Deborah Cornwall reported this story on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 18:38:00
MARK COLVIN: Hearings into the titanic battle between two warring New South Wales police chiefs have come to an end with apparently explosive new evidence.
NSW deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas told the parliamentary inquiry that the evidence confirmed that internal affairs police had set out to target him and other officers 15 years ago on false corruption allegations.
He said it showed it was part of a personal vendetta by the unit’s boss.
Deborah Cornwall with this report.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: After five days of brutal revelations over a 15-year-old police bugging scandal, deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas was more than ready to unload today.
His first target was fellow deputy Catherine Burn, the investigator who went after Mr Kaldas as part of a botched police corruption investigation 15 years ago. Ms Burn has repeatedly denied to the inquiry that she was the officer who had suggested Mr Kaldas as a target to a corrupt police officer, “M5”, who she had wired up to try and entrap Mr Kaldas.
NICK KALDAS: Notwithstanding the evidence that Catherine Burn gave to the committee this morning, the person that introduced my name to M5 was in fact Catherine Burn. I’d like to table to the committee an extract which is all I have, unfortunately, of the interview that was conducted with M5 by Ms Burn and another detective.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: Deputy Kaldas also produced devastating evidence that directly contradicts Deputy Burn’s claims she had been unaware her boss at the internal affairs unit at the time, Superintendant John Dolan, had been pursuing a personal vendetta against Mr Kaldas.
Officers from the internal affairs unit, he said, confirmed there had been a growing concern about Superintendant Dolan’s determination to keep bugging Mr Kaldas’ phones and pursuing him when there was no evidence.
But worse still, Deputy Burn’s informant M5 had later claimed workers compensation on the basis he’d been deeply traumatised by what he had been made to do by internal affairs, especially his pursuit of Mr Kaldas.
NICK KALDAS: The substance of his claim is that he was used to even up personal scores. Further, in paragraph 2, “I was sent by my supervising superintendant to see a particular person five or six times. I smelt a rat. I’ve done stuff you wouldn’t do to your worst enemy. I’ve been used.”
I would submit that that refers to me….
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