Queensland Police fabricated search warrants for raids

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24525576-421,00.html

October 20, 2008 06:56pm
Article from: AAP * Homes of innocent people "raided by cops" * Commission "failing to investigate complaints" * Major corruption scandal, says detective

QUEENSLAND police officers have been accused of regularly using illegal search warrants to raid the homes of innocent people.

Channel 7 tonight aired the claims of whistleblower detectives who said officers on the Gold Coast regularly made up evidence to obtain warrants.

The subsequent raids were used to further the careers of senior management, Seven said.

The detectives, who asked for their identities to remain secret, also claimed corruption watchdog the Crime and Misconduct Commission had failed to investigate numerous complaints about the alleged illegally obtained warrants.

One detective told Seven the network illegal warrants had been used in hundreds of raids on the Gold Coast in the last five years.

"This is a major corruption scandal," he told Seven News.

"Specific evidence is required for a search warrant application but on many occasions on the Gold Coast ... that information is simply made up."

He said officers routinely drove around public carparks to pick up random licence plate numbers to use in search warrant applications.

"It is done for the purpose of arrest figures and obtaining numbers of search warrants," he said.

Another officer accused senior management of organising "raid days" where warrant applications were "dumped" on officers' desks.

"If you didn't have details for 25 warrants then you had to make up addresses and grounds for warrants," he told Seven.

"It is a rats' nest. Really good police offices are being made to act illegally."

He said police used justices of the peace, who would not read the grounds before signing, to gain the warrants.

A third officer, a former Gold Coast detective, told the network that the "dodgy" warrants were generated to get "kill figures up".

"The grounds of the warrants would not be correct but basically everyone knew you had to meet monthly total of raids and warrants or you would never get a detective's appointment," he said.

"You had to get seven arrests a month to justify yourself. We would have raid days at least once a month were you would have to have warrants.

"Everyone did it. Everyone knew it was wrong but everyone knew you had to get the figures up," he said.

The network claimed the allegations had been referred to the Police Ethical Standards Command 18 months ago but the investigation by police was still unfinished.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• queensland
• police
• News
• Gotcha!
• Commentary
• Analysis
• warrants
• search
• gold
• coast
• corruption

[pokinfish]

@OperationOvercoat It's soft cocks like you making excuses for these fuckwads that enable this shit to continue. I'll "shut the fuck up" when the cops start obeying the same laws that we have to abide by. Till then I'll say whatever the fuck I want - that's the whole point of posting comments you loser.

[OperationOvercoat]

@pokinfish Alot of police are decent people..........maybe you shouldn't generalise so easily.....and your fix to the problem is to allow bike gangs to run the show? NO!

The independent commissions are doing their jobs but need more resources and power to do what is nessesary to stop corruption.......please put your thinking cap on or shut the fuck up....

[code925301]

dame tarriest 

[pokinfish]

Its a pussy boys club, the only way to get a message across to the cops is utter violence against them, get them any way you can its up to the bike gangs to put those pigs back in there place thats the way of the world so get used to it people it only gets better from here. HA HA

[HeatherLynne100]

I doubt the corruption will ever stop as the pigs have too much power.

[shaynehunter]

unreal, I wonder why it start 5 years ago, how did this corruption start

[cyprusxxx]

STOP THE CORRUPTION