AFTER months of damaging revelations, Australia's most sensational inquiry into police corruption yesterday claimed its biggest political victim when the New South Wales police commissioner announced his resignation.
Mr Tony Lauer, the most senior police officer in Australia's most populous state, stood down in the wake of revelations of police bribery and corruption much of it captured on hidden video cameras, which have stunned Australians since a Royal Commission began investigating the New South Wales police seven months ago.
After initially belittling the inquiry, and denying that systematic corruption existed in his force, Mr Lauer has been humiliated by evidence from corrupt former policemen, describing bribery, drug dealing and theft across a broad scale, particularly among police in Sydney. Last August, Mr Lauer was forced to stand down his own assistant chief of staff, who was named at the inquiry as allegedly corrupt.
What makes this inquiry different, and more sensational, than any other of its kind is its use of cameras to catch corrupt policemen, and the decision of Mr Justice James Wood, heading the inquiry, to release the results to television news. One video showed a senior drug squad officer having sex with a former prostitute, asking her for drugs and ordering child pornography videos from her. Another, taken from a miniature camera planted under a police car dashboard, showed a senior detective being passed a handful of cash by another officer, allegedly their shares from a bribery payment by a notorious drug dealer.
Some of the most shocking revelations have cent red on the so called "shooting galleries" in Kings Cross, an inner Sydney area once popular for its cosmopolitanism but now under the grip of crime and drug lords. Such figures openly ran the "galleries", with police protection, where heroin addicts could rent rooms to shoot up drugs. Since the royal commission blew their cover, the galleries have been closed.
Much vital evidence has been obtained with help from Det Sgt Trevor Haken, the inquiry's biggest "supergrass", who agreed to co operate with the royal commission after admitting his own corruption over 27 years in the police force. "I considered it to be quite acceptable behaviour in the course of being a detective", he said.
Sgt Haken has named dozens of allegedly corrupt police, many of whom have since joined him in "rolling over" to avoid long prison sentences.
Faced with overwhelming evidence, and calls for his sacking, Mr Lauer yesterday announced that he was retiring "for personal reasons" 21/2 years before his contract as police commissioner is due to expire. He added "I believe it is critical that we commence rebuilding public confidence in the police service." Mr Justice Wood described his decision as "entirely honourable".