Qld. police watchdog accuses Deputy Police Commissioner Kathy Rynders of bungling disciplinary decision

Cops covering for cops, as usual


The crooked bitch above

The Crime and Misconduct Commission has delivered a scathing assessment of the objectivity of Deputy Police Commissioner Kathy Rynders as she prepares to discipline six officers involved in the Palm Island investigation.

In a hearing before the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, CMC barrister John Allen suggested Ms Rynders got virtually nothing right when she ruled misconduct charges against an officer accused of assault were unsubstantiated.

Sergeant Damien Chapman is alleged to have punched a 15-year-old boy under his ribs during his arrest at Clontarf, north of Brisbane, in May 2007. The complainant, now 18, was diagnosed as having a severely ruptured spleen after he began vomiting in pain at the Redcliffe police watchhouse shortly after his arrest.

Although doctors found the injury must have occurred within the two hours before his arrival at hospital, Deputy Commissioner Rynders decided it could not be proven that Sgt Chapman assaulted the boy.

Mr Allen told the tribunal yesterday there was no other plausible explanation for the injury, despite Ms Rynders finding it could have occurred while he was moving furniture at his house. He argued had that been the case, the boy would not have been able to flee Sgt Chapman when he arrived to arrest him over an alleged break and enter. "There is no record of any blunt force from behind being suffered by (the complainant) prior to his arrest," Mr Allen said.

He told the tribunal all Ms Rynders got right in her investigation was that the injury could not have occurred while the boy was being transported to the watchhouse. "There was simply no evidence to support that," Mr Allen said.

"(The complainant) has been consistent in his early complaint of assault by (Sgt Chapman). He's alleged an assault by police of a type that was consistent with the injury he received."

The CMC wants the tribunal to set aside Ms Rynders' ruling and sack Sgt Chapman for misconduct. Tribunal chairman James Thomas and senior member Susan Booth are expected to publish their decision in the next two weeks.

Ms Rynders is yet to decide on appropriate discipline for the six officers adversely mentioned in the CMC report on the police Palm Island death in custody investigations.

SOURCE