Police Journal June 2015

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June 2015

Journal

NOT GUILTY: THE HOY CASE

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Contents FEATURE

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Not guilty: the Hoy case Neither an apology nor an admission of error from Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber QC (left) over the failed prosecution of Norman Hoy.

Image: Greg Higgs, courtesy Newspix

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REGULARS

22 Gunned down… and still a police officer

Most struggle to fathom how he ever survived his injuries but, since he was shot, Brett Gibbons has had to face up to four years’ recovery.

06 POLICE ASSOCIATION 08 PRESIDENT 26 LETTERS 27 Q&A 28 INDUSTRIAL 31 HEALTH 32 MOTORING 35 BANKING 37 LEGAL 38 BOOKS 40 DVDs 41 CINEMA 43 WINE 46 PLAYBACK

COVER: Senior Constable Norman Hoy Photography by Steve McCawley

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Jim Barnett Motoring Reviewer

Dr Rod Pearce Health Writer

Publisher: Police Association of South Australia (08) 8212 3055 Advertising: Police Association of South Australia (08) 8212 3055

Design: Sam Kleidon 0417 839 300 Printing: Finsbury Green (08) 8234 8000

The Police Journal is published by the Police Association of South Australia, 27 Carrington St, Adelaide, SA 5000, (ABN 73 802 822 770).

Contents of the Police Journal are subject to copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the Police Association of South Australia is prohibited. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the editor. The Police Association accepts no responsibility for statements made by advertisers. Editorial contributions should be sent to the editor (brettwilliams@pj.asn.au).

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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Brett Williams Editor (08) 8212 3055

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Level 2, 27 Carrington St, Adelaide SA 5000 T (08) 8212 3055 F (08) 8212 2002 W www.pasa.asn.au

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Police Association of South Australia

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CONTACT DETAILS Level 2, 27 Carrington St, Adelaide SA 5000 P: (08) 8212 3055 (all hours) F: (08) 8212 2002 Membership enquiries: (08) 8112 7988

COMMITTEE

Allan Cannon VICE-PRESIDENT

Trevor Milne DEPUTY PRESIDENT

Mark Carroll PRESIDENT 0417 876 732

Daryl Mundy Julian Snowden

David Reynolds

Chris Walkley Mitch Manning

Tom Scheffler SECRETARY 0417 817 075

DELEGATES METRO NORTH BRANCH

Nuriootpa.........................Michael Casey

Intelligence Support .......Kevin Hunt

Elizabeth...........................Glenn Pink

Peterborough...................Nathan Paskett

South Coast ....................Jason Tank

Henley Beach...................Matthew Kluzek

Port Augusta....................Peter Hore

Sturt..................................Brad Scott

Holden Hill........................Nigel Savage

Port Pirie...........................Gavin Mildrum

Gawler..............................David Savage

Whyalla.............................Michael Ball

Golden Grove..................Simon Nappa

METRO SOUTH BRANCH Sturt .................................Michael Quinton (chair)

CRIME COMMAND BRANCH

Adelaide...........................Melissa Eason

Northern Prosecution.....Tim Pfeiffer

Elizabeth ........................ Kym Wilson (chair)

Adelaide...........................Daniel Wray

Major Crime.....................Campbell Hill

Netley...............................Mark Williams

COUNTRY NORTH BRANCH

Adelaide...........................Dac Thomas

Norwood..........................Ralph Rogerson

Port Lincoln.....................Lloyd Parker (chair)

DOCIB .............................Dwayne Illies

South Coast ....................Peter Clifton

Ceduna ............................Anthony Taylor

Forensic Services............Adam Gates

South Coast ....................Russell Stone

Coober Pedy...................Jeff Page

Fraud.................................Jamie Dolan

Southern Traffic...............Peter Tellam

Kadina...............................Ric Schild

Holden Hill........................Narelle Smith

Southern Prosecution.....Andrew Heffernan

Port Adelaide...................Kim Williams

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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Samantha Strange

STAFF

INDUSTRIAL

POLICE JOURNAL

Assistant Secretary Bernadette Zimmermann

Editor Brett Williams

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

Grievance Officer Matthew Karger

Jim Tappin

Nicholas Damiani

Michael Kent

FINANCE

EXECUTIVE SECRETARIES

Wendy Kellett

Anne Hehner, Jan Welsby, Sarah Stephens

RECEPTION Shelley Furbow

REPRESENTATIVES COUNTRY SOUTH BRANCH

Firearms ...........................Leonie Turner

COHSWAC ......................... Bernadette Zimmermann

Mount Gambier..............Andy McClean (chair)

Mounted Ops.................. Melanie Whittemore

Housing................................ Bernadette Zimmermann

Adelaide Hills...................Joe McDonald

STAR Ops ........................Wayne Spencer

Leave Bank .......................... Bernadette Zimmermann

Berri ..................................John Gardner

Traffic ...............................David Kuchenmeister

Legacy.................................. Allan Cannon

Millicent ...........................Nick Patterson Murray Bridge..................Kym Cocks

Transit...............................Michael Tomney

Naracoorte ......................Grant Baker

WOMENS BRANCH

Renmark ...........................Dan Schatto

(no delegates)

OPERATIONS SUPPORT BRANCH Dog Ops..........................Bryan Whitehorn (chair)

Shane Bloomfield (chair) (no delegates)

Police Academy...............Francis Toner

OFFICERS BRANCH.

Comcen ...........................Brenton Kirk

Alex Zimmermann

Superannuation................... Bernadette Zimmermann .............................................. Tom Scheffler

ATSI BRANCH

Police Band......................Neil Conaghty

Police Dependants Fund.... Tom Scheffler

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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PRESIDENT Mark Carroll

Return-to-work legislation set to exacerbate police suffering IMAGINE if police hesitated to respond

to critical incidents because they feared on-duty injuries could ruin them financially.

It is unthinkable but it could become a reality in South Australia from July 1, under the state government’s new workers compensation arrangements.

The new return-to-work legislation – which will take effect without police-specific amendments – will cause workers to lose compensation payments after two years, for all but the most serious injuries.

For police, who risk their lives every day to protect the community, this is not a fair or just outcome.

When Premier Jay Weatherill announced the bill’s successful passage through parliament last October, he asserted that the old scheme was “clumsy,” “failing workers” and “did not provide good health outcomes…”

But he said nothing about how the bill would affect police.

Fear of not receiving adequate compensation for injuries could now become a reality for front-line police.

The case of Senior Constable Brett Gibbons is a clear example of how this legislation will impact on police.

Crazed gunman Donato Corbo shot Brett in the face when he and partner Travis Emms were the first responders to the Hectorville triple murder in 2011.

Brett’s injuries were so severe that he is still undergoing rounds of surgery on his face.

Yet the new legislation is unlikely to classify his whole body impairment as 30 per cent or more. That means he will not qualify as a seriously injured worker.

Brett will likely require medical treatment for several more years. But, from July 1, 2017, his topup payments will cease. And one year later, so will his medical-expense compensation payments.

This is a sickening outcome for a police officer who has demonstrated such front-line bravery.

Disturbingly, if Brett’s situation had occurred under the new legislation, he would only be entitled to an additional maximum of 13 weeks’ wages to recover from his last round of surgery.

And the legislation would not cover further complications, such as future surgeries or posttraumatic stress disorder.

This is a sickening outcome for a police officer who has demonstrated such front-line bravery.

Senior Constable Alison Coad will also suffer under the new legislation. She contracted an infectious disease while performing general patrol duties in 2003.

“I took an oath to serve and protect the community, and I did just that in a violent confrontation with two knife-wielding offenders,” she said.

“The female offender who spat on me had hep C, HIV and herpes.

“I contracted the herpes virus from this exposure and this is a lifetime infectious communicable disease, with no cure.

“But, because I do not reach 30 per cent disability, I will not remain on work compensation for the remainder of my career.”

The impact of the herpes virus on Alison cannot be overstated. In her case, it resides in her palate and frequently causes multiple lesions.

Her condition still prevents her from returning to full-time duties. And, like Brett, she will no longer receive compensation from July 1, 2017.

“I’m very concerned about how I will deal with this financially,” she said.

“I’ve exhausted my sick leave for general sickness and care of a sick child, as I’ll exceed these allocated days per financial year within the first few months with illness from my infectious disease outbreaks.”

Alison’s story – and many others of police left in similar positions – will outrage all Police Association members.

Significantly, SAPOL classifies some members who suffer injuries at work as non-operational.

That is, they are not fit for operational duties owing to significant risk of frontline re-injury.

But the stark reality is that non-operational positions in SAPOL are limited.

While SAPOL attempts to find positions to accommodate injured officers’ restrictions, the new laws might make it more likely to terminate their employment on the basis of invalidity.

An officer’s income is determined by rank, which includes various allowances and penalties. When injured at work, the officer often receives income maintenance for considerable periods.

This is because he or she cannot return to an operational position that attracts the same allowances and penalties.

The legislation changes the well-accepted method of calculating compensation from weeks in which compensation was received, to calendar weeks.

So, the legislation will include weeks in which an injured officer is back at work earning a full wage – but perhaps with ongoing permanent restrictions – in the 104-week assessment.

This means police who make every effort to return to work quickly – but require future time off

after 104 weeks have elapsed – will receive no fur ther weekly compensation payments.

Clearly, they will be disadvantaged.

The government must recognize the crucial role that police play in the service of each South Australian citizen.

Society expects that a police officer will fearlessly pursue the critical job of public safety, by prioritizing the public well-being – and law enforcement generally – ahead of his or her own safety.

But inadequate workers compensation for injuries could change the police mentality forever – for the worse.

In November last year, The Advertiser reported that Deputy Premier and Industrial Relations Minister John Rau had said the association “did not have any reason to be concerned.”

These words will ring hollow with the public for years to come if the government refuses to accept the need for police-specific amendments to the legislation.

And members of that public will rail against any return-to-work laws that short-change brave police officers like Brett Gibbons and Alison Coad.

We have seen this kind of injustice spark the public ire time and time again.

The government must recognize the crucial role that police play in the service of each South Australian citizen.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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NOT GUILTY: THE HOY CASE The prosecution of Norman Hoy came as the worst injustice some had seen inflicted on a cop in decades. Yet those who pursued him still refuse to make any admission of error.

By Brett Williams

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DISTRICT Court judge Paul Rice called for the jury to re-enter the

courtroom. He understood the four men and eight women had reached a verdict – after only 75 minutes’ deliberation. But it was, after all, the doomed-to-failure aggravated assault case against wrongly prosecuted police officer Norman Hoy. He now sat in the dock behind its standard Perspex partition, humiliatingly flanked by two uniformed Sheriff’s officers. Sweating and nervous, he watched on as the jury members filed back into the packed courtroom and took their seats.

His wife, Debbie, and sister, Lizzy, felt equally tense in the public gallery. There they sat among other anxious Hoy supporters, such as Police Association president Mark Carroll and secretary Tom Scheffler.

Absent from the room was the alleged assault victim, multi-millionaire businessman and lawyer Yasser Shahin.

Amid the palpable anticipation, Judge Rice asked if the members of the jury had indeed reached a verdict. They had, and the jury foreperson announced it. Not guilty!

After four years of uncertainty, and seven days as a defendant in the District Court, Hoy stood momentarily stunned. Judge Rice asked him to step out of the dock and into the body of the court and remain for a moment longer.

One of the Sheriff’s officers opened the dock gate. Hoy, with almost every pair of eyes in the room fixed on him, stepped just outside the dock but no further.

He stood there clearly dazed, as if lost, and emotion started to overtake him. Tears welled in his eyes as he seemed to look for direction, at one point asking: “Where do I go now?”

“I’d lost it completely,” he says. “I didn’t know where (that emotion) came from but, obviously, it was the stress of the (previous four) years. I’d been bottling it up and keeping it inside me, and it was all finally released.”

Debbie Hoy, seeing her husband cry and flounder, rose from her public gallery seat and stepped straight toward him.

“He was so wired from the tension every single day,” she says. “You could see it. He was always rubbing his hands and blowing on them.

“I’ve never seen him that nervous in 30 years of marriage. I’ve never seen him get like that and it actually worried me because you can only take so much.”

Debbie took his arm and led him back to the gallery to sit with her. Both then listened as Paul Rice, a judge with 15 years on the bench, delivered a rare, stinging rebuke of the decision to prosecute Hoy. He proclaimed his total agreement with the jury verdict and insisted that it was never in the public interest to pursue the assault charge against Hoy in court.

“Merely because someone said something happened in a particular way is not sufficient reason for it to proceed if there is no reasonable prospect of conviction,” he said. “And that’s certainly my view.”

Indeed, Judge Rice specifically asked prosecution barrister Nick Healy to report his (Rice’s) view back to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The judge seemed of the view that the director, Adam Kimber SC, had erred by allowing the Hoy prosecution to proceed.

With proceedings wound up after the Rice remarks Hoy joined his legal team, led by prominent barrister Marie Shaw QC, for a brief conversation.

“They said: ‘We’ve never heard a senior judge say that in an open court before,’ ” he recalls.

“It was affirmation of what I’d believed right from day one, and even when I was handed the complaint form, that I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

Later that Friday afternoon, last January, the Hoys arrived as planned at the Police Association, where Mark Carroll was to front a press conference on their behalf.

Although pleased with the Hoy acquittal, his displeasure with the prosecution was evident in his opening statement to journalists assembled in the association boardroom.

“To see him (Hoy) … suffer the indignity of sitting in the dock of the District Court, ‘guarded’ by a Sheriff’s officer, was outrageous,” he said.

“It was affirmation of what I’d believed right from day one … that I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

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Left: Norman and Debbie Hoy leave the District Court after the jury’s not-guilty verdict (image: Tait Schmaal, courtesy Newspix) Above: Adam Kimber SC leaving court (image: Greg Higgs, courtesy Newspix)

“If this is what we, as a society, think is an appropriate way to treat police officers, who put themselves at risk every day to protect us, something is seriously wrong.

“I think we all would have expected a more reasoned approach to the … allegations against Norman.”

Carroll explained that, two years earlier, Kimber had rejected a clearly reasoned call by the Police Association to discontinue the prosecution.

“The most thorough scrutiny must be applied to the actions of every person involved in the decision to prosecute Norman Hoy,” he insisted. “The costs associated with this trial have run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

And the Police Association view was that Kimber could have spared the union, and the taxpayer, that needless expenditure had he simply seen the futility of prosecuting Hoy. To other observers, in policing and the law, it was as obvious as it came to be at trial.

THE

evidence given at trial indicated that the circumstances of the alleged assault on Shahin were particularly uncomplicated. Hoy and Alex Wasley, then a probationary constable, were driving through the Adelaide CBD in a marked police car on a Saturday morning in September 2010.

They turned onto Grenfell St and spotted a 2008 Rolls-Royce with extremely dark tint on its windows. Hoy acted on his observation, just as his job as a traffic cop demanded of him. He signalled the driver of the Rolls to pull over.

After both cars had stopped, Shahin stepped out of the $1 million black Rolls, in which his wife and mother stayed put. He walked straight toward the police car, from which Hoy emerged a moment later.

Hoy greeted Shahin, whom he did not recognize as the wealthy Peregrine Corporation boss and owner of the On the Run fuel chain, Smoke Mart and SA Krispy Kreme stores.

He asked to see his driver’s licence but, before Shahin complied, he asked: “Why are you pulling me over, first?” and later called the officer a smart-arse.

Undeterred by the gibe, Hoy explained that the Rolls’ window tint looked way too dark and JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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that he intended to test it for light penetration.

“Well,” Shahin said, “the car hasn’t been tinted…”

But, with a tint meter, Hoy found the level to be 14 per cent on the front side windows. And Wasley got a reading of 7 per cent on the rear side windows.

These levels were well short of the minimum of 35 per cent. So Hoy informed Shahin that he (Hoy) would have to apply a defect notice to the car.

“It’ll have to go to Regency (Park) to be cleared,” Hoy explained.

Shahin responded: “I know how it works, man.

Don’t waste my time. Just hurry up.”

During the continuing exchange, Shahin asked Hoy for his ID number and announced that he was going to get back into his Rolls. Hoy warned him not to, but Shahin said he wanted to retrieve his voice recorder and use it to “record you”.

After another warning from Hoy not to re-enter the Rolls, Shahin remarked: “The police minister and I will have a chat tomorrow.”

Further into the conversation, Hoy directed Shahin to submit his car “forthwith for inspection” and to hand over his keys for that purpose. But it emerged that the keys were in the ignition, and Hoy remained minded to keep Shahin from re-entering the Rolls.

“I really just thought it would get to IIB and that would be the end of it once they heard my audio recording.”

Still, a defiant Shahin moved to get back into the car and fetch the keys himself.

To Hoy, and likely any front-line copper, that move presented an unacceptable risk.

“Because,” he says, “I didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’t know what or who was in the car. He could have driven off.

“I’ve seen a copper put his hand into a car at an RBT site and say: ‘Please blow into this,’ and some guy take to him with a pair of scissors.”

So, mindful of his operational safety, Hoy placed his palm around Shahin’s left bicep and “really just stopped him moving forward” (into the Rolls).

Shahin, speaking into his voice recorder, responded: “Just being pushed around by this police officer.” He also said of Hoy: “He just grabbed my shirt.”

Ultimately, Hoy found that he was unable to extract the keys from the ignition himself and so gave Shahin the okay to retrieve them – from outside the car.

Hoy then undertook a full inspection of the Rolls, found no other faults with it, and moved to the southern Grenfell St footpath. There, he began writing out a defect notice for the illegal tinting and wound up with Shahin “right in my face”, about 30cm away.

Hoy had to raise his hand, place it against Shahin’s chest, and regain his personal space.

“I want you at least one arm’s length away from me,” he told Shahin.

Then, after writing up the notice, he tried to explain to Shahin what the law required of him as the owner of a car under defect.

The last part of that explanation was about the illegality of interfering with a defect label. After Hoy asked Shahin if he had understood it, Shahin responded with: “I don’t have to answer your questions. I’ve heard you. That’s all I have to do.”

When the interaction was over, Shahin moved

to re-enter his Rolls. His five parting words to Hoy were: “We’re going to meet again.”

Indeed, throughout the 12-minute traffic stop, Shahin had boasted that he was a lawyer who knew more than the police. His conduct, naturally enough, left Hoy thinking of him as a man who considered himself superior.

“I got the impression,” he says, “that this guy felt: ‘You’ve got no right to stop me and so, therefore, you’ve got no right to even talk to me.’ “(It was as if) I didn’t have the right standing in society to speak to him.

Everything was going to go his way or it didn’t go at all.”

Unknown to Shahin, however, was that Hoy had himself audio-recorded the entire Grenfell St exchange.

“But,” Hoy says, “this man left me under no illusions that he was a big fish in this pond in Adelaide.

“I expected him to wield an awful lot of influence. He threatened me with the minister for police. So the impression I got was that he knew all the big hitters in town.

“However, I didn’t think it’d go beyond a police complaint being investigated.

I really just thought it would get to IIB and that would be the end of it once they heard my audio recording.”

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WITHIN

days, Shahin had complained to an assistant police commissioner, in person, and other senior police. He also engaged highprofile barrister Michael Abbott QC to deal with the lodgement of a complaint with the Police Complaints Authority.

And, fewer than two months later, Hoy wound up in a disciplinary interview with SAPOL chief inspector (now superintendent) Kym Thomas. For 43 minutes, he endured 122 questions –all of which he answered under compulsion – about his interaction with Shahin.

Still, Hoy emerged from the interview unconcerned and “just moved on”. “I’d essentially dismissed it as another police complaint that had been looked at, handled, and done away with,” he remembers.

But nine months later, in August 2011, SAPOL superintendent Anthony Fioravanti handed Hoy a summons. Taken by complete surprise, Hoy read the official document and found that he was now facing a charge of aggravated assault on Shahin.

“I just went: ‘Oh f--k!’ and I had to sit down,” he recalls. “I was in shock. It was like I’d been hit with a baseball bat. And, then, to see that it was aggravated assault.”

Norman Hoy

Hoy knew that a guilty verdict on that charge would mean the loss of his job and the possibility of jail time.

With him when he received his summons was his sergeant, Bruce Hartley. He and Fioravanti encouraged their deeply shocked colleague to stay calm and immediately contact the Police Association for help.

Indeed, Hartley drove him straight into the association’s Carrington St offices, where union officials wound up aghast at the decision to charge Hoy – with any offence.

Says association president Mark Carroll: “We found it extremely hard to understand how anyone could have categorized the interaction between Hoy and Shahin as a form of aggravated assault. So we couldn’t understand it when Norman was first charged.

“It was obvious that there were other more appropriate avenues, such as the Police Disciplinary Tribunal, for dealing with the allegations.”

Indeed, Carroll wrote to Kimber along precisely those lines in 2012.

In his letter, he raised the concern the Police Association held about whether prosecuting Hoy was in the public interest.

He also pointed to the PDT as the most appropriate alternative forum to a courtroom. And, two-and-a-bit years later, he would be vindicated in that assessment.

Hoy, although on duty that Friday, took the rest of the day and weekend off with stress. “My whole values system had been destroyed,” he laments.

“My whole life had always been built on doing the right thing.

“I brought the kids up the same way. I’d always tried to live like that; and, then (with the assault charge), I just felt as though I’d let everybody down.

I was gutted.”

Hoy concedes that, over that weekend, he offloaded much of his stress onto his wife, Debbie,

and continually played the recording of his conversation with Shahin.

“I couldn’t for the life of me see where I’d done anything wrong,” he says. “All I had done was take hold of his arm to stop him getting in the car. There wasn’t a struggle.

“It was no different from me standing alongside someone who goes to step off the footpath and there’s a car that’s going to run the red light. You just put your hand out and say: ‘Look out!’ Well, it wasn’t even that, and there I was charged with aggravated assault.”

And, to exacerbate the strain on Hoy and his family, that charge would hang over his head for another three-and-a-half years. Among other delays, his District Court trial would be scheduled and rescheduled four times.

Hoy even had to live under court-imposed bail conditions, which prevented him from leaving the state.

“What was hanging over my head all that time was I could lose my job,” he says. “So we suspended everything. There was no spending of money or anything.”

The Hoys had a marriage too strong to buckle under pressure but their home life did come to suffer tension.

So, both tried desperately to compartmentalize the whole distressing assault-charge issue in their minds.

But Hoy would drag it out of his self-created compartment weeks before each time the court rescheduled the trial.

“That’s when I would start to go quiet,” he recalls, “and Debbie would say: ‘You’ve got to talk about this.’

She’d try to get me to relax but I couldn’t.

“I’d get to work and people knew that I wasn’t my normal, easy-going, happy self, so it affected everybody around me. There was a lot of emotional stress.”

“I was in shock. It was like I’d been hit with a baseball bat. And, then, to see that it was aggravated assault.”

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Debbie, a nurse, watched her husband for signs of depression. “I wanted to make sure that that wasn’t going to happen,” she says. “Or, if it was, that I could get it before it got him.”

Hoy suffered physically, too, with sleeplessness and fluctuating bodyweight. And, the third time the trial failed to go ahead, in May 2014, he found the stress overwhelming.

“It had worn me down,” he says. “That strength of putting it away in my mind and closing the door was not as great.

“I went and saw the (police) psych on three occasions, just to get some help to handle it and continue on with daily living. That helped me put things away (in my mind) and built my strength up again.”

Hoy also had the strong support of his family and colleagues and the full backing of the Police Association, which funded his legal defence.

Says Mark Carroll: “We weren’t able to get Adam Kimber to discontinue the prosecution, so we had to do whatever we possibly could to assist in Norman’s defence.

“This was critical, and not just for Norman but for all police. A guilty verdict would have come with serious implications for the way in which police interact with the public.”

HOY, despite struggling to be his

“normal, happy self” on duty, somehow found the strength to stay as committed as ever to his work. On an August afternoon in 2014, he responded to a fatal truck rollover on the South Eastern Freeway.

He and his partner were first to arrive on the scene, where Jacqueline Byrne, 41, was trapped in her crushed Toyota. She appeared to Hoy to have died but, after she suddenly moaned, he realized she had survived.

He climbed into her car through its rear window but could get no closer to her than arm’s length.

“But,” he says, “I got my hand in and touched her face and I could feel blood. I could feel the carotid artery, too, and she was still alive, so I remained in there with her.

“Then I crawled out and said to an ambo and a firey: ‘She’s not dead! She’s alive!’

Then I climbed back in and remained with her until they cut her out and med staff worked on her. After that, I went with her to the hospital but she died.”

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Back on the freeway three weeks later, Hoy rightly earned hero status after he and his partner prevented another crash, and likely more deaths.

They had spotted an out-of-control laden semitrailer with smoke billowing from its wheels as it headed toward the city in late-morning traffic. The officers, heading in the opposite direction, turned and went after it.

They called for fixed green traffic lights at the bottom of the freeway as they escorted the semi for several kilometres. Their actions enabled it to stop safely on Glen Osmond Road, with harm done to no one.

But Hoy was still to face his District Court trial, which got under way four months later, in January 2015. And, as expected, it drew strong interest from the media.

The Hoys became the centre of public attention neither of them ever wanted, as reporters, photographers and cameramen tracked their daily movements in and out of the court building.

“The cameras were very confronting,” Debbie says. “That in-your-face aspect of it just added to all the stress. I understand that they had to do that for their papers and for television – it’s their job. But it was awful.”

Far left: Marie Shaw QC, who led the defence team (image: Greg Higgs, courtesy Newspix) Left: Yasser Shahin (image: Roger Wyman, courtesy Newspix)

“Have you got a person who is a reliable witness?”

And no easier for Debbie to bear, once inside the courtroom, was the sight of her husband in the dock behind the Perspex partition. “Seeing him in that box like a criminal really upset me because he’s not a criminal,” she says.

“He didn’t do anything criminally, and it never should have gotten to the point where he had to sit in (the dock).”

Still, Debbie turned up to court every day in support of her husband and listened to the hours of testimony. And she and other observers came to hear of telling inconsistencies when Marie Shaw compared the direct evidence of Shahin with his earlier police statements.

In them, Shahin had indicated that Hoy gave him no reason for either the traffic stop or the demand to hand over his keys. But, on the recording, Hoy was clearly audible explaining himself on both counts.

Judge Paul Rice, in his summation to the jur y, addressed another inconsistency. “Mr Shahin … claims he was the one making the initial greeting, as if to suggest he was being friendly, co-operative and, maybe, accepting of the situation...” he said.

“The audio shows that it was Mr H oy who gave the initial greeting.”

A l s o i n c o n s i s te nt wa s th e claim Shahin made of threats to arrest him three times during the traffic stop. Again, the recording showed that Hoy had never made any such threats.

Ultimately, Judge Rice posed two questions to the jury. “Have you got a person who is a reliable witness?” he asked. “Has the witness been shown to have been giving statements that he must have known were false?”

Judge Rice went on to address the jury on the legitimacy of the traffic stop under the Road Traffic Act. “Mr Hoy was quite properly using his powers … to stop, examine and defect this Rolls Royce…” he said.

“And quite how Mr Shahin could assert that there was no tint you might well wonder…”

But, of course, the crux of the case was the Shahin allegation of assault, which Judge Rice addressed with directions he gave the jury later in his summation.

He indicated that Hoy had had the lawful authority to “restrain someone” whom he genuinely believed was trying to “prevent him from performing his functions”.

Of course, the DPP-briefed prosecutor, Nick Healy, tried to portray Hoy as an officious cop enacting a power play.

Whether he succeeded in that attempt or not, he failed to make the jury believe Hoy had committed aggravated assault. Its not-guilty verdict was unanimous.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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UNDER CROSS-EXAMINATION Marie Shaw: You appreciate don’t you, now, in hindsight, that if you had added an explanation…

Yasser Shahin: No, I don’t appreciate.

Shaw: I haven’t finished my question.

Shahin: Don’t need to, I know where you are going.

Shaw: The whole episode only took 12 minutes, didn’t it?

Shahin: That’s quite a while.

Shaw: I appreciate that but…

Shahin: You can call it fast-moving.

I won’t call it fast-moving. How about that?

Shaw: My point is…

Shahin: I’d love to hear your point.

Judge Rice: Mr Shahin.

Shahin: I’m sorry. I’m tired.

Shaw: Were you listening to what he was saying at the time?

Shahin: I ignore that. I was obviously present so I will ignore that condescending question.

Shaw: At no time did I intend to be condescending.

Shahin: “Were you listening” is a condescending question.

Judge Rice: Please listen to the question.

Shahin: Sure.

Shaw: Were you listening to what Mr Hoy was saying to you?

Shahin: I’m not deaf and I was present so it is a condescending question that deserves that answer.

Shaw: You agree it might have been?

Shahin: Boy, you obviously want to be here all day. I will agree with you.

Shaw: It’s a serious matter.

Shahin: Get to the serious subject.

AFTER

Norman Hoy leaves court with Police Association president Mark Carroll (image: Campbell Brodie, courtesy Newspix)

“Any police officer would be rightly concerned by the supply of his or her police-complaint history file to other complainants.”

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

18

the post-trial press conference in the Police Association boardroom, it emerged that The Advertiser had obtained – and intended to publish – confidential details of previous complaints against Hoy. Lawyers representing him held concerns about how The Advertiser acquired the information. The reporter concerned would not reveal his source but insisted it was not Shahin.

So Hoy’s lawyers took out an injunction which prevented The Advertiser from publishing the complaint details.

Established the next week, however, was that the Police Complaints Authority had released the information to a Hoy detractor and former complainant.

The District Court then lifted the injunction without opposition from the lawyers, and the newspaper reported on Hoy’s complaints history.

So, too, did a TV network, which broadcast comments from disgruntled traffic offenders Hoy had fined.

Says Mark Carroll: “Any police officer would be rightly concerned by the supply of his or her police-complaint history file to other complainants.

And that appeared to happen in the Hoy case.

“The release of his record, to a complainant who had nothing to do with any other complaint against Norman, is intensely troubling. Norman’s lawyers are following up on it and we’ve raised the issue with the attorney-general.”

Still, the publication of the complaints “devastated” Hoy. “Because,” he says, “I always thought that was private, between me and my employer.

“From the newspaper and TV reports, people only know about my record according to a certain perspective. There was nothing in context. Therefore, you can form the wrong opinion as to (the truth of) my record.”

To some reports that cast Hoy as arrogant and overbearing, Debbie felt desperate to respond.

“I wanted to say: ‘Look, you don’t know him,’ ” she says. “And they still don’t know him.

“He’s not a mean person. He’s not a standover kind of guy like they portrayed him. He’s very loyal, kind and considerate.”

Public debate about the Hoy case continued after the acquittal; and the Police Association

remained wholly dissatisfied with the treatment of one of its members.

“The prosecution of Norman Hoy was one of the most unjust actions I’ve seen in my 23 years with the Police Association,” Mark Carroll says.

“Of the greatest concern is that Adam Kimber believed that proceeding with the Hoy prosecution was appropriate.

“Well, it wasn’t according to many others.

And this inability to accept that perhaps you erred should concern all police.

“For our delegates - who have formally condemned the prosecution – this injustice will remain etched in their memories. They, and the broader police community, see the needless stress the DPP decision inflicted on Norman and his family as unforgiveable.”

After he had initially chosen not to account publicly for the failed prosecution, Kimber eventually issued a media statement. In it, he indicated that earlier police complaints against Hoy had formed part of the basis for his decision to prosecute.

Says Carroll: “We were, and still are, concerned that that could actually be a relevant matter to take into account for a criminal prosecution.”

That concern led the Police Association to seek an opinion on the Kimber decision from eminent QC and former New South Wales DPP Nicholas Cowdery.

He concluded that it was “not appropriate” for the DPP to use Hoy’s disciplinary history in the manner he did “when assessing whether he (Hoy) should be prosecuted”.

And, on the likelihood of a prosecution victory, Cowdery wrote that “there should not have been found to have been a reasonable prospect of conviction.”

Carroll insists that, based on commentary attributed to Kimber since the Hoy acquittal, the Police Association has lost confidence in him as DPP. “And,” he says, “our members are still rightly incensed about the prosecution.”

Norman and Debbie Hoy

NOW,

for Hoy, the aim is to make an emotional recovery and get back to front-line traffic policing. Although five months have passed since his acquittal, the events of the past four-and-a-half years continue to impact on him.

“Sometimes, at night or in quiet moments, it still upsets me,” he says, as tears well in his eyes.

“It will tend to keep me awake in the early hours of the morning. I can’t get to sleep and I just think: ‘Why?’ It’s still very raw.

“It’s not an everyday conversation at home. We don’t want to live it. We just want to get over it and just do what we were doing before. But it’s very hard to get back to where we were before.

“I want to see the process fixed that got me (charged and prosecuted). It is so broken and flawed that it’s unfair. I don’t know how it can be allowed to continue.”

Mark Carroll, too, laments the way in which the police complaints and public prosecution systems dealt with the allegation against Hoy. “None of this is about Yasser Shahin and his complaint, which he has the right to make just as anyone else does,” Carroll stresses.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

19

“This is about systems and processes letting down an individual and, by extension, the community.

I would refer again to the opinion Nicholas Cowdery provided.”

Throughout his ordeal, Hoy never lacked supporters. He continues to acknowledge Debbie and their three children, his colleagues at Eastern Adelaide LSA, and cops generally.

“I had coppers who have been in the job for 40 years putting their careers on the line to fight for me,” he says. “It was pretty humbling.”

And Hoy credits the Police Association with sparing him bankruptcy and supporting him on every front. “Mark Carroll has been the backbone of that,” he says.

“He would go to court with me; he would ring and talk to me about what was happening. He would say: ‘I’m going to be there and we’re going to see this through.’ ” Although Hoy was approaching 60 in the years leading up to his trial, he never once considered walking away from police work. His heart remained in serving the community as a traffic cop, just as he had so gallantly on the freeway in 2014.

“I became a copper because I wanted to,” he says, “and I still only want to be a copper.”

Left: Norman Hoy (front left) celebrates with his coursemates at the end of their graduation parade in 2006 Above: Hoy chats to coursemates after the graduation

Long road to the Hoy police career

NORMAN

Hoy had wanted to be a police officer ever since his childhood but never joined SAPOL until he was 50. More than 30 years earlier he had signed on with the Royal Australian Air Force and wound up studying communications and electronics over four years at RMIT. That start to his working life was to set him up for lucrative jobs in the fields of instrument and design engineering in Australia and abroad. And, in those roles, he would confer with CEOs of multinational companies and IT department heads and engineers.

But his first post, after graduating from RMIT, was the RAAF Aircraft Research and Development Unit in Laverton, Victoria. After six months there, he transferred to 11 Squadron at the Edinburgh RAAF base in SA, where he worked with P3B Orions.

Hoy left the air force after nine years’ service and, in 1981, scored a job as an engineer with US company Texas Instruments at Elizabeth.

“To get to know how their networks and systems worked I got sent out into the Cooper Basin because they had some exploration crews up there,” he says.

“Then I moved up into field service and eventually went to Dallas, Texas, where I did some work in R&D.” Hoy was by then a father to two young boys whose mother he had separated from in 1981. While in Texas, he met Debbie, a native of California and the daughter of a US marine. She, too, was a divorcee and had a daughter, who she brought to Australia with Hoy in 1985.

The couple married in May that year and Hoy formally adopted Debbie’s daughter in 1986.

In 1994, Hoy left Texas Instruments to work for a subsidiary of MCI Worldcom as a design engineer for the global internet. He eventually became engineering JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

20

manager with responsibility in countries from Japan to India and south to Australia and New Zealand.

He also worked on the design of various protocols used on the internet for communication.

But, in 2005, Hoy left MCI Worldcom to realize that childhood ambition to be a police officer.

“Electronics was a blast,” he says. “I got paid for doing my hobby, and paid well, and travelled the world.

“When Debbie and I got to that decision to become a copper, I said to her: ‘We’ve got to learn to live off this amount of money,’ because it was a huge salary cut. But we were happy to do it, and that’s when I decided to take the step.”

The opportunity for community involvement was what drew Hoy to police work. He had already served with Surf Lifesaving Australia, training nippers and as a committee member. Hoy had also held administrative positions with two cycling bodies.

British-born, he had come to Australia as a fouryear-old with his now late parents and two of his three sisters. Their first home was the Pennington Hostel.

They lived there for a year, until Hoy senior scored a job with the Department of Works in Woomera.

He then moved the family to Port Pirie and, later, Woomera, where Hoy attended the local area school.

Hoy kicked off his police training at Fort Largs with Course 72, graduated in February 2006 and, in late 2007, finally became a traffic cop.

The role meant much to him owing to a strong interest he had always had in road safety. “When someone dies on the road it’s tragic for the immediate family,” he says. “Every day they’re reminded of that.

“If I can, in my small way, influence that and somehow reduce the road toll and serious injury, I’m happy. That’s why I became a copper.” PJ

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Vehicles and colours shown are correct at time of print.

Gunned down‌

Brett Gibbons survived horrific injuries he copped from a shotgun blast in the line of duty. But has he, in the four years since then, been able to regain a normal life?

and still a police officer BRETT

By Brett Williams

Gibbons needs no reminding of the April morning a psychotic Donato Corbo shot him in the face at a Hectorville murder scene in 2011. Every day he sees the obvious scar below his right cheek, and damaged nerves leave his right arm always feeling “a bit stiff”.

“It (the arm) takes a little while to get going, and the blood flow is not great,” he explains. “It’s almost a numbness, and it can build up to being quite painful at times.

“And there are still pieces of shrapnel lodged in my jaw, and that causes me problems from time to time. Occasionally I’ll get an episode where it’s worse than normal.”

Of course, Gibbons, 35, never asked for these permanent reminders of the shotgun blast which might have killed him. But there was one he actually chose, just two months ago.

Against his chest now rests a handmade white gold ring hanging on a silver chain around his neck.

Embedded on the inside of it is a tiny piece of shrapnel from his jaw. He could wear the intensely meaningful item on one of his fingers but prefers it as a necklace.

“I will always know where the bullet with my name on it is,” he says. “I guess it’s a memento for me that reminds me of the shooting – when I want to think about it.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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“I actually picked the ring up on the fourth anniversary of the shooting before going out to dinner with some friends who were heavily involved in my recovery. And they’ve been there for me ever since.”

Gibbons first told the Police Journal his chilling story back in 2012 (Shotgun slaughter – the survivors) little more than a year after the shooting. He and his then-patrol partner, Travis Emms, had responded to the Hectorville triple murder in a home on Montacute Road.

The two cops entered the blood-spattered house around 2:30am when they found Luc Mombers shot dead on the master bedroom floor. Near him, and close to death, also on the floor, was Mombers’ badly wounded teenaged son, Marcel.

Gibbons and Emms were just about to carry Marcel out of the house to safety when next-door neighbour Corbo appeared with a shotgun. The paranoid schizophrenic had emerged from the kitchen and fired at Gibbons from point-blank range.

The blast had come from just beneath his (Gibbons’) chin and ripped open the right side of his face – all the way from lower jaw to upper cheek.

His blue short-sleeved uniform shirt turned bright red with blood, which gushed out of the gaping wound and down his neck and torso.

And his teeth, facial tissue and now broken jaw bone lay bare, as his knees bent involuntarily and his body collapsed down into a crouch.

Top left: The view into the master bedroom from the hallway and the smashed front door to the left Left: the smashed front door Above: The Corbo house (left) next door to the Mombers house

The intense heat of the muzzle flash from the blast had overwhelmed Gibbons, too. “Because it was so close to my face,” he told the Police Journal in 2012.

“It was like having something (of your body) on fire.

“And then the pellets came straight after that and shattered their way up into my face, and then there was this burst of pressure on my jaw. Everything just went dead quiet and there was just this darkness and pain.

“The pain started behind my eyes and everything went black. No sight or hearing whatsoever. It was just me and the pain. There was nothing else in the world for me for that couple of seconds.”

As the bodies of two other murder victims lay in another room, Gibbons smashed the glass out of one of two front doors and made his escape out to the street. From there, he walked down to the nearest side street, five house blocks away, as blood continued to gush from his face.

Back-up patrols arrived seconds later and thought, from what they saw of Gibbons, that he “wasn’t going to make it”.

“He’d bled so much onto his chest that we assumed he’d been shot twice,” then-patrol officer Lauren McSorley said. “It was a horrendous amount of blood, and I couldn’t think how he was ever going to go home alive.

“You could see his jaw was exposed. It just looked like it had been blown apart and he was so disfigured.”

Another back-up officer, Kerrie Walker-Roberts, responded with equal disbelief. “I could see the side of his neck pulsating,” she said.

“You could see his jaw, his teeth and tongue, and I actually saw part of the top of his cheek bone and all his facial muscles.”

Walker-Roberts would ultimately describe his face as “partly gone”.

Later, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Gibbons underwent surgery, during which surgeons removed several pieces of shrapnel from his face.

Apart from his broken jaw, lacerated face and a cut arm, he had sustained a serious gash to his leg.

The surgeons pinned his jaw bone and stitched his face back together and Gibbons spent the next week in an induced coma in the ICU. In that time, he suffered muscle atrophy and lost 16kg.

He ended up in hospital for a month and had to undertake physiotherapy to be able to walk again.

“… I couldn’t think how he was ever going to go home alive.”

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

24

AND,

in the past three years, Gibbons has had to undergo four more operations. Two involved further repairs to his jaw and teeth, three of which he has lost. One of the other two operations – aimed at addressing his scar tissue – left him laid up for five months.

The surgery involved a process known as skin expansion and, to carry it out, surgeons implanted a balloon in his neck.

As they gradually expanded it over the following three months, it grew extra skin for use in grafting over the scar.

And still more surgery is to come.

Gibbons will undergo bleaching to fade the scar further, and surgeons will also perform restorative work on his mouth.

“But,” he says, “there’s always going be a scar there. That’s just something I’ve had to accept and make part of my life.”

And Gibbons has had a penetrating answer when asked why he does not wear his police bravery medal at work.

“I’ll tell them I do wear my medal at work,” he says, pointing at his scar. “This is the medal I got that night. When I see it in the mirror I think: ‘Well, I’m wearing my medal.’ ” Of course, his hospital stays and postop recoveries have kept Gibbons away

from front-line police work for long periods. And that challenge has, for him, been far tougher than his bodily aches and pains and ongoing surgery.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is go back to being a police officer,” he says. “That’s what I signed up for, so it’s always been tough to be put on office duties to ease me back in after a particularly difficult recovery.”

But Gibbons has had stints back on the front line, out of Hindley St and Norwood police stations.

He has also performed station duties and worked for 12 months as a prosecutor but is now based at the City Watch House.

After the full story of his near death came out in the Police Journal three years ago, Gibbons found himself the recipient of some touching recognition.

In one case it came at Fort Largs, where he worked back then.

“It was a senior sergeant and she didn’t say a word,” he says. “She just walked up to me, picked me up off the floor, gave me a great big bear hug and said: ‘I think you know what that’s for.’ And then she walked away.”

In another case, an academy student drew Gibbons aside to say just how much she appreciated his story, his actions and his willingness to talk about the shooting.

“I had a lot of positive response from other police, too,” he says. “They’ve been very supportive; and a lot of them read the article and had questions, and I was always happy to chat to them.

“I guess for them it was a case of: ‘Had things been different, that might have been any one of us.’ ” A reprint of Shotgun slaughter in The Advertiser brought Gibbons unexpected recognition from members of the public. Whether he was sitting in a food court or out in a local dog park, strangers approached him – and still do – with their well wishes.

That made the humble Gibbons feel, at times, “a little awkward”. “They’d walk up to me, grab my hand, introduce themselves and thank me,” he says.

“A lot of them just said: ‘Thank you for doing what you did,’ or ‘Thank you for doing what you still do.’

I never knew what to say to them because, for me, I went to a job and I did my job. That’s just it for me.

“But I actually had one person say: ‘Don’t you dare say that was just your job.’ I think if I was still capable of blushing, I probably would.”

Although every detail of the shooting still remains crystal clear in his mind, Gibbons can now

Brett Gibbons

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is go back to being a police officer.” go for days without thinking about or visualizing what happened to him. What takes him back to the horror of Hectorville is the “little jolt” with which an ache or pain resurfaces.

And when he does go back in his mind to his near death, he focuses mostly on the moment immediately after Corbo shot him.

“There was just that darkness,” he says. “There was nothing for a couple of seconds and I can call that nothing up in my mind. In some ways, it’s a very calming feeling to just reflect on that nothingness.

“I was alone with myself for those few seconds and absolutely nothing else, and that was a very powerful moment for me. I bring it up a lot when something’s bothering me. It’s a very calming, tranquil place to go.

“When I try to explain it I get a few raised eyebrows. People ask: ‘How can that work?’ I don’t have an answer.”

Others might also struggle to understand that Gibbons never wants to lose his memory of the shooting. He hopes it remains firmly in his mind well into his dotage.

Today, he considers it wrong to describe him as “over it”. More apt in his judgement is that he has “accepted it”.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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“There’s no hiding from it,” he says. “I don’t feel like there’s any reason to shy away from what happened. I think with these sorts of things you incorporate them into the story of your life.”

Gibbons even prefers conversation-makers to call his misfortune what it was – a shooting, not an incident.

But he rejects any credit he ever receives for standing up to the challenge of his years-long – and ongoing – recovery. While others might marvel at his comeback, he refuses to attribute it to the strength of his character.

“It’s been because I’ve had support,” he insists.

“I’ve had people there to give me the coping mechanisms. There’s always been someone there during the rollercoaster parts of it.

“I’ve had support from my workmates and my friends and family. Between them all, there’s always been someone there to help me through. It’s nothing to do with me – it’s everyone else.”

Gibbons also speaks of his partner, Dee, as a “rock of support” to him. Their nurse-cop relationship began 18 months ago.

“She’s been there for me through ups and downs and never once batted an eyelid,” he says. “She’s just the most wonderful, accepting person. I’m really privileged to have her.”

Continued page 34

LETTERS

CIB reunion on again The annual CIB reunion for 2015 will be held at the Police Club from 2pm to 6pm on Monday, September 21.

Any former or retired detectives – or serving detectives on the verge of retirement – are invited to attend this special event, established by Tom Jennings, Bob Lindner, Chris Chamberlain and the now late Merv Calliss.

A $10 fee is necessary to cover organizational costs.

As usual, invitations will be sent out via e-mail and the post to all current group members on our list.

Stories wanted There is an untold police story worth telling – the story of the role of women who, as the wives and partners of police officers, have supported SAPOL and the community.

After 36 years in this position, I have had many challenges and situations because of the job. The situations and responsibilities were somewhat unexpected, particularly when posted to country stations.

I am writing down many of the stories and, in doing so, my thoughts have gone to the many others who have shared entertaining stories over the years.

My stories range from answering telephones at all hours of the day, dealing with callers at the front door of the family home, tending injured wildlife in our shed to comforting

Of course, some members might have changed their home addresses or e-mail addresses and others might never have attended the reunion before.

So those who have new details and want to attend on September 21, or want to receive future mail-outs, should contact me by e-mail (grahamwp2@gmail.com) or phone (0417 881 745)

by September 14, 2015.

Alternatively, members can contact Bob Lindner (0417 083 001) or Chris Chamberlain (0419 865 966).

Graham Puckridge Detective Sergeant (ret)

a domestic-violence victim in my lounge room at 2am.

For some wives it also meant preparing meals for prisoners in the cells. There are also the heartrending situations.

Everyone’s story is part of South Australian police history and is worth sharing.

S o m e Po l i c e A s s o c i at i o n members might remember the Police Partners Association (1980s) and the work done to formally recognize the role women played in one-, two- and three-person stations, along with other significant recommendations to support police families.

Could I ask anyone who would like to share a story or put forward a view to contact me via e-mail (policewivesclub@gmail.com)?

I look forward to compiling a wide range of stories, people and photos.

Kindest regards Sharon Pippos

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CAN BE SENT BY: Regular mail Police Journal, PO Box 6032, Halifax St, Adelaide SA 5000 Email editor@pasa.asn.au Fax (08) 8212 2002 Internal dispatch Police Journal 168

Zahra Foundation A great new initiative happening in South Australia aims to support victims of domestic and Aboriginal family violence.

Zahra Foundation Australia has been established in memory of Zahra Abrahimzadeh who was killed at the Adelaide Convention Centre by her estranged husband in 2010.

The charity will support women by directly addressing the impacts of financial abuse and disadvantage.

We will do this through delivering education programmes that promote economic empowerment for women.

Zahra Foundation relies solely on individual donations and sponsorships from local and corporate business.

We will commence business officially in September with our launch at a dinner at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

We also plan to enter a team in the annual City to Bay Fun Run. So could I ask anyone thinking about running or walking for a charity this year to consider us and help us to support women and children?

Kind regards Kylie O’Callaghan www.zahrafoundation.org.au

26

Caroline’s legacy The police family has lost some inspirational women to cancer in the last few years, and everyone knows someone who is affected by the disease.

An article titled Support a Great Cause appeared on the SAPOL intranet homepage in February. It was about the Caroline Bristow Wig Library, which Caroline established before losing her own battle earlier this year.

She saw the benefit of wearing wigs and wanted everyone battling cancer to have this option, even though wigs are expensive. Some wonderful, big-hearted people are continuing Caroline’s legacy by keeping the wig library going.

They would love donations of money, wigs, wig stands, good-quality scarves, funky beanies, turbans, bandanas, hats and hair brushes.

Their Facebook page, Caroline Bristow Wig Library, has all the details.

If you have anything to donate, you can contact me to organize collection.

I didn’t know Sergeant Caroline Bristow but the Support a Great Cause article really resonated with me. My mum was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was at the police academy 28 years ago.

I remember going to buy a wig with her. It was completely unaffordable but she just wanted to look “normal” after chemo.

Although it wasn’t an easy road for her, she is one of the lucky ones who survived the cancer. I have assisted cancer charities ever since.

Julie Worthley 0418 810 129 julie.worthley@police.sa.gov.au jworthley@hotmail.com

Q&A

Should police retain the powers to investigate complaints against other police?

From top: Snr Sgt 1C David Racz, Sergeant Neville Dawkins and Senior Const William Fettes.

Snr Sgt 1C David Racz

Sergeant Neville Dawkins

Senior Const William Fettes

Crime Stoppers

South Coast CIB

Adelaide Police Station

Police, generally speaking, should retain powers to investigate complaints against other police.

But, there is, at some point in the offence continuum, a requirement for an autonomous and independent investigation. Some serious offences should not be investigated by police.

I’m not saying that police do not have the requisite experience and ability but, at some stage, the idea of independence needs to be considered.

However, even a good police officer can be complained about.

I’d expect that the majority of complaints are either trivial or unsubstantiated and should be discontinued at the earliest convenience.

It’s difficult for a police officer to investigate another and, dependant on relationships, maybe some should not investigate others.

Another investigative authority would require large budgets and might lack an understanding of policing – an understanding which is helpful for investigating the majority of complaints.

Yes. Police have the expertise to conduct a wide range of complex and protracted investigations including those into allegations of police misconduct and corruption.

SAPOL has consistently demonstrated a timely response to those issues and shown that it has the capacity, integrity and professionalism to conduct fair and impartial investigations into allegations against its members.

More than enough checks and balances exist within the current system and internal investigators undertake their duties expecting their investigations to be scrutinized by senior police management and external bodies such as the Police Ombudsman, the ICAC and the courts.

There will always be critics of police performing this role but the reality is that police presently undertake it professionally and with integrity so there is no valid or compelling case for change.

To remove this responsibility from police would likely undermine public trust and confidence in SAPOL.

I believe that this is more appropriate than the alternatives.

First, sworn officers, even those who haven’t been on the front line for many years, at least have an idea of what it’s like at the coalface.

To pass the function of investigating front-line police to people who, sitting in nice, comfortable surroundings, have never seen an angry man or drug-affected woman spitting, punching and biting, is the height of hypocrisy.

To devolve investigations involving such people to those with no experience of street life is hardly justice.

For more serious incidents, investigators at IIS are at least – if not more – experienced than those from outside SAPOL and are quite capable of investigating complex issues.

Second, the number of “get-back-at” or “getout-of” complaints swells every year and how one gets an impartial decision from people whose initial response is anti-police is beyond me.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

27

INDUSTRIAL Nick Damiani

Organizational reviews obstructing new enterprise agreement

ENTERPRISE

bargaining remains firmly on the Police Association agenda, as SAPOL organizational reviews – and the lack of a detailed vision – hold up negotiations.

And association delegates have roundly condemned the prosecution of Senior Constable Norman Hoy, passing three unanimous motions on union action in the process (Innocent: the Hoy case, Page 10).

President Mark Carroll covered these key issues and several others at a delegates meeting in the association’s Fenwick Function Centre last month.

ORGANIZATIONAL REVIEWS The Police Association has lodged a notification of industrial dispute with SAPOL over its planned organizational restructures, Mr Carroll told delegates.

Pursuant to clause 7.2 of the 2011 enterprise agreement, the association has requested that SAPOL cease progress of the proposed restructures until the matters of the dispute are resolved.

The association has written to Police Minister Tony Piccolo and is meeting SAPOL representatives in order to resolve as many aspects of this dispute as possible.

Earlier this year, the association commissioned the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre (University of Adelaide) to conduct a report into the SAPOL traffic review.

ENTERPRISE BARGAINING The association agreed to an interim pay increase of 2.5 per cent last year – with a new enterprise bargaining agreement yet to be finalized.

T his agreement included an improved superannuation outcome for members. Legislation will soon be passed to allow members the option of making pre-tax compulsory contributions, resulting in a net benefit of approximately 1 per cent.

Mr Carroll said the association was still engaged in high-level discussions with the SA government and SAPOL about a new enterprise agreement.

“Nobody knows what the future holds in relation to the organizational reviews, which adds to the delay, concern and frustration in negotiating an EA,” he explained.

THE HOY PROSECUTION

Delegates moved a unanimous motion to condemn the decision of DPP Adam Kimber to prosecute Senior Constable Norman Hoy. Two other motions they moved were to call on the government to: • Refund to the association and its members monies expended in defending Snr Const Hoy – who was acting in the execution of his duty.

• Cause a review of all the circumstances up to and including the prosecution of Snr Const Hoy. The Police Association issued a media release last month with advice from former New South Wales DPP Nicholas Cowdery QC, who said the “Nobody knows what the future holds in relation to prosecution of Snr Const Hoy did not use “proper the organizational reviews, which adds to the delay, application of the public concern and frustration in negotiating an EA.” interest test.”

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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ICAC – REVIEW OF POLICE COMPLAINTS SYSTEM The Police Disciplinary Tribunal should stay, and the Office for Public Integrity and the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption are too closely tied, Mr Carroll told delegates.

At a public hearing before Commissioner Bruce Lander in April, the association highlighted that the ICAC and the OPI effectively operated as a single entity when dealing with police complaints.

“The present legislative arrangements ... come with the potential to compromise both entities,” Mr Carroll told the hearing.

“We have suggested a new model based on a truly independent OPI. (It) could be the independent agency to receive and assess all complaints by the public.

“If that complaint were against a police officer, the OPI would assess it. If it related to corruption, criminality or serious and systemic misconduct it would be referred to the ICAC to investigate.

“If none of those elements existed, the matter would be referred to SAPOL to investigate.”

Mr Carroll also told delegates he disagreed with Commissioner Bruce Lander’s assessment that the PDT disadvantages police officers and, in his (Mr Lander’s) words, “treats disciplinary proceedings as if they were criminal proceedings”.

“Police want a system that is evidence-based,” Mr Carroll said.

“Unlike other members of the public, they are compelled to answer questions.

“There are great ramifications for any member found guilty of a complaint. We want to make sure the evidence is properly tested.”

Mr Carroll added that police officers had confidence in the current formal, adversarial nature of the PDT.

CURRENT INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES The association has 10 industrial disputes in progress.

Association assistant secretary Bernadette Zimmermann explained the process of lodging an industrial dispute.

“It doesn’t go straight to the Industrial Relations Commission,” she told delegates. “It’s a threestage process which involves all types of initial negotiations.

“By the time it gets to the point of lodging a dispute with the IRC, several conciliation attempts have usually failed.”

One such dispute is a part-time hours controversy that has been running for two years.

“It involved a member who was working parttime for eight years, and new management has told her she can no longer do that,” Ms Zimmermann told delegates.

“We also have five current working-from-home disputes.”

Ms Zimmermann also discussed the SAPOL annual-leave allocation policy, which stipulates only 12 per cent of the force can take annual leave in an 18-week period between November and March.

“Though this is not at the dispute stage, we’ve

written to SAPOL, querying how they arrived at that 12 per cent figure,” she said.

“It’s proving to be quite an unworkable policy and an imposition for some members, especially those with children who want to take time off in that period.

“We also want SAPOL to honour members’ existing leave applications for 2015-16. We’re hearing stories of members being pressured to change those pre-existing leave arrangements.”

MANDATORY BLOOD-TESTING Legislation which demands the mandatory blood testing of offenders for communicable diseases is currently in the Upper House of the SA parliament.

The association lobbied intensely for this legislation in recent years and Premier Jay Weatherill first announced its introduction at the 2013 annual delegates conference.

Mr Carroll told delegates the bill was currently in the Legislative Council.

“Amendments to the bill to include other workers have delayed its progress,” he said.

STRATEGIC PLAN, COMMITTEE TRAINING Avril Henry – an internationally acclaimed expert in human resources, finance, IT and organizational

leadership – addressed the delegates conference last year.

She is now set to assist the association with its next five-year strategic plan.

And association committee members will undergo training at the Australian Institute of Company Directors later this year.

PASAWEB AND APP DEVELOPMENT The association has sought IT and graphic design experts to provide advice on the possible development of a smartphone app for member use.

Also under the association’s consideration is the relaunch of PASAweb with updated design and functionality.

Go to PASAweb (pasa.asn.au) to view the: • Dispute notices and other documents in connection with the SAPOL organizational reviews.

• Advice from former New South Wales DPP Nicholas Cowdery QC on the Hoy case.

• Police Association’s full statement to the ICAC.

HEALTH Dr Rod Pearce

Lyme disease lurking in Australia?

Evidence suggests we cannot contract it here, but is that conclusive?

As well, some unaccredited laboratories do the test and thereby add to the confusion and of the existence – or non-existence – of Lyme disease suspicion about the illness in Australia.

So, when someone presents with Lyme diseasein Australia. The cause of the illness is the bite of a like illness, does the problem lie with the test, or is tick infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, of which Australia is free, according to officialdom. the patient not actually infected? Could he or she Indeed, the bacterium has never been identified have another infection with similar symptoms? in any tick in Australia, but some lab tests for Lyme In Australia the chief medical officer set up a disease have proved positive. clinical advisory committee on Lyme disease in The suggestion is that those tests have either been 2013 to work out how to diagnose and treat what it called “Lyme disease-like syndrome”. false or come from people who have acquired the But the committee says this cannot infection abroad. So, often despite positive lab results, doctors were be done until we know what causes … does the unwilling to diagnose patients as the illness in Australia. One “working problem lie with suffering from Lyme disease. theory” is that there are at least two Borrelia burgdorferi causes tick-transmitted Borrelia organisms that the test, or is flu-like symptoms with associated cause Lyme-like disease. the patient not fatigue, muscle pain and various New strains apparently causing neurological symptoms. It also this disease were isolated as recently actually infected? as 2014 (Russia and the US). The causes a bulls-eye rash to develop around the site of the tick bite. explanation might be that there exists Many people have been diagnosed with Lyme an Australia-specific Borrelia. disease, or Lyme-like illness, based on their If there was a magic test for Lyme disease, antibiotics should be given immediately upon symptoms alone.

The disease is known to exist throughout much diagnosis. Death from the disease is rare. of the world, including Canada, Europe, and Asia.

T he antibiotic tre atme nt s hould star t In the US, it is the most common tick-borne illness. immediately after confirmation of the diagnosis, Cases are occasionally reported in more tropical anticipating a cure. locales, and the disease might exist in Australia.

Some studies have suggested relapse can be Ultimately, we have an illness with vague symptoms as high as 20 per cent but further antibiotics are such as tiredness and fatigue, aches and pains, usually curative. The more severe the disease, sometimes severe headaches, and neuralgia. the longer the antibiotics need to continue, and Along with that is a complicated test – which, even sometimes intravenously rather than just orally. if positive, remains open to interpretation – and a The immune system can cause secondary changes cause considered impossible in Australia because and ongoing symptoms, so the initial controversy and the bacterium does not exist here. uncertainty around the disease can be compounded.

CONTROVERSY surrounds the issue

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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Symptoms of fatigue can result from many things, such as depression and malingering. And patients seeking to have this investigated often feel as if they are not being taken seriously.

Laboratories, which are not accredited but claim to be able to make diagnoses, offer false hope to patients looking for answers.

Despite Australia’s best and brightest doctors trying to understand Lyme disease-like syndrome there remains much uncertainty.

If you think you have Lyme disease you should find a doctor who will support you while testing is undertaken.

Because of the present controversy and uncertainty about the bacteria/diagnosis and accredited laboratories in Australia, you should remain vigilant, and sceptical, about management offered.

TICK BITE PREVENTION • In tick-infested areas (bush, scrub), wear protective clothing which restricts access to your skin.

• Carry tick removal equipment such as tweezers or a tick hook.

• Check your body and clothes at regular intervals while in the bush or scrubland.

• Remove all clothing after returning from a known tick area and check your body, particularly behind the ears, the back of the head, groin, armpits, and behind your knees.

• Handle removed clothing carefully as it might introduce ticks to unaffected areas.

• Place clothes in a drier for at least 10 minutes on a hot cycle to kill any ticks.

MOTORING Jim Barnett

The power of Redline A true performance car, it responds to any demand made of it

THE SS V Redline is undoubtedly the best of the

updated MY15 VF Commodore line-up. Sadly, its status as an Aussie-built car cannot last – not with Holden set to quit manufacturing in Australia in 2017.

DESIGN Minor changes include the introduction of new 19-inch black alloy wheels, an optional black roof on sedan variants and a gloss-black rear valance.

Redline’s interior is jet black with leather trim.

Performance enhancements include retuning the FE3 suspension for track-capable handling.

The electronic stability control has a Competitive Mode tuned for race-track conditions. Manual models have Launch Control which manages wheel spin while maintaining optimum acceleration from standstill.

SS V’s high-performance tyre package (245/40 R19 front and 275/35 R19 rear) provides more grip.

Larger Brembo brakes with four-piston callipers at the front ensure confident stopping.

The standard “head-up display” is one of the best the Police Journal has seen, eclipsing those fitted to some Lexus and Mercedes models. It projects digital speed and other information onto the windscreen in the driver’s direct line of sight.

VALUE FOR MONEY SS V Redline manual carries a manufacturer’s list price of $52,490 with auto trans adding $2,200.

The auto-only wagon costs $56,690.

Except for the Ford XR8, no other large-production sports sedan comes near SS V Redline in terms of bang for bucks. It’s loaded with luxury and high-end safety features at a fraction of the price of similarly equipped European sports sedans.

It can run on standard unleaded but performs better with premium fuel.

SAFETY SS V Redline scores a five-star safety rating.

Advanced safety features include: • Forward-collision alert system.

• Lane-departure warning.

• Blind-spot monitoring.

• Reverse-traffic alert.

• Hill-hold and hill-start systems.

• Head-up display.

• Reverse camera.

• Front and rear parking sensors.

STATS An all-alloy 6.0-litre V8 drives the rear wheels through a sturdy six-speed manual or six-speed auto, now with paddle shifters. Outputs are 270kW and 530Nm (manual) and 260kW and 517Nm (auto).

Holden claims combined fuel economy of 11.8 litres/100km. On a hills and suburban test drive it achieved 14.1 litres/100km.

ON THE ROAD Driven sedately, SS V Redline is smooth, refined and even capable of good economy. Drop the foot and it quickly changes into a twitchy, powerful sports machine. Given its size and weight, it is amazingly agile, balanced and flexible.

Like a true performance car, it responds effortlessly to all driver input, including acceleration, hard braking and cornering. The manual gearbox is easy to use and the clutch surprisingly light.

VERDICT Holden deserves credit for its attention to detail.

SS V Redline looks the part, is great to drive, and offers excellent value for money.

Drop the foot and it quickly changes into a twitchy, powerful sports machine.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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VALUE FOR MONEY Limited Diesel is the most expensive in the five-model Cherokee line-up. And, at $49,000, it is one of the more expensive mid-sized SUVs around. But it does have unique features such as low range, high-end safety and such standard equipment as: • Alpine nine-speaker audio system.

• Dual-zone climate control.

• Park assist.

• Smart entry.

• Push-button start.

• Auto lights with auto high beam.

• Rain-sensing wipers.

SAFETY

No feature unlikeable One of the more expensive SUVs but it meets expectation in key areas

FOR

unique features, the new Jeep Cherokee Limited Diesel outdoes its petrol siblings.

DESIGN From humble beginnings, Cherokee has evolved into a desirable, smart-looking mid-sized family SUV. Up front it features a unique version of Jeep’s trademark seven-bar vertical grille coupled with narrow LED daytime running lights and projector-style headlights.

Limited diesel scores polished 18-inch alloy wheels, alloy roof rails and an electrically operated tailgate with lip spoiler.

A modern, comfy interior provides seating for a family of five or four adults. Seats are trimmed in quality leather and both front

ones come with heating and ventilation.

The driver’s seat is electrically adjustable and the multi-function steering wheel is reachand rake-adjustable.

The dash layout includes a smart set of gauges and an 8.4-inch infotainment system.

This features a colour touch screen with sat-nav and reverse camera and controls the audio system and other vehicle functions.

Rear seats are a 60/40 split fold configuration with slide and recline functions. The cargo bay features a security blind and a flat floor with a full-sized spare beneath.

The cabin provides many storage bins, door bottle-holders and three 12-volt, one 240-volt, two USB and one aux and SD-card sockets.

Limited Diesel features a driver-selectable multi-mode 4x4 system which includes a twospeed transfer unit with low range.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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• • • • • • •

Limited Diesel features: Seven airbags.

Traction and stability control systems.

Multi-terrain ABS. Forward collision warning.

Blind-spot monitor.

Adaptive cruise control.

Lane-departure warning (capable of steering to avoid crossing lane lines).

STATS The 2.0-litre diesel, which is coupled to a smooth nine-speed automatic transmission, produces 125kW of power and 350 Nm of torque.

Jeep claims impressive combined fuel economy of 5.8 litres/100km with a braked tow capacity of 2,393kg.

ON THE ROAD There’s nothing to dislike about this Jeep. For a diesel, it’s particularly smooth and reasonably quiet.

It offers ample power for any task and its high torque provides effortless highway legs. The engine and transmission go about their business with a minimum of fuss.

Comfortable seating, good visibility, a smooth ride and confident handling add to its appeal.

VERDICT In the crowded mid-size SUV category, Cherokee Limited Diesel ticks all the boxes in terms of standard features, safety, ability and fuel efficiency.

Left: Brett Gibbons Above: Rika Mombers

From page 25

“I went through it (the shooting) because I was a police officer.

I survived because I was a police officer.”

FROM

the shooting and its aftermath, Gibbons has emerged with a totally new perspective on victims of crime. He found his own experience as a victim in the court system eye-opening.

“It’s affected my empathy for victims of crime and how I deal with and talk to them,” he says.

“I think it’s brought me a bit of understanding of that other side of the witness box.”

Inspired to serve victims of crime, even beyond his role as a copper, Gibbons has initiated the Victim Support Network. Its aim is to consolidate existing victim-support services and create a referral and counselling service and a judicial advisory body.

And, to that end, Gibbons has lobbied, and enlisted the support of, a range of government and non-government agencies.

Part of the new focus he wants on victims involves supporter responses within 48 hours of a crime, and greater assistance through the court process. Also important to Gibbons is to see the stigma which attaches to some victims reduced, even eradicated.

“We really want people to feel that they can come forward confidently and know that not just police but everybody will be there to help them,” he says.

And, for Donato Corbo, by whose hand he became a victim of crime, Gibbons still has no hatred. “He’s never going to make my Christmascard list,” he quips.

“But, at the same time, he’s very badly mentally ill, so it’s really hard to hold a grudge. He’s a person who tipped over the edge; and there’s always that curiosity about what drove him to that point. That might be something we’ll never really know the answer to.”

Other Corbo victims – such as Travis Emms and the surviving members of the Mombers family – Gibbons is grateful to have still in his life. He thinks of the Mombers as “great people” who are “like family to me”.

In the last two years, he has attended the weddings of Rika Mombers, who lost her husband, Luc, in the shooting – and Rika’s daughter, Alicia. He also joined the family at a small memorial service for Luc on the fourth anniversary of his death.

In the City Watch House, where Gibbons now works, he sees Emms on the odd occasion when he (Emms) calls in from his post at Eastern Adelaide Intel.

But the two rarely, if ever, talk about the shooting.

“It’s just conversation like: ‘How you doing, what’s happening?’ ” Gibbons explains. “He’ll always be a friend and someone I very strongly look up to.

“I’ve nothing but admiration for Travis; and, again, he’s like a member of the family. I’d happily come running any time he called, as I would for the Mombers.”

Police work is another part of his life to which Gibbons has remained committed. The thought of quitting never crossed his mind after the shooting – and still has not.

“I signed up to be a police officer,” he says.

“I wanted to help people, and that’s what I still want to do.

“I went through it (the shooting) because I was a police officer. I survived because I was a police officer. I still am a police officer.” PJ

Brett Gibbons now faces uncertainty in respect of his future medical expenses. This comes about because of the state government’s new return-to-work legislation, which takes effect from July 1.

For clarification on where he stands, Gibbons recently wrote to SAPOL Injury Management Section. The first line of its response read: “Unfortunately, we are not able to provide anything definitive to you.”

See Return-to-work set to exacerbate police suffering (page 8).

JUNE 2015 legislation POLICE JOURNAL 34

BANKING

The official RBA cash rate of 2 per cent?

What does it mean?

Paul Modra Executive Manager – Member Value and Distribution, Police Credit Union No first-home buyer or property investor should ignore the implications

THE

Reserve Bank of Australia recently announced another interest rate cut, bringing the official cash rate to a record low of 2 per cent. It’s the second time this year the RBA has cut interest rates, having lowered them in February.

While 2 per cent is historically low, experts are predicting that the RBA will announce even further rate cuts within the coming months. Some financial experts predict the interest rate could reach as low as 1.75 per cent by the Reserve Bank’s next meeting.

In the meantime, however, what exactly does a 2 per cent official cash rate mean for the economy?

First, by cutting rates, the RBA is aiming to stimulate the Australian economy through increases in financial borrowing. This can lead to enormous benefits for both the housing (buying, selling, investing) and business sectors.

In South Australia, when rates Now is the time to think about purchasing your were cut last February, the auction first home, investing in the property market, clearance rates rose considerably, demonstrating a strong property market getting ahead with your home loan or even for both buyers and sellers in the state. starting to plan a holiday in your own backyard.

Having seen significant growth in South Australia’s property market when rates were last cut, predictions are that we country. When interest rates are low, businesses can will see similar results again over the coming months. afford to borrow more money and build their company.

With rates this low, affordability levels for first-home With more money to spend, companies have the buyers have never been this good. ability to create jobs and hire more workers, therefore To some borrowers though, depending on their contributing to economic growth.

Small businesses employ 4.1 million Australians personal situations, we would suggest they keep paying the same loan repayment amount each across a whole range of sectors. By reducing month. This way it reduces the amount of interest rates, the RBA seeks to boost confidence and create paid and essentially allows borrowers to own their jobs growth. homes sooner.

Currently, South Australia’s unemployment rate Not only will the RBA rate cut continue to stimulate sits at the country’s second highest with 7.1 per the property market, but it also has the potential of cent. It is well above Australia’s national average creating positive benefits for employment around the of 6.2 per cent as of April 2015.

We should see some positive repercussions for employment around the country in the aftermath of the RBA interest rate cut.

A strong Australian dollar might be good for those who want to travel overseas but the RBA uses rate cuts to keep the Australian dollar low.

This is to help the economy by giving a much needed boost to industries such as local tourism, agriculture and mining.

So, now, what does this mean for you? Now is the time to think about purchasing your first home, investing in the property market, getting ahead with your home loan or even starting to plan a holiday in your own backyard.

By supporting the South Australian economy you will contribute to the state’s economic growth.

Free Legal Service for Police Association Members, Their Families & Retired Members.

Leading Adelaide law firm, Tindall Gask Bentley is the preferred legal service provider of the Police Association, offering 30 minutes of free initial advice and a 10% fee discount.

To arrange a preliminary in-person or phone appointment contact PASA on (08) 8212 3055.

Have you or a family member been injured in a car accident?

Tindall Gask Bentley acts in more motor vehicle accident claims that any other law firm in SA. Gary Allison & Richard Yates can provide free preliminary legal advice on your entitlements to compensation. They can also help with Workers Compensation, public liability & medical negligence claims.

Family Law Matrimonial, De Facto & Same Sex Relationships • Children’s Issues • Child Support matters

• Property Settlements • “Pre Nuptial” style Agreements

Appointments with Wendy Barry (Accredited Family Law Specialist) & Dina Paspaliaris.

Commercial Law • General business advice • Real estate & property advice

• Business transactions • Commercial disputes & dispute resolution

Appointments with Giles Kahl & Michael Arras.

Wills & Estates • Wills & Testamentary Trusts • Enduring Powers of Attorney • Enduring Guardians

• Advice to executors of deceased estates • Obtaining Grants of Probate • Estate disputes

Appointments with Michael Arras & Rosemary Caruso.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

36

Adelaide • Reynella • Salisbury Mt Barker • Port Lincoln • Whyalla (08) 8212 1077 tgb.com.au

LEGAL

Leave more for your loved ones Rosemary Caruso Consultant, Tindall Gask Bentley Lawyers The failure to institute sound estate planning can sometimes bring misery to others

ALL

of us want to make sure that, when we’re gone, our assets and everything we’ve worked for ends up with the people we care about, with minimal financial or emotional cost.

But it often doesn’t work out that way. Poor estate planning can end in disputes that whittle away your estate in legal costs.

The good news is these traps can be avoided.

ENSURE YOU HAVE A VALID, UP-TO-DATE WILL The Wills Act (SA) specifies the formalities required to have a valid will. However, wills that might appear to be invalid because they do not meet the formalities of the Wills Act can still be admitted to probate (e.g. a document signed only by the testator), but the costs and delays to do so can be substantial.

Therefore, having a properly prepared, signed and witnessed will saves your estate further expense and delays.

However, as a police officer, you should be POWERS OF ATTORNEY aware that as your superannuation is with Super SA As part of your estate planning you should and you cannot nominate who your superannuation consider appointing an attorney or attorneys who death benefit is paid to on your death. will be authorized to act on your behalf if you Super SA will pay any superannuation become incapacitated and can no death benefit to your spouse and, if longer act for yourself.

Don’t forget to there is no spouse, to your estate (in There are a number of options tell your executor with respect to how attorneys are accordance with your will).

Again, getting advice regarding what or executors they appointed and from when they happens to superannuation when you commence. An attorney could also are appointed die is very important because, in many be appointed if you are away for a instances, this can be one of your long period – on an overseas holiday and where your or working away from home. largest assets, particularly when a life will is located. insurance benefit is also included.

Again this should be discussed with your estate planning advisor.

LIFE INSURANCE Without a power of attorney, if you were to become The Police Association also takes out life insurance incapacitated your family members would need to on behalf of its members and will pay the proceeds apply to the Guardianship Board to be appointed to look after your financial affairs. to your estate (in accordance with your will) – another important reason to have a will and keep it current.

ADVANCE CARE DIRECTIVES POTENTIAL CLAIMS

SUPERANNUATION

In South Australia, the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act (SA) provides a list of potential Commonly superannuation will not be an asset given away through your will. In most instances, the claimants to your estate. trustee of the superannuation fund determines who Legislation differs in each state and this might the beneficiary of your super will be in accordance be relevant to you if you own assets outside of with the superannuation legislation, and he or she South Australia.

If a claim is made after your death, it is possible only has to consider your non-binding nomination. that a large part of your estate will be used to pay … getting advice regarding what happens to the legal fees of the parties superannuation when you die is very important because to the claim. Considering these potential claimants … this can be one of your largest assets, particularly as part of your estate when a life insurance benefit is also included. planning is very important.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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An advance care directive allows you to appoint somebody to make decisions regarding your health, lifestyle and personal decisions, if you are no longer able to make those decisions yourself.

The advance care directive is a new document and now replaces the enduring guardian, medical power of attorney and anticipatory direction. These documents are still valid if they were completed before July 1, 2014.

An advance care directive can be prepared at www.advancecaredirectives.sa.gov.au where you can download a copy of the kit.

Continued page 39

BOOKS

The Faithful Couple

Death of a Liar

The Whitstable Pearl Mystery

Author A D Miller Publisher Hachette Australia RRP $29.99

Author M C Beaton Publisher Constable & Robinson RRP $35.00

Author Julie Wassmer Publisher Constable & Robinson RRP $29.99

Author Steven Cavanagh Publisher Hachette Australia RRP $29.99

The story of a friendship built on a shared guilt and a secret betrayal, The Faithful Couple follows Neil and Adam across two decades – through girlfriends and wives, success and failure, children and bereavements – as power and remorse ebb between them.

Their bifurcating fates offer an oblique portrait of London in the boom-to-bust era of the nineties and noughties, with its instant fortunes and thwarted idealism.

California binds them together but then threatens to drive them apart after the full truth of what happened emerges.

The Faithful Couple confirms Miller as one of the most exciting and sophisticated novelists in the UK – someone who can tell a great story, with a sense of serious moral complexity.

Celebrating 30 years of Hamish Macbeth. The eagerly anticipated new Highlands-set murder mystery…

Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is alarmed to receive a report from a woman in the small village of Cronish in the Scottish Highlands.

She has been brutally attacked and the criminal is on the loose. But upon further investigation, Hamish discovers that she was lying about the crime.

So when the same woman calls him back about an intruder, he simply marvels at her compulsion to lie.

This time, though, she is telling the truth. Her body is found in her home and Hamish must sort through all of her lies to solve the crime.

Pearl Nolan always wanted to be a detective but life, and a teenage pregnancy, got in the way of a police career and instead she built up a successful seafood restaurant in her coastal home town of Whitstable – famous for its native oysters.

Now, at 39, and with son Charlie away at university, Nolan finds herself suffering from empty-nest syndrome… until she discovers the drowned body of local oyster fisherman Vinne Row, weighted down with an anchor chain.

Is it a tragic accident, suicide – or murder?

Nolan seizes the opportunity to prove her detection skills but soon ends up in conflict with Canterbury city police detective, Chief Inspector Mike McGuire.

Then another body is discovered, and Nolan trawls the past for clues, triggering memories of another emotional summer more than 20 years earlier.

Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist.

Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren’t that different.

It’s been more than a year since Flynn vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn’t have a choice.

Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Flynn’s back and kidnapped his 10-year-old daughter, Amy. Flynn only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial – and win – if he wants to save his daughter.

Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Flynn must use his razorsharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his “client” and ensure Amy’s safety.

Lose this case and he loses everything.

The Defence

Please note that the e-mail address to send your entries to for books, DVDs and movie tickets has changed to giveaways@pj.asn.au JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

38

LEGAL

From page 37

LEAVE BEHIND INFORMATION

Three Amazing Things About You

World Gone By

Author Jill Mansell Publisher Headline Review RRP $29.99

Author Dennis Lehane Publisher Hachette Australia RRP $29.99

Hallie has a secret – she’s in love.

He’s perfect for her in every way, but he’s seriously out of bounds. And Hallie doesn’t have long to live. Time is running out!

Flo has a dilemma – she likes Zander, but his scary sister really doesn’t approve.

Tasha has a problem. Her new boyfriend is the adventurous type.

And she’s afraid one of his adventures will go badly wrong.

Three Amazing Things About You begins as Hallie goes on a journey. A donor has been found and she’s about to be given new lungs. But whose?

Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin’s enemies killed his wife and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead, the world is at war again, and Joe’s son, Tomas, is growing up.

Now, the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, travelling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife’s homeland.

A master who moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Coughlin effortlessly mixes with Tampa’s social elite, US Naval intelligence, the LanskyLuciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista.

He has everything – money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity.

But success cannot protect him from the dark truth of this past; and, ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full.

WIN A BOOK! For your chance to win one of these books, send your name, location, phone number and despatch code, along with the book of your choice to giveaways@pj.asn.au

Don’t forget to tell your executor or executors they are appointed and where your will is located.

Leave behind a simple list of your assets and liabilities, including: • Real estate (addresses and where the titles are located).

• Bank accounts (especially online-only accounts).

• Investments.

• Superannuation.

• Your insurance policies.

• Information about whether you have a prepaid funeral.

• The name and contact details of your lawyer, accountant and financial advisor.

Of course, there are many other considerations that will be specific to you, so seek the advice of an experienced estate planning lawyer.

Tindall Gask Bentley Lawyers provides free initial advice through a legal advisory service to Police Association members and their families, and retired members.

To make an appointment, members should contact the association (8212 3055).

Gilber ts Accounting

Pty Ltd

Tax Accountants & Advisors to small business

Preparing Income Tax Returns for Police Officers for over 20 years including rental properties, capital gains & self-education expenses.

Now providing Financial Planning Advice.

Proud Supporters of the Police Association of SA

CONTACT SIMON LATTA 9 KENSINGTON ROAD, NORWOOD, SA 5067 PHONE 08 8333 6200 FAX 08 8333 3966 admin@gilbertsaccounting.com.au

DVDs

Fortitude

Why Anzac with Sam Neill

Mortdecai

A Most Violent Year

SRP $39.95 1 disc

RRP $19.95 1 disc

RRP $39.95 1 disc

RRP $29.95 1 disc

Fortitude is a place like nowhere else on Earth: a frontier boomtown in the wild, savage landscape of the far north.

Sheriff Dan Anderssen leads a wordclass search-and-rescue team, but now finds himself investigating the shocking murder of a prominent member of the community. What’s more, he is forced to work alongside DCI Eugene Morton, a British murder detective who’s just flown in.

As they search for the killer, each of these cops finds good reason to suspect and mistrust the other. And as things turn out, this murder won’t be the last.

Set in the melting Arctic, Fortitude tells the story of how a brutal murder shatters the peaceful existence of a small mining town.

Sam Neill examines the enduring myths of the Anzac legend, sharing his family’s war stories and uncovering forgotten truths that haunt us still today.

From the Gallipoli Peninsula back to the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand, where Neill grew up, across the Tasman to Australia where he has lived for 35 years, and over to the killing fields of Belgium, France, Crete and Italy, Neill takes a compelling look at the reasons New Zealand and Australia remain bound by the bloodshed during a century of warfare.

On the centenary of the disastrous Gallipoli landing, the film looks for answers as to why that particular event has become symbolic and is remembered more than any other in the two nations’ shared history.

Debonair art-dealer and part-time rogue Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is juggling some angr y Russians, the British MI5, his impossibly leggy wife and an international terrorist.

He must traverse the globe armed only with his good looks and special charm in a race to recover a stolen painting rumoured to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.

In New York City in 1981, an ambitious immigrant fights to protect his business and family during the most dangerous year in the city’s history.

Please note that the e-mail address to send your entries to for books, DVDs and movie tickets has changed to giveaways@pj.asn.au JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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WIN A DVD! For your chance to win one of these DVDs, send your name, location, phone number and despatch code, along with your choice of DVD, to giveaways@pj.asn.au

CINEMA

8MMM Aboriginal Radio

Jurassic World

Ted 2

Terminator Genisys

SRP $19.95 1 disc

Season commences June 11

Season commences June 25

Season commences July 2

Six-part series 8MMM Aboriginal Radio is a comedy about giving Aboriginal people a voice in a country with no ears – and how, when all else fails, which it usually does, it’s good to have a laugh.

At the arse-end of the world, in the middle of nowhere, is Alice Springs – home to 8MMM Aboriginal Radio, the proud voice of the Blackfellas living there. It runs on the smell of an oily rag and the enthusiasm of its motley indigenous crew.

B u t , l i ke m o s t i n d i g e n o u s organizations, it’s run by white fellas. And, when non-indigenous people come to work in Aboriginal organizations, they easily fall into one of three categories – missionaries, mercenaries or misfits.

Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park (1993), Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World , as originally envisioned by John Hammond.

After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfil a corporate mandate, a new attraction – created to re-spark visitors’ interest – backfires horribly.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow, Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Judy Greer, Vincent D’Onofrio and Jake Johnson.

Newlywed couple Ted and Tami-Lynn want to have a baby but, in order to qualify as a parent, Ted will have to prove that he’s a person in a court of law.

Directed by Seth MacFarlane, Ted 2 stars Liam Neeson, Mark Wahlberg and Amanda Seyfried.

Resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese ( Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect his (Connor’s) mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke).

After finding himself in a new timeline, Reese teams up with Sarah and an aging terminator guardian (Arnold Scwharzenegger).

Sarah is no scared waitress but rather a skilled fighter; and Reese, faced with unlikely allies and dangerous new enemies, sets out to try to stop the one thing that the future fears: Judgement Day. Directed by Alan Taylor, Genisys Terminator also stars JK Simmons.

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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WIN A MOVIE PASS! For your chance to win an in-season pass to one of these films, courtesy of Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, send your name, location, phone number and despatch code, along with your choice of film, to giveaways@pj.asn.au

WINE CLUB MEMBERSHIP INCLUDES

* I nvitations to two Winestate

magazine tastings each year (valued at $100)

* 1 2-month subscription to

Winestate magazine (valued at $60)

* M inimum of three tasting events at the Police Club each year * F ree glass of house wine with every meal purchased at the Police Club

POLICE WINE CLUB TASTING IV (2015) Friday July 17 See page 44 for details

* E ntry to annual wine raffle and discounts on quality wine

To join visit www.policeclub.com.au or phone Bronwyn at the Police Club (08) 8212 2924

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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Subscri

AUSTRALIA & NEW

ph: (08) 8357 927

WINE

Mollydooker Wines McLaren Vale, SA mollydookerwines.com.au

Sarah and Sparky Marquis are one of the few left-handed husband-and-wife winemaking teams in the world. So, when they started making their own wine in 2005, they named it Mollydooker, which is Aussie slang for a left-hander.

Their catchcry is: “We make wines that make people go ‘Wow!’ through attention to detail and commitment to excellence.”

2013 The Violinist Verdelho The Violinist is named after Sarah, who was made to play the violin right-handed at school so she didn’t poke her neighbour in the eye with her bow.

The 2013 vintage has vibrant tropical fruits which are plentiful on the nose and the palate.

A nuance of vanilla lingers as an aftertaste.

The sweet fruit has a lemon-zest edge that gives the fruit great lift, and spice rounds out the palate.

An unctuous mouth-feel gives the wine a fullness which holds the rich pineapple and stone fruit flavours to the taste buds.

The Violinist can be enjoyed now or cellared – the 2007 is drinking beautifully.

2013 Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz The Blue Eyed Boy is named after Sarah and Sparky’s son, Luke. The 2013 vintage is a standout: this Shiraz is bursting with generous amounts of flesh plum and blueberry, accompanied by spice and liquorice allsorts.

It has a supple texture, and a creamy finish features layers of biscuit cream and espresso coffee.

This is a well-weighted wine with a truly elegant finish.

The Blue Eyed Boy is the favourite of Sparky’s mum, Janet, who exclaimed: “Gorgeous! Oh, my golly, it’s so smooth and rich and sanity! Just incredible!”

That sums up the Blue Eyed Boy very well.

2013 Carnival of Love Shiraz Carnival of Love is the wine that leaves a priceless look on the faces of those who take their first sip.

The 2013 vintage is squid ink in colour, with huge aromatics ranging from bright fresh berries to plum jam with undertones of chocolate icing.

Multi-layered, it offers milk chocolate and mocha flavours that roll on to a seamless structure and velvet tannins.

Carnival of Love has three times been named in the Top 10 wines in the world, with the 2012 Carnival of Love Shiraz rated the No. 1 Wine in Australia and New Zealand and No. 2 in the World!

JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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THE POLICE CLUB FRIDAY JULY 17, 5:30PM – 7:30PM

Tasting IV (2015)

Wine Club members FREE Wine Club members’ guests $15

Sample from hundreds of new-release Australian and New Zealand wines Special feature – Limestone Coast wines

Wine Raffle

Guest appearance by Molly Dooker wines

Acoustic guitar entertainment

Cheese tastings and Feast Fine Foods hors d’ oeuvres

Wine Club dinner menu – with complementary wine

RSVP to annehehner@pasa.asn.au or phone 8212 3055 for enquiries or bookings

General cover charge (non-Wine Club members)

SEE PAGE 42 FOR POLICE WINE CLUB MEMBERSHIP DETAILS

Police Club Quiz Night Ten rounds of all your favourites, plus • Silent auction • Coin slide • Lucky squares • Wine sales

FRIDAY JULY 24 6pm for a 6:30pm start – 10pm

Entry includes a complimentary snack plate (choice of Asian basket, seafood platter, party favourites or cheese platter) and drink on arrival (choice of beer, wine, sparkling or soft drink).

Additional refreshments available on the night

$22 per person Table of ten bookings include a complimentary bottle of Hill River Estate Wine

Book your table or tickets online at www.trybooking.com/137381 Or contact the Police Association on 8212 3055 email quiz@pasa.asn.au Or visit www.policeclub.com.au for a booking form

(No BYO food or drink)

BOOK NOW

$20

PoliceClub@pasa.asn.au | (08) 8212 2924 27 Carrington Street, Adelaide | www.policeclub.com.au

Hill River Estate Wines *offer only available with this order form

Police Club Price

Police Club Price

* prices inclusive of GST

Per Bottle

Per Case

Wine Selection

Order QTY

Order QTY

By Bottle

By Case

Total

The Puppeteer 2013 Shiraz

The Puppeteer (12 pack) Chardonnay

$10.00

$120.00

Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

$10.00

$120.00

Cabernet Sauvignon

$10.00

$120.00

Merlot

$10.00

$120.00

Shiraz

$10.00

$120.00

Deep red with purple hues, spicy aromas coupled with intense ripe fruit, characters of raspberry and plum married to a blend of oak flavours. Enjoy now or cellar for up to 10 years.

The Puppeteer 2014 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

Charisma (6 pack) Blanc de Blanc Sparkling

$10.00

$60.00

Freight Receive a bonus twin pack of The Puppeteer Chardonnay when collecting from Police Club Carrington Street

Free freight within Adelaide Metro Area. $10/per case Outer Metro Area.

Please return form to Hill River Estate Wines 138 Greenhill Road Unley SA 5061

Fax 08 8299 9867

orders @hillriverestatewine.com

Delivery Details Name

Address Email

Phone

I confirm I am 18 years of age or older

Payment Details VISA

MASTERCARD

CHEQUE (payable to Hill River Estate Wines)

Cardholder Name Card Number Expiry Date

CVV

Signature

$

Pale straw colour, green apple and honey, fresh and zesty, with a lively finish. The perfect summer wine to enjoy on its own or with soft cheeses, creamy pasta dishes or seafood.

Charisma Blanc de Blanc Pale straw colour, delicate tropical fruit aromas of coconut and honey, soft, light clean palate with a classic balance of sweet tropical flavours and mineral acidity with fine vibrant bead.

To order, complete the form (on the left) or go to PASAweb (pasa.asn.au)

Free WiFi | Private function rooms available | Free entry into weekly meat tray OPENING HOURS Mon – Wed 10am till 3.30pm | Thurs 10am till 5pm | Friday 10am till late HAPPY HOUR 4.30pm till 6.30pm every Friday

JADE HILL

Senior Constable Sturt LSA

Playback a fiery death STORY Minutes from POSITION Front cover ISSUE October 20 02 THEN

ning who charged into a bur Netley patrol officers tner, par r He She was one of two n. elderly woma to rescue an imperilled the e for be Glenelg North home wn do front door -and-shouldered the .

Sam Bailetti, had hip oke sm king black searing heat and cho two cops faced up to heat Police Journal. “The s gutted,” she told the ons diti con “The whole interior wa the if n Eve tered. and the paint was blis ut abo ing had warped pictures talk ’re you en re, we’d do it again. Wh we y the n tha rse wo were justify not going in.” human life, you can’t te: “So, each drew ions, Brett Williams wro Of their courageous act clear doorway. rged in through the now a deep breath and cha than two metres could not … see more But, once inside, the two perate search…” erred, they began a des in front of them. Undet

NOW “I remember the reaction of my family after they saw the Police Journal article because they were really proud of me. I think they actually saw the reality of my job. It sort of hit home to them a little bit more, just the risks involved in patrol work. And I was fairly young back then and hadn’t been in the job all that long.

“I haven’t thought about the fire often but, not that long ago, I saw that the house was up for sale and that made me think about it. It was a trigger. I still remember cutting the screen door open; I remember the smoke; and I remember finding the woman and dragging her out. All those images are still clear in my mind.

“Three years after the story came out I met my now-husband, Cam, at Netley. I was on patrols and he was on a BA course and, in the meal room, I was talking about a dead body while he was having his lunch. He asked me out and I was a bit hesitant at first but, three years later, we were married, in 2008.

“In 2011, I was in the first contingent to go to work in New Zealand after the Christchurch earthquake. I remember there was a 4.8 quake in Latimer Square and, as I stood there, it looked like the ground was liquid. The grass was moving like waves and there was a van just rolling with those waves. It was an experience I’ll never ever forget.

“I had three miscarriages before I fell pregnant with our son, Ashton, in 2011. He was a big baby and I had osteitis pubis, which was no fun. I couldn’t move too well, but he came out and everything was fine. He was a healthy, happy little boy. Now he’s three-and-a-half and he’s just a character, the coolest thing that ever happened to me.

“In 2013, I fell pregnant with our twin girls, Maya and Essie, after another miscarriage. At 30 weeks we found out that Maya had a chorioangioma (benign tumour of the placenta). It was growing fast and we were at risk of losing her. In the end, we were lucky: I had a C-section and they removed the placenta at birth.”

To read the story Minutes from a fiery death, go to PASAweb at pasa.asn.au JUNE 2015 POLICE JOURNAL

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“Police Journal is one of the best … magazines that I have seen in a long time.”

Trade, Association and Business Publications International judge’s comment

TO ENQUIRE ABOUT PREVIOUS ISSUES, ARTICLES OR PHOTOS, contact editor BRETT WILLIAMS on (08) 8212 3055 or by e-mail (brettwilliams@pj.asn.au)

Police Journal

Winner of four international awards in 2014…

Gold for Front Page and Silver for Cover and Cover Story (International Creative Media Awards, Germany) Silver for Best Single Issue and Bronze for Opening Page or Spread (Trade, Association and Business Publications International, USA)

Police Health, Police Credit Union and the Police Association are the cornerstone of the police family.

These three long-standing service-providers jointly run the Healthy, Wealthy & Wise initiative to bring special benefits to all police and their families.

HW&W delivered two outstanding

And the Graduates’ Dinner, funded and staged by the

presentations by US behavioural

HW&W initiative since 2012, is another success story.

sciences and management consultant

Together, your expert service-providers

Dr Kevin Gilmartin last year.

are bringing you more benefits than ever.

A joint initiative of

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POLICE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA