 Alright, good morning everybody. Our investigations into the alleged theft of two rings from an Indooroopilly jewellery shop on Friday are continuing. The circumstances surrounding this matter are very unusual and the procedures required to recover the rings have throughout presented a range of operational health and safety and welfare issues. The QPS consulted with medical practitioners regarding which procedures should be adopted to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the accused and those collecting the samples to be examined. A process using medical bags was used in an attempt to recover the rings. Recent medical tests have confirmed the presence of one ring inside the man who remains in police custody. The second ring remains outstanding after having been passed by the man and inadvertently disposed of. All attempts by the QPS to locate the ring so far have not been successful and at this time we do not expect it will be recovered. The circumstances surrounding the loss of the ring are the subject of an ongoing ethical standards command investigation. The QPS regrets this incident and will confidentially discuss matters of compensation with the owners of the ring and will explore and consider any further opportunities regarding compensation through the courts. QPS procedures in relation to this type of matter are the subject of ongoing urgent review to ensure that a similar loss of property does not occur in the future. Procedures for the collection of the second ring have already been amended accordingly. Happy to take questions, can I just say a couple of caveats on what I might be able to say. The first is obviously the matter of the original theft is before the court which will limit what I might be able to say and the second is that we have an ongoing ethical standards command investigation which has not finished and that will also have some impact on what I'm able to say. How have you changed procedures waiting for the second ring? We have decided we're going to use a specialist equipment that is available through our customs colleagues at the Brisbane airport. We're also urgently investigating the opportunity for us to install similar equipment in the Brisbane watch house here for our own use in the future. Is that a clear toilet? That's especially designed toilet to ensure that in these sorts of circumstances matter can't be passed covertly. No, we believe that it may have been inadvertently disposed of in one of two waste bags that were given to us by the prisoner and delivered as part of the normal waste collection from the Brisbane City watch house. So in short, the skin aside you lost it? Big part of it? You lost it? Yeah, it would appear at this stage that it's inadvertently been lost, yes. You mean those bags were searched? Yes. The officers involved in this were obviously confronted with some rare and unusual circumstances. They put procedures in place in good faith which they thought would lead to the recovery of these items. In hindsight it appears there's been a gap in these procedures and that's allowed the ring to be inadvertently lost. How were the bags disposed of? They put initially in a biohazard bin and then transferred to the general refuse bin at the watch house and collected on a daily basis by the contractor. Do you think Mark was new that he had passed one of them? It was about to say he was under the pressure. He would say he had delivered one bit of evidence. Yeah, that's still part of the ongoing ethical standards command investigation but one possibility is that he knew he had passed it and didn't alert police to that. The other possibility is he was unaware or unsure and they're the options. Just to clarify, was it not somebody's job to go through what had been passed and checked just in case? I mean was he to know to have gone through his own waste that there was a ring in there or would it not appear that it was somebody's job to do that? The responsibility for the collection and retention of exhibits always remains with the investigating police. They didn't go through it? Not at this occasion, no. Are you still able to allege using the X-ray for example that the two rings were in the accused possession? Absolutely. Without, let's say with the caveat that this matter is still before the court, this will have no detriment to the prosecution of this matter. We will still be able to recover one of the two rings and the X-ray is very clear that was taken on Friday night that there were two rings inside the accused person. Do you know what ring had been lost out of the two? No. Is there any possibility of him smuggling the ring out that the other visitors are in the market? No. He's had no visitor contact. He's been under constant CCTV surveillance throughout. We reviewed all of that footage, examined and searched every place that he has been, sells cars and are confident as we can be that the ring has unfortunately been inadvertently lost in the waste disposal process. Can somebody be stood down over this? Do you mind there was two tasks to find both rings and one being lost? Somebody's got to be held responsible. Well that's why we instigated an urgent and immediate ethical standards command investigation to look at all the circumstances of this, including whether there had been any possibility that the ring could have been stolen by any person. Very satisfied that hasn't occurred. When the internal investigations report is concluded we'll look at the recommendations then. Will he be taken to a customer's facility to use this new toilet? He has been for the last several days being taken to that customer's facility. How about for a couple of hours each day and then brought back? No, for the majority of the day, for as long as possible each day. Where is the customer's facility at? At the airport. How embarrassing is this for police this lot? It's not embarrassing at all for me because the office is concerned of acting in good faith. This is a rare and difficult set of circumstances. No one sets out to lose evidence. It's in the best interest of the investigating officers to retain all evidence. So they've done the best they could in the circumstances. Unfortunately, there was a gap in the processes they put in place. In hindsight, do you wish you'd kept the bags of each waste that had been passed to be able to go back through them, trawl through it? Absolutely. The benefit of hindsight is we look at all of our procedures and work out how we can do things better. That's... We've been doing policing for nearly 150 years in the state and it's a constant process of looking at circumstances and amending our procedures as we need to. Was it occupational health and safety that kept the officers from going through those bags? Those two bags, you believe the ring is presently? Well, there are obviously health and safety concerns that have to come into play with the treatment of matter like that, but there are options for the material to be examined offsite in other places. And that's what we'll be doing in the future if we have to, if we find ourselves in similar circumstances. How often do you engage with an alleged criminal in good faith? It seems a bit of a bizarre way. Well, that was a judgment call made by the investigating officers. They were closest to the case. They'd spoken to the man. They formed a judgment. They put a procedure in place. They thought it would be adequate. As I say, they acted in good faith. With the benefit of hindsight, there was just one step missing in the checking process which would have prevented this happening. So did he know we'd pass it? We're not 100% sure on that. So they thought he was cooperating and would retreat and return the ring. That's interesting. That's my understanding of the arrangements that were entered into originally, yes. Because he obviously has an interest in returning the rings. His bail is a conditional on it, so... And he... So what day did you think that actually happened? We think it happened over last weekend. What are doctors saying? Is he in good health? Is the ring stuck anywhere where it shouldn't be? He is in good health. He's monitored every day, x-rayed every day. We're in contact with the doctors every day about next steps and how we can, you know, progress the procedure. And we're taking medical advice day by day. Has he been given a special diet to speed up the process? We take advice from the medical professionals, yes. And on a day-to-day basis, we look at what options can safely be employed with his consent to try and get to the point where, you know, the second ring is passed. How does this affect his bail conditions now? Obviously, you said that it was conditional that both of these rings were returned. One's now been lost. He appears often acting good faith with you. So he's a party to this going missing. Is this going to affect his case? Look, I can't comment on that specifically, but can I say that the responsibility, as I said earlier, the responsibility for the custody of the exhibits lies not with him, but with us? I don't have any information to that effect. Can you honestly be really clear that officers were expecting this man to tell them when he had passed the ring so they knew which bag to search and that's why they didn't search those bags? That was the arrangement that they entered into with this person, yes. But wouldn't it be clear in that process? Well, with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to sit here and say, yes, we should have conducted a secondary search regardless, and that's one of the procedural gaps that we've now fixed. But it doesn't even seem that there's a benefit of hindsight, surely to be common sense that if a bike's passed something over to you, it could be in there. I'm sure he hasn't gone through it with his hands. They'll look that there probably needs to be some sort of x-ray to determine if there's a ring in there. I'm sure that's the case in Good Faith. They thought the procedures they put in place were adequate. We can now say with some certainty there was a gap in the procedures, which we've closed. As a senior officer, what is your opinion of this stuff? As I said before... You must be livid. As I said before, the officers acted in Good Faith. They have an interest in trying to recover the material. They did their job as they saw fit. And, say, with the benefit of hindsight, we'll do it in a different way. The customs, that arrangement of customs, has that been going on since he was arrested only in the last, in recent days? Customs and our federal colleagues, as you know, have far more experience in this field than we do. They deal with it on a far more regular basis. So they have the facilities available for their use in circumstances where people come in secreting contraband. For the Queensland Police, it's a relatively unusual circumstance. So has that been something that's only happened the last few days or after it was realised that the ring, that first ring went missing or in the face since he was arrested? No, we took him to the customs facility and started to make use of that once we became aware that the first ring was not there. Can you think of any other cases similar to this where the police have had to do anything like this? I don't know if drugs might have been or other stolen items or anything like that. Look, not in the QPS and not in recent memory of the QPS. This is more routine for our federal colleagues, as I say. The fact is, if the exhibit's been lost, that's not an unusual circumstance in itself. Exhibits occasionally go missing in a range of circumstances. This is rather unique in terms of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. He might be ordered to repay the owners to co-op and compensation for the last ring. We'll certainly look at our options. As I said, we are in discussions with the owners of the ring about whether they wish to make a claim on us in the future. If they do, we'll consider that on a confidential basis. But we retain our rights also in the criminal court process. This is a guy who stole the ring, allegedly, and then swallowed it. How can QPS be responsible for something that he did? We'll need to take legal advice on that. But, as I said, we do retain a responsibility for not only his safety and wellbeing while he's in our custody, but also the recovery and safe custody of exhibits, which is effectively what this is. It's a piece of evidence in the exhibit. I was just going to say, his whole cycle... I'm sure, without having spoken to him, that he probably regrets it based on all the circumstances so far. It's not a pleasant way to spend a week of your life, and it's not over yet. And for you, is this one of the stranger cases you've been involved in in your career? I would have to say, yeah, this is fairly unique. As I say, the QPS doesn't often get involved in cases where people have swallowed things to prevent evidence being recovered by us. That's more familiar in the federal sphere. So, yeah, it's pretty unusual for the QPS. Has this gentleman been observed as he's been passing the stool? I mean, has there been a third party there who's been watching what's been taking place? He's been under constant CCTV surveillance since he first came into the watch house. Is there a time, like I know earlier in the week, doctors were saying, but it wouldn't be unusual for it to take seven days to pass? We're in daily contact with medical authorities and the suspect, and we're reviewing it on a day-by-day basis. And one of the many possibilities might be that we may need to look at some more significant medical intervention, so we're just playing that out on a day-by-day basis. Like surgery? Possibly. What was your response when you learned of the losing of the ring? It was an unusual set of circumstances and that's why I ordered an immediate investigation by the ethical standards command just to get a full appreciation of what had happened since the time we took this suspect into custody until that time. Well, to make sure that there was no possibility that the ring had been stolen, and that's clearly not the case. When will that report be passed back to you when we know it's been completed? I'm hoping it will have a report within the next few weeks. There's no chance that the contract has finished it or it's gone missing on that end? No. We're fairly confident that it's probably under a huge amount of landfill at a refuse site and will not ever be recovered. What was the value of the ring? Well, the value of the ring is a confidential matter between ourselves and the owner. Are we talking more than ten? I'm sorry, I'm not able to speculate. And you are confident that this is going to have no bearing on prosecuting as well? Absolutely, I'm very confident that it will have no detrimental impact on the prosecution. Can I just get a confirmation of when he was taken to the AFP so the practice was changed? Not the AFP. Customs? That was on Wednesday. So you believe the ring went missing at the weekend? Yes. So it only became clear on Wednesday that the second ring was not there? It only became clear on Tuesday night that we had to get the man re-exrayed. He was complaining of cramps. So we had to re-exray late Tuesday night. That's when it became... That's when we had clear evidence that the second ring was not there and we've taken the steps I've outlined immediately after that. Why is it taken until today to notify the broader public? Because up until yesterday afternoon we were exploring all options to try and recover the ring, searches of all places, and we got to the point where we believed the ring is under landfill at a particular site. Yesterday afternoon we finally got some costings for a search of that site. So we knew that the costings for doing a search would be completely cost prohibitive and not in the public interest. So effectively at that point we had exhausted all of our opportunities to try and recover it. Can we ask what those costings were? Significantly more than the value of the ring. Thank you very much. Can we just get some cutaways? Thank you.