W.A. Cops accused of concocting story to avoid speeding fine

Two police officers have been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice after allegedly trying to "write off" speeding fines by falsifying documents and claiming they were engaged in a pursuit.

The constables, a male and a female, were today charged by internal affairs officers after a protracted investigation.

In April, The Sunday Times revealed the two officers were stood down over a $75 speeding fine after they claimed to have been chasing a vehicle when their police car went through a speed trap on Stirling Highway in Cottesloe at 1.35am on August 13 last year.

The police vehicle was snapped by a fixed speed camera travelling 7km/h over the 60km/h limit. But a review of several seconds of video footage taken by the camera after the alleged offence revealed there were no other cars in sight at the time.

Both officers, who were stationed in the central metropolitan district at the time, were today charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. They are due to appear in Perth Magistrates Court on August 5 and remain stood down on full pay.

The prosecution will allege that the female officer, who was a passenger at the time, accessed the in-car computer system to enter the registration of a ficticious vehicle into a CAD (computer aided dispatch) and claimed to have pulled over the vehicle to speak with the driver.

It will also be alleged that the female officer put in a radio call to the Police Operations Centre reporting the speed camera had been activated during the pursuit, before entering another false entry in the CAD system.

The male officer, who had been the driver at the time, allegedly used the false information to make an entry in his police notebook about the incident.

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has previously warned that any officers found to give misleading information during internal investigations risked losing their jobs.

SOURCE