29 March 2006

Guidelines followed in Clea Rose death - everything cool?

| johnboy
Join the conversation
42

The ABC is reporting that the Liberal’s Steve Pratt has seen the findings of an internal police report on the role of officers in the death of Canberra student Clea Rose.

It says the officers chasing the car which hit the 21-year-old, acted in accordance with national pursuit guidelines.

Anyone think this level of disclosure is satisfactory?

UPDATED: The ABC reports that the ombudsman thinks an inquest is the only way to address any further public concerns about this matter.

FURTHER UPDATED: The Canberra Times is joined in with complaints by “Civil Liberties Australia ACT” (an arsefull piece of re-branding if ever there were) that Minister Hargreaves has broken his promises to them in this matter.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The ABC are saying the report has been released, and yet no report is on the ACT Policing website, so is this just media manipulation?

MORE UPDATES: The Canberra Times is going in hard with two stories. The first with the accusatory line “but they have refused to admit any responsibility for her death”, and another Jack Waterford rocket: Memorial to Clea should be review of pursuit policy.

Also in the Waterford piece:

The police made something of the fact that the inquiry was an entirely independent review, being conducted by the national AFP’s professional reporting standards unit. In fact the PRS subcontracted out the entire job to the ACT Policing collision investigation team – a section of the ACT traffic branch hardly at arm’s length from local vehicle patrolling.

(Also front page browsers would be well advised to take in the comments attached to this item as there are some excellent and lengthy contributions)

One More Update For The Road: The Canberra Times have got a usefull page with the reports they’ve been given as well as the video evidence.

No, I lied, here’s another update: The Canberra Times has also got John Hargreaves suggesting the guidelines on pursuit need reviewing and strong hints that there will be a coronial inquest.

Join the conversation

42
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Some information cannot be released due to whatever reason, privacy or an ongoing investigation. If the media outlets do not withhold the relevant information etc. then they can’t be trusted with that information. Hence the Police media team. CT gets the information when it is able to be released, as do the other media outlets.

Mr CT editor at large commented that 30 years ago he used to get full access to everything. This has since been taken away. I am guessing they screwed up so many times that the priveledge of information access was removed.

Mael has got the transparency thing right. My comment may have been badly worded. The responsibilty and accountability are there and there are checks on those from a number of different sources.

CT has been Police bashing as long as I can remember – why the hell would the Police release information to them.

So it’s OK for police to pick and choose what info is released to the public based on whether they like the media outlet or not?

My comment re transparency was poorly worded – I must be on strong drugs at the moment…

I was considering this issue on the way to work this morning and believe there are two more appropriate words that should be used when talking about government departments; responsibility and accountability.

If a department is responsible about what it does and accountable for the way it does it, naturally their activities will be transparent.

Calling on a department to be transparent without a prerequisite responsibility or accountability can only ever result in them having something to hide, it’s a natural human response.

Transparency is for kinky lingere, responsibility and accountability is for government departments.

Is that a little clearer (pun) ?

What I mean by that is that its a word people throw around when they are not getting what they want.

I trust you not to deal from the bottom of the deck. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be playing cars with you. Its that easy.

I would think that if the traffic branch was conducting the investigation, as they do with all road deaths in the ACT, they would do a thorough job. They would be overseen by the professional standards people and the whole lot is overseen by the ombudsman, Police minister and Coronor. Its not as if there are no checks on these people.

Or maybe its a big conspiracy cover up job from everybody. The kids in the car were really undercover government agents doing checks on the gloveboxes of cars in the legislative assembly car park for possible terrorism links.

Police stop people on London Cct every night. Sit outside Mooseheads and have a look sometime. Any one of those stops could turn into a similar incident.

Incidentally the phrase “transparency crap” does you little credit.

“just trust us” doesn’t cut it, never cuts it. How about next time we’re playing cards I deal from the bottom of the deck? Or how about next time you’re talking to a suspect you “just trust them” when they give you an alibi?

The report could have been released with all names changed to pseudonyms and no privacy implications whatsoever.

As for the report, no-one seems to be rebutting Waterfords’s claim that the traffic branch were investigating themselves.

Incidentally has anyone other than select media got a copy yet? Hardly “published” is it?

Although a fact sheet on the opening of the woden police station is up on the ACT Policing page so that’s nice isn’t it?

This isn’t a go at the cops on the ground that night (i’ll be the first to concede that in all probability they made the best decision available to them), it isn’t cop-bashing.

It’s about a disturbing pattern of behaviour from senior people in ACT Policing and their media unit.

People jump up and down about all the red tape and transparency crap.

The people who need to know have access to the details and have made comment that its all good. Thats why those people are elected in the positions that they hold. They are considered trustworthy. If you don’t like them vote them out.

A couple of days ago Jack Waterford had this to say “Many people expect that the report will focus on the conduct of the hapless police engaged in the car chase, and their alleged neglect of the victim who was hit by the stolen car”. After the release of the report and the pictures on the front page of the paper do I see Jack giving the Police officers involved an apology – not bloody likely.

VG said it right – those guys are normal blokes who were doing their job. They have to live with it as well. CT has been Police bashing as long as I can remember – why the hell would the Police release information to them.

I wouldn’t trust most reporters to keep a lid on any investigation when it would get in the way of a good news story.

Police are in a between a rock and a hard place at any time. The blame for this incident lays with the three little shits in the car. Particularly with the driver who made the ‘decision’ to put his foot down and turn right through a bus interchange.

Criminals have access to the internet and it is not that difficult to find pursuit guidelines. Then they do something specifically to get the police to call off the pursuit. Or they get in a few pursuits and work it out themselves. This ends up with people getting killled – either innocent bystanders (Clea Rose) or themselves (guy who drove off the end of Ginninderra Dr in 2004).

Each and every Police pursuit that ends badly brings up the discussion on Police Pursuit practice.

Have some faith in the people who put themselves on the line every day to do the job so you can sleep safe in your bed and not deal with the shit that they put up with.

Now this sounds like a case for an Freedom of Information request to me, if the report isn’t released. But my reading of the CT story this morning said they had a copy of the report (they even commented on how the names of witnesses had been blacked out), so it must have been released in some form.

And Mael, your last two sentences make very little sense to me. There should be no transaperency in government, but not releasing the name of a witness who saw an accident isn’t worth being mobbed over so it should be transparent?

Its all a matter of money.

In the ACT sending somebody to prison costs an absolute bucket load as we have to pay the NSW Government about $100k per prisoner/year to do so at one of their fine estabslishments.

I just hope that the judiciary can be a bit more flexible once the new prison is built.

(The current system is akin to not owning a vehicle and relying on getting taxis everywhere. The judiciary is limited by how many years that they can give out annually and does so sparingly)

well we won’t know what it would do as we can’t see it can we?

You think I’m left wing for wanting transparency? THanks for that, needed a good laugh.

less PC, less red tape, sounds good to me

just do it with the lights on and the blinds up.

We all know what happened. Baddies in stolen car run over innocent bystander while trying to evade Police.

100% of the responsibility for her death lays with the 3 worthless turds in the stolen car.

To quote Big Al – “What the hell would he have written if the story went like this – A drug addled fifteen year old driving a stolen car through the Civic interchange killing a pedestrian. Police had earlier seen the offender behind the wheel of the stolen car driving erratically in Braddon but decided not to do anything about it because after all, it’s just some young kids out having some fun … “ Couldn’t have said it better.

I fail to see what publicly issuing the Internal Report will do. Instead of the left wing public and politicians being so fixated on demanding transperancy why not try letting Police and other services do their job without being held back by red tape and political correctness.

The Courts sentence within guidelines set down by legislation, set by the elected government. Some members of the judiciary would dearly love to be able to wield a bigger stick but are restricted in doing so.
Perhaps talk to your local Member and get the legislation changed if you don’t like it might be the way to go instead of banging off about the inadequecies of the wallopers or the courts.

IMHO the only place in civilised society for transparency is kinky lingere

I’ll file that one under useful idiot.

Unless of course they were undercover cops about to bust the young group of people for illicit drug use or something like that, reliable witness but not something you really want to identify publicly in court until the other incident is resolved.

Completely hypothetical by the way, but possible and plausable.

That said, IMHO the only place in civilised society for transparency is kinky lingere. The identity of a person who saw somebody get run down by a vehicle isn’t going to get you murdered by the mob in any real hurry.

So because the details of the process haven’t been made public it’s reasonable to question the integrity of the process

In a nutshell! Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

The witnesses were all in a public place so as far as I’m concerned their “privacy” is totally irrelevant.

So because the details of the process haven’t been made public it’s reasonable to question the integrity of the process? Do you not think justice was done and that the Police were at fault in any way? I believe that the privacy of the witnesses who may not want to be identified is paramount. The Police have nothing to hide and as was stated above by Spectra

b) The reason given for not releasing the report fully yet is that they’re still checking with lawyers over privacy issues. In spite of how the ABC report is worded, they haven’t said they never intend to hand over the full report.

it reduces transparency and that is a greater threat to the community in the long term than threats to privacy.

justice has to be seen to be done as well you know.

It’s not funny – it’s serious, that’s why it’s secret. I’m sure if you asked individual Government agencies they all are accountable – they don’t disclose their how and why for very good reasons. It isn’t conspiracy theory stuff unless you make it so.

funny how concerned for the privacy of others some agencies of Government become, when they want their own affairs to remain secret.

“A bright young lady is dead. Waterford and his legions of bleeding-heart pinko’s should show some god-damn respect and stop looking for scape-goats and start focusing on the fact that the little shit-bag who killed her is only doing 18 months soft-time in a youth detention centre, or the fact that the courts seem to be able to take into account the fact that he was forced to wear shoes as a youngster and that his daddy never built him a billy-cart when sentencing.”

Exactly.

Once again it seems that the Canberra Time’s yesterdays mad – Jack Waterford can’t help himself. His latest bog-paper missive on the tragic death of Clea Rose clearly vindicates managements decision to relieve him of any meaningful duties.

What part of words like “personal responsibility” and “accountability” do these people have a problem understanding? Waterford’s soft-liberal diatribe is peppered with references to the fact that the AFP are reluctant to accept any blame for the poor girls death – and why the hell should they? Did they steal a car? Did they try and avoid being pulled over by the police? Did they drive into the Civic interchange – and area off limits to regular traffic? Were they incapable of avoiding pedestrians? No, no, no, no and no is the correct sequence of answers.

What the hell would he have written if the story went like this – A drug addled fifteen year old driving a stolen car through the Civic interchange killing a pedestrian. Police had earlier seen the offender behind the wheel of the stolen car driving erratically in Braddon but decided not to do anything about it because after all, it’s just some young kids out having some fun …

A bright young lady is dead. Waterford and his legions of bleeding-heart pinko’s should show some god-damn respect and stop looking for scape-goats and start focusing on the fact that the little shit-bag who killed her is only doing 18 months soft-time in a youth detention centre, or the fact that the courts seem to be able to take into account the fact that he was forced to wear shoes as a youngster and that his daddy never built him a billy-cart when sentencing.

FFS!

Ask the Courts why they are soft, the Police are not the Courts…we have no idea as well

This is a tragedy no doubt. The choice of road to drive on made by an unrepentant (until caught) young criminal took the life of Clea not the fact Police were chasing him. The witnesses deserve to be protected and have their details kept out of the media spotlight – imagine you were a witness and a moron from the Canberra Times or Today Tonight came to your house and started asking you cutting edge questions in a pathetic attempt to try to paint the Police as the cause of the accident.

Police aren’t supposed to be scary are they? Locks keep out innocent people, the sky is blue, water is wet and guilty people run – Police chase them. Would you prefer they didn’t? I suggest there would be a mountain of complaints about Police inaction. Look to the Courts for soft sentencing for your answers. Criminals should fear the Courts but instead they always ask for a second chance or to go to rehab – their eloquently spoken lawyers seem to almost always get what they want but is that what the community wants?

The Courts in the ACT are far too soft. How many “second chances” can you give somebody? Mandatory sentencing? Three strikes? I don’t have the answer.
Shauno – “We pay these people they are a public service.” So what? What right does that give you to demand anything? Go to ASIO and demand to see their reports… try it at Tax or Finance or Defence. We pay these people…. are you serious?

OK – not sure why you thought we were calling you a magistrate. Either way, you’re clearly experienced at going to court. So again, why are the courts soft on crime?

Bear in mind that to someone who is not a lawyer and has never been to court, referring to ‘the law’ means the law itself, the process by which it is applied, and the outcome of its application.

For the 55th time, I am not a magistrate.

The LAW is not soft on crime, it is its APPLICATION which could be said to be. The law is APPLIED by the judiciary. Ask a magistrate.

Once someone enters a court whatever sentence they get has nothing to do with the Police.

Is it that unclear??

vg – please don’t think I’m having a go at you. I’m just sick to death of kids getting away with stuff cos everyone wants to blame somebody but them. Kids do not fear or respect the law. The law is written for adults, most of whom can’t even understand its meaning without the help of a lawyer. What hope do kids have? Things need to be simple for them. You do the wrong thing, something bad happens.

vg – I’m glad you’re convinced. I’m not.

Perhaps after your 17 years of experience going to court you could enlighten us as to why the punishments seem, by community standards (that is, the standards of us folk who think the law is too soft on crime), very light. Obviously the courts are bound by legislated ranges within which they must sentence, but like you said above, 18 months is really ridiculous.

“I have had other experiences where police basically couldn’t be bothered chasing kids down, as well, so I am not convinced they do all they can”

With the resources they have…………I am!

That’s a fair enough comment about the courts. I can’t help but feel police are also involved, though, when there are teenagers running around Canberra committing crimes at known regular times and the police don’t show up. A family member lives in a street where their back fence is graffitied every Friday night – police can’t catch them. I have had other experiences where police basically couldn’t be bothered chasing kids down, as well, so I am not convinced they do all they can.

I know this is a complex problem, and that the police aren’t the only ones who have responsibility for this. It needs a concerted effort by parents, police, courts, and the community. Any ideas welcome!

I was going to say VY, the courts, not the police, are the ones you need to address that complaint to.

I would imagine that if the courts got serious about misdemeanours the police might be willing and able to put more effort into these areas themselves.

Police do ‘chase people down’ and do ‘charge minors’ when caught doing something illegal. All 3 kids involved in the Clea incident had criminal records, that was well reported.

‘Boundaries’ mean bugger all when there is no effective parenting. Having ‘fear for the law’ is all about its application. If kids know nothing will happen to them once caught then that is not the fault of the Police. That lays with the judiciary.

No-one advocates ‘fear’ for the law, just repecting it will do. Going to Court in the ACT is not that scary. have been doing it for nearly 17 years

There are a range of tactics Police can use to ‘scare the kids’. One is to chase kids down and catch them when they are breaking the law, thus developing a reputation which says “if you don’t stop running/cycling/driving we WILL catch you”. Another is to actually charge minors when they are caught doing something illegal – going to court is in fact quite scary!

The problem is not about committing violence against people, but about sending the message that breaking the law has consequences. At the moment there are many kids who just don’t believe that anything will happen if they do the wrong thing. The don’t fear the law, or its consequences. Having worked with teenage kids in the past, they need boundaries, and the law is a critical part of that.

AD: Agreed completely.
VG: I don’t have a problem with phone books and rubber hoses. Don’t know how you guys hold yourselves back from doing that sometimes!

Absent Diane11:38 am 28 Mar 06

No amount of policing can make up for ineffective parenting

And I would ask VYBerlina what tactics he thinks Police should employ to ‘scare the kids’. The Police can do nothing more ‘scary’ than lock people up. It is up to someone else to do something after that, not the cops.

Maybe you are advocating phone books and rubber hoses? That rubbish went out in the 60s

This whole thing is a tragedy, for no people more so than Clea’s family, but some people need to lose the histrionics about all of this.

No one has said the report will not be publicly released at any stage. Once legal issues are worked out it may well be released but, as is common with all internal investigations, they are not public matters. A Coroners inquest is of course public but sorry, that opposite has always been the case for Police internal investigations.

While some may find that uncomfortable the system has been that way since the internal investigative mechanism for the AFP was created in 1979.

Clea’s family has been given a copy of the report, which is the most important issue of all. Having said that witnesses are well within their rights (and lets not forget there were about 40 or so civilian witnesses who stood by the actions of the Police) to object in this instance to the release of the report where they may be identified etc etc.

Ultimately the circle of accountability will work. If the Coroner is not satisfied with what he sees he can call for an inquest. To be honest from what I know about the matter that won’t happen.

I fell terribly for the family of Clea as they look to somehow be able to blame someone for what happened to their daughter. That amount of angst most of us will never be able to comprehend.

But with all said I will say this. When this whole thing started the offenders vehicle was on London Circuit. As they approached the bus interchange area they had a choice. They could turn into a packed interchange on a busy evening, or they could continue to the lights on Northbourne and try a left or a right turn. They chose the course of action they took, not the Police.

It should also be clear that even though the Police inititated some sort of chase, once the offender had turned into the interchange the Police vehicle had slowed to a pace commensurate with the conditions and in fact were such a distance behicnd the offender that they were not even aware Clea had been struck.

And the final straw to break the camel’s back in this whole tragic affair. A magistrate puts the sentencing of the offending driver up to the Supreme Court, as the maximum sentence he can impose is 2 years and what does the Supreme Court give the turd…..18 months. He could have gotten worse in the Mags Court.

Progressively all those who wallowed and wailed about the actions of the Police are being silenced as the actual events of that tragic evening come out. I can guarantee that the cops involved aren’t overjoyed with what they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. Even though their actions were cleared human nature would leave them feeling some sort of blame.

That, of course, is nothing compared to Clea’s family but it really time for irrelevant parties to get rid of their misplaced anger and move on. Clea sadly is never coming back, and the issues being raised by twits such as the loony left aren’t helping people make sense of their lives.

(Personal not professional opinion)

Forget the report, I think we should encourage Police to be a lot tougher on the sort of behaviour that caused this problem in the first place. These kids just aren’t scared of the Police, and I think they should be.

Why are we getting so excited about an INTERNAL police report?
Surely we need some kind of IMPARTIAL and OBJECTIVE report into what happened; who cares if it’s the Ombudsman or anyone else with NO AXE TO GRIND?
Hooligans pinch car, Police give chase, young woman gets run over, dies. Surely it’s not difficult for an independent body to establish where things went wrong.
JB, I don’t give a flying f**k what some discredited Bosnian aid worker / ex-military square-basher has to say about the matter.

I’m sure anyone with an axe to grind against the coppers will complain whether the report is publicly released or not.

good work shauno, thats just what Police need more people with no policing knowledge at all telling them how they can improve their own job.

Regardless of what happened look at it the other way – If the shit house kids responsible drove the stolen car through the bus interchange with no cop car behind them all the do gooders would be bleating about 3 known crooks in a stolen car being able to drive into the middle of the city without the cops noticing and how dumb deaf and blind the coppers are.

The people responsible for what happened apart from the worthless trash inside the stolen car are the magistrates who bail them over and over again.

In their defence:
a) They have given the full report to the Rose family, and
b) The reason given for not releasing the report fully yet is that they’re still checking with lawyers over privacy issues. In spite of how the ABC report is worded, they haven’t said they never intend to hand over the full report. If they did this now, and the result was a breach of privacy laws, I’m sure people here (myself included) would be the first to criticize them for that instead) 🙂

No just hand over the report.

We pay these people they are a public service. Give us the bloody report and open the organization up so we can see where our money is being spent and where we can improve it.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.