Police 'botched' investigation of Townsville attack on soldier, says father
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Version 0 of 1. The family of a soldier whose skull was fractured after an assault outside a Townsville nightclub has accused Queensland police of botching the investigation, leading to failures in prosecuting his assailants. They have complained of a series of alleged missteps by investigators, including charging the “wrong person” and mistakenly taking the soldier as having withdrawn a complaint in an interview while he was under sedation in hospital hours after the attack. But senior police have defended the investigation, after an internal review found detectives’ only mistake was to ignore communications by the family asking for an explanation. A CCTV camera allegedly recorded the soldier, 26, who asked not to be identified, being blindsided by a strike to the head during an apparent dispute with three other men outside the Bank nightclub on 8 February, 2015. Vision allegedly showed the soldier being struck in the head by one man and again in a “coward punch” by a second man from the side. The soldier fell and was knocked unconscious when his head struck the ground. He was admitted to Townsville hospital with a fractured skull and bleeding and swelling of the brain, and treating doctors told his family he was lucky to have survived. The soldier, upon learning the investigation had been closed after officers interviewed him while he passed in and out of consciousness in hospital, later notified investigators to say he had no recollection of “pressing charges or withdrawing any complaint” on the night of the assault. He told police he had “only very vague recollections of being in the ambulance and passing out when you [came] to see me in Townsville hospital”. Police reopened the case on 16 February, 2015 and two days later charged a man with grievous bodily harm. That man admitted to throwing the punches that first struck the soldier’s head, according to police. Almost a year later, two officials from the director of public prosecutions’ office met with the soldier to show him CCTV footage of the attack and to explain that the “wrong person” had been charged, the soldier said. A Crown prosecutor and a legal services officer“pointed out” the CCTV footage showed another man actually threw the punch that preceded his fall, the soldier said. The prosecutors told him the matter needed to be referred back to Townsville criminal investigation bureau for the correct person to be charged with GBH, he said. The second man was never charged. His friend charged with GBH was committed to stand trial by a magistrate. But the DPP then withdrew charges. It decided there was no prospect of a successful prosecution for GBH against either of the identified suspects due to difficulties in proving which man was responsible for causing the soldier’s injuries, according to police. The soldier’s father told Guardian Australia that the investigation was “botched from day one”. “They’ve got a statement from one of the blokes saying ‘yes I did actually hit him to the head’, and the other guy is seen to hit him as well,” he said. “The guy that says he hit him to the head, surely he can be charged with assault. “But they haven’t. They’ve just said we can’t prove who caused the grievous bodily harm. So they walk away.” The soldier told police that the attack had triggered ongoing severe headaches, post-traumatic amnesia and “cost me greatly in my first few weeks with my new unit”. “With a fractured skull it has almost certainly cost me deployment, and or, promotion, in the near future,” he said. The soldier’s father alleged that two days before the GBH charge was laid, an investigating detective told him that he knew the suspects but “doubted the matter would ever go to court”. He recounted this exchange in correspondence with the detective and other senior police. The father lodged a complaint about police conduct of the case with the crime and corruption commission in March last year. The CCC referred the complaint back to police for an internal investigation, overseen by Inspector Kelly Harvey. In a letter explaining the findings and obtained by Guardian Australia, ethical standards command senior sergeant Peter Steyger said the officers had “no prior knowledge of any of the suspects and therefore have not sought to protect any person with respect to this matter”. Steyger said the officers had “acted in good faith and charged who they believed committed the offence” after viewing the CCTV on the night of the assault and later obtaining a copy of the vision. The fact that that man was later committed to stand trial showed “a prima facie case existed whereby the charged person could be found guilty of the offence”. Steyger said: “The decision not to prosecute the charged suspect or commence a prosecution against the other suspect is a matter for the DPP, not the Queensland police service. “Upon review by the DPP it was identified that a second person was also involved in the offence,” Steyger said. “Legal advice is that there would be difficulties in particularising which person caused the injury to your son, resulting in the charge being withdrawn. “According to the DPP there was no prospect of a successful prosecution against any of the identified suspects due to the issue of causation.” Steyger said the soldier was “awake and conscious when police spoke to him at the hospital”. “He clearly indicated he did not wish to proceed with a complaint and endorsed a police notebook to that effect,” he said. Steyger acknowledged that police had not contacted the father or replied to his correspondence asking for an explanation of the course of the investigation. He said the investigators had been “provided guidance by a senior officer ... to correct and modify officer behaviour to ensure there is not a recurrence in the future”. A spokesman for Queensland police said the matter was finalised and police would provide no further comment. Comment was sought from the DPP. |