or worse has the Committee become the captive of the very body it is supposed to supervise and make accountable” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr O’Gorman said that the 5-year delay in completing the investigation is also fundamentally unfair to the police under investigation.

“As the Sergeant Isles investigation shows, delay in completing CMC investigations of complaints against police places individual police under intolerable pressure. This is completely unfair to the police concerned” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr O’Gorman noted that the CMC Parliamentary Committee had criticised the CMC in three separate 3 yearly reviews since 2004 for delays in completing investigations into complaints against police, yet the problem continues.

“The CMC is quick to make everyone else under its jurisdiction accountable yet it is becoming increasingly unaccountable in failing to address constant Parliamentary Committee criticism that it clean up its delay problems” Mr O’Gorman said.

Mr O’Gorman said the Premier, as part of her ongoing Integrity Review, needs to set up a Special Inquiry into the CMC police complaints role as well as examining whether the Parliamentary Committee is able to properly supervise the CMC.

“The CMC in its almost 20 years of existence has become increasingly enamoured and fascinated with its super police force role in investigating organised crime to the detriment of properly carrying out its job of investigating complaints against police” Mr O’Gorman said.

“The Special Inquiry we are demanding may well conclude that the CMC needs to be broken up with its crime fighting role performed as a standalone Crime Commission and its police complaint role given to a special Police Integrity Commission, as is the case in New South Wales.