Epilogue

Personally I am saddened by the avoidance of truth and responsibility disclosed in this book, because when this started for me, I was on the other side.

The unfairness, mistakes, bullying and obstruction that I have experienced in attempting to draw attention to a serious miscarriage of justice make it clear that there are deep flaws in Victoria’s justice and police integrity system.

When I worked in policing, it was obviously a different time. It was a time when senior officers learnt their trade and obligations to truth and natural justice through personal hands-on investigation and prosecution. It was also a time when any detective who had made even one of the errors of judgment described in this book would have been quickly brought to account and his wrongs made right by superiors and a police command hell-bent on fair play.

Misguided ambition has created a culture of cover-up in Victoria. Senior police, government and anti-corruption authorities now manipulate the facts to enhance their own preferred agendas or mask the blunders of subordinates, blindly believing that they are acting in the interests of justice. Nobody ever says ‘sorry’ for a mistake made. The botched case that has ensnared Denis Tanner is only one of many similar debacles.

Today, when a crime is committed, massive media units sanitise the information given to the public. If a journalist strays and a critical headline threatens, tomorrow there will be a media event created, or photographers will traipse the streets of the CBD filming the chief on patrol, with off-camera minders swarming in his wake. If that diversion doesn’t work, then another self-review will be announced, its findings hidden from the public when the media fury subsides.

The result is that morale among the bulk of ordinary Victorian police officers recently reached an all-time low. I believe that the fundamental problem is confidence in leadership, though this may have been remedied with the appointment of a Chief Commissioner who has risen through the ranks.

My experience has convinced me that Victoria is long overdue for a Royal Commission into police, police administration and anti-corruption processes. During my service Victoria had five police Royal Commissions; each improved the organisation, but the last was 35 years ago.

Meanwhile, I have no doubt that review of the Tanner and Bailey inquests will continue to be obstructed by a terrified system, but while I am able I will persist in this cause to seek justice. I simply cannot accept that any individual so publicly defamed, accused of a murder that wasn’t a murder, can be denied any forum in which to defend himself and test his innocence.

Into the future these inquests will be reviewed in the courts, which means that there is much more to come before this story ends.

God willing, I will be there to complete it.