More than 1000 Victorian police officers have been carrying guns and issuing charges without proper authorisation, in a major graduation bungle that has left the force scrambling to properly swear in members.
The issue, stretching back eight years to July 2014, was made public on Thursday when Victoria Police’s Chief Commissioner Shane Patton revealed an “administrative error” had seen hundreds of officers sworn in by someone without the proper power to do so.
Chief Commissioner Shane Patton and Police Minister Lisa Neville.Credit:Wayne Taylor
This means the officers did not have the proper authority to undertake tasks including entering people’s homes. However, the state government says it is working on retrospective legislation to protect the work they carried out.
About 1076 police officers, 157 protective service officers and 29 police custody officers are affected after improperly being sworn in by acting assistant commissioners.
Mr Patton said he became aware of the widespread issue last week, and both the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Office of Public Prosecution were notified.
But just how many cases are affected remains unknown, he said.
“It’s been an oversight for over eight years,” Mr Patton said.
“It’s unclear how many matters have been affected.”
Police Minister Lisa Neville said the error came about when changes were made to the Victoria Police Act by the former government in 2013, meaning acting assistant commissioners needed to be appointed by a more senior officer, who had been delegated authority by the chief commissioner.
Ms Neville said to rectify the issue, the government would draft and introduce retrospective legislation during the next sitting week of Parliament, in a fortnight’s time, that should correct the problem and ensure the work of those officers isn’t affected.
She said the officers in question acted in good faith – there was no misconduct, and they remained important members of Victoria Police.
“It’s not an ideal situation for us to be in, but I can assure [the public] we’re moving as quickly as possible to fix this issue,” Ms Neville said.
“My priority, and the priority of the government, is now to fix this issue, to do so with retrospective legislation, to get it through as quickly as possible.”
On Thursday morning, the force began virtually swearing in affected officers. More than 200 were sworn in by 9am, police sources said.
Most of those who need to be sworn in are expected to go through the process in coming days, they said.
It’s not an ideal situation for us to be in, but I can assure [the public] we’re moving as quickly as possible to fix this issue
Police Minister Lisa Neville
The error though has put a cloud over potentially thousands of criminal matters currently before or already finalised in the court system.
Both Mr Patton and Ms Neville maintain they’re confident the legislation, once passed, will cover all historic matters and ensure the affected officer’s work, including criminal charges, was validated.
But Mr Patton said if anyone wanted to contest their charges, matters would be adjourned in court until the legislation was finalised “because there are a number of arguable points of law about the whole issue”.
Opposition police spokesman Brad Battin said the Coalition would support legislation.
“Our absolute priority is Victoria Police are protected,” Mr Battin said.
“We need to make sure those men and women that have gone out there and just done their job aren’t open to public liability.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said on Thursday morning he believed there would be bipartisan support to remedy the error.
“We have to give our police every support that we can. It’s not just resources and numbers … it’s also about certainty, and that’s what I think the Parliament will deliver very soon.”
In a statement, the state’s Police Association said it was aware of the “unintended and highly technical administrative error”.
“We understand that Victoria Police will move decisively and quickly to remedy this situation so that our members can get back to doing what they do best, looking after the community,” the spokesman said.
“We will support the members impacted in any way we can and ensure that their legal and industrial rights are protected as this issue is rectified.”
Mr Patton said the potential issue was first raised in February last year at a court hearing into a major drug investigation when the authority of an acting assistant commissioner to make directions was raised.
Mr Patton said an audit was launched, though at that stage police believed the issue was confined to that particular case.
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2022-02-23 21:28:42Z
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