March 2000 Volume 81 Number 3 "serving the protectors"
By Andy Dunn

Proper Perspective Demanded

recent letter to the Commissioner’s Mailbag (Police Gazette, 9.2.00) contained disturbingly inaccurate claims which, sadly, Commissioner Mal Hyde left unaddressed.

The letter’s writer - whose name doesn’t appear but allegedly is a police officer - claimed that, by reading the Police Journal, his or her attention had been “frequently drawn to the issues of police misconduct and corruption...”

He or she further claimed that the Police Journal was:

...only too happy to identify the ?injustices’ that have resulted from what they (sic) perceive as ?poor’ or ?malicious’ investigations by IIB.

Although the writer’s question to the Commissioner supposedly related to advertised IIB investigator positions, he or she curiously continued on another unrelated subject - failed prosecutions against police:

...(they) could often have produced a ?guilty’ result if not for a ?technical’ defence that sees the charge overruled.

These assertions clearly demand correction and proper perspective. The Police Journal has not, in recent years, presented a single article on either police misconduct or corruption, other than Review of Police Complaints Authority: PASA’s Submission by Angela Clare in August ’98. Perhaps the writer has his or her magazines confused.

And is the Police Journal happy to identify injustice? Surely all credible news media and virtuous private citizens would, in a civilized society, rejoice in their ability to expose both moral and legal wrongs. The Police Journal is no exception; and if its copy helps bring change to unjust systems, that is a treasured bonus.

But the Police Journal does not seek copy to use as a tool with which to crusade. Like any other professional print medium, it chooses its stories on the basis of readership appeal. A recent Australian Business Enterprise Development survey indicated the Police Journal’s outstanding success in selecting appropriate copy.

Claiming knowledge of how the Police Journal perceives the integrity of certain IIB investigations is nothing more than guesswork. Through its articles on injustice brought upon police, the journal has presented the views and criticisms of others - never its own views or perceptions. Its reporters remain at all times impartial.

By his or her quotation marks, the writer suggests that certain IIB investigations were neither poor nor malicious.

That, of course, is for others to judge. But in what other way should one describe the disgraceful injustice suffered by two dedicated cops, Jackie McDonald and Gary Batty, about whom the Police Journal wrote in 1998 (Criminalizing a Cop and Accusation: The Reward for Commitment).

After years of needless anguish, each was found totally innocent and falsely accused; and a magistrate in one case condemned an investigator’s performance.

Both acquittals resulted from the officers’ total innocence, not technicalities. If the writer has knowledge of technicality-based acquittals - as he or she claims - the Police Journal would like to know about them.

Would the writer hold the same view of exposed injustice if he or she had suffered the same slur, embarrassment and torment as did McDonald and Batty?

As a vigorous defender of the right to free speech, the Police Journal supports the publication of the writer’s comments. That Commissioner Hyde made no response to those comments, however, is disappointing.

Anonymous Police Journal letters to the editor are never even considered for publication, unless they relate to a bereavement or other similarly sensitive issues.

In recent years, the Police Journal has published only two stories on injustice to police which included commentary on IIB. It is entirely on these stories that the writer seems to have based his or her views.

Moreover, if the writer’s letter was signed, why did the Police Gazette not tag the published version “name supplied”? One could easily be forgiven for thinking that this Commissioner’s Mail Bag letter is a parliamentary-style Dorothy Dixer.

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