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Damned If You Do: The Case That Could End Police Pursuits | Mick Kennedy · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Approach production.
0:14
Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host.
0:16
Speaker 2: Adam Shann. Should New South Wales police stop pursuits of
0:20
Speaker 2: offenders on motorcycles After the death of Ji Wright in
0:24
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, if police.
0:26
Speaker 3: Officer involved in efforts to catch a teenage motorbike writer
0:29
Speaker 3: learned his fate after being convicted over the crash. Sergeant
0:32
Speaker 3: Benedict Bryant had used his unmarked police car to block
0:35
Speaker 3: the Aboriginal team.
0:37
Speaker 1: That could be the big question.
0:39
Speaker 2: After Sergeant Benedict Bryant was found guilty of dangerous driving
0:43
Speaker 2: over the crash that killed Wright when he rode a
0:46
Speaker 2: stolen motorbike into Bryant's unmarked police car.
0:49
Speaker 1: Bryant didn't go to jail, but he was.
0:52
Speaker 2: Sentenced to a two year intensive corrections order, including five
0:56
Speaker 2: hundred hours of community service. A lot of people have
0:59
Speaker 2: said that Bryant should never have been charged.
1:02
Speaker 3: Bryant sentenced to two year intensive corrections order no jail time.
1:07
Speaker 3: Police Association of New South Wales calls verdict a grave
1:10
Speaker 3: injustice and WARN's officers will think twice before acting.
1:15
Speaker 2: But what happens next is the bigger question for the community.
1:18
Speaker 2: Will New South Wales follow Queensland, where police are strongly
1:22
Speaker 2: discouraged from chasing bikers unless extreme circumstances exist.
1:27
Speaker 3: Queensland Police Servers confirms pursuit ban on motorcycles remains in force.
1:32
Speaker 3: Officers will face disciplinary action if they initiate chase without
1:36
Speaker 3: prior authorization.
1:38
Speaker 2: Some police say that if that happens in New South Wales,
1:41
Speaker 2: the cops will be abandoning the roads to the crooks
1:43
Speaker 2: on motorbikes.
1:45
Speaker 1: Maybe, but here's the thing.
1:47
Speaker 2: Even if the formal policy doesn't change, Bryant's conviction may
1:51
Speaker 2: change police behavior. It will be a brave police officer
1:55
Speaker 2: who will order a pursuit of a crook on a
1:57
Speaker 2: motorbike if his troops could face years in prison when
2:01
Speaker 2: it all goes wrong.
2:02
Speaker 3: Senior police commanders privately warned government the Bryant conviction will
2:07
Speaker 3: have a chilling effect on pursued decisions across the state.
2:13
Speaker 1: On this question.
2:15
Speaker 2: I spoke to former New South Wales police officer turned
2:17
Speaker 2: academic doctor Michael Kennedy of the University of Western Sydney
2:22
Speaker 2: after the verdict. Doctor Michael Kennedy, welcome to real crime.
2:29
Speaker 1: How are you?
2:31
Speaker 4: I'm good? Thanks, Adam Good to see.
2:34
Speaker 2: Very interesting set of circumstances with possibly far reaching implications
2:40
Speaker 2: the death of Jy Wright and the culpability of Sergeant
2:44
Speaker 2: Benedict Bryant. First of all, let's work through what happened
2:49
Speaker 2: on that day back in twenty twenty two.
2:51
Speaker 4: Well as best as I can understand. I think we
2:55
Speaker 4: have to go back further than that. And what we
2:58
Speaker 4: have to ask ourselves is was there anything else in
3:02
Speaker 4: that young person's life there was the police to make
3:07
Speaker 4: the decision to pursue him. Because since I was in
3:11
Speaker 4: the police and I'm going back thirty years, pursuits have
3:15
Speaker 4: been they don't do them very often. They're not worth
3:18
Speaker 4: the hassle. You end up catching the juvenile. You can't
3:22
Speaker 4: change them for stealing the car. It's an illegal use.
3:27
Speaker 4: It's a lot of effort. It enters a juvenile into
3:30
Speaker 4: a criminal justice system. And I remember Barbara Holberry said
3:34
Speaker 4: most young car themes grow out of it, and they
3:37
Speaker 4: do so. From my understanding when I was in the
3:42
Speaker 4: police and since is that it's not normal for police
3:46
Speaker 4: just simply to engage in a high speed shot just
3:51
Speaker 4: on the basis that the young person is going a
3:54
Speaker 4: bit quick. There have got to be other underlying factors.
3:59
Speaker 4: My understanding is there were, and I don't want to
4:04
Speaker 4: go into that, but I think there were, and the
4:07
Speaker 4: family would have been aware of that, and leg Laide
4:10
Speaker 4: would have been aware of it as well.
4:13
Speaker 1: That's right.
4:14
Speaker 2: Well, the simple facts of the case, McK kennedy was
4:18
Speaker 2: that Gy Rights riding a stolen trowel bike. He's in
4:22
Speaker 2: the bike lane. They're going about sixty eight kilometers an
4:26
Speaker 2: hour in a forty zone. Sergeant Bryant makes the decision
4:31
Speaker 2: to block the bike lane. Wright tries to avoid the vehicle,
4:37
Speaker 2: but he's going too fast. Apparently hits the curving or
4:40
Speaker 2: something like that and ends up striking the vehicle. He's
4:44
Speaker 2: actually wearing a helmet, but the helmet comes off.
4:48
Speaker 1: He's in the air.
4:49
Speaker 2: He has catastrophic head injuries and later dies. Sergeant Bryant
4:54
Speaker 2: is charged with dangerous driving, which carries a very hefty penalty,
4:59
Speaker 2: and he's ultimately I don't want to gloss over the
5:02
Speaker 2: detail too much, because you know, but I think these
5:04
Speaker 2: are the bare f it. I think there's a certain
5:06
Speaker 2: amount of pragmatism gone into the.
5:08
Speaker 1: Sentence where Brian is found.
5:11
Speaker 2: Guilty, but he's given a two year intensive community corrections order,
5:16
Speaker 2: including five hundred hours of public service. But he's got
5:20
Speaker 2: a criminal conviction against his name. And the way this
5:23
Speaker 2: is being portrayed in the media is this is the
5:26
Speaker 2: first time a police officer has been found guilty of
5:30
Speaker 2: the death of an Indigenous person during a police operation.
5:33
Speaker 1: So there's a very.
5:34
Speaker 4: Political let's correct that this is what the Aboriginal Legal
5:39
Speaker 4: Service is saying. The media is just jumping on board.
5:44
Speaker 2: Well, correct, and I think, but it's very easy to
5:46
Speaker 2: see that through race. I don't think it's a very
5:48
Speaker 2: helpful lens and I don't.
5:50
Speaker 4: Think, no, it's not.
5:51
Speaker 1: It's not.
5:52
Speaker 2: But let's look at the circumstance and you talk about pursuits,
5:55
Speaker 2: and I think the bigger question for the community here
5:58
Speaker 2: is what happens to pursuits generally, particularly people on motorcycles
6:03
Speaker 2: after this event.
6:05
Speaker 4: Well, I'd add again, what we don't know is were
6:10
Speaker 4: they concerned that he'd been involved in something else and
6:14
Speaker 4: that he was trying to get away from that. And
6:17
Speaker 4: if he was trying to get away from something else,
6:20
Speaker 4: was it violent, was it something that he was known for.
6:25
Speaker 4: I don't know, but I think that these questions the
6:28
Speaker 4: police are entitled to take that into consideration when they
6:32
Speaker 4: make decisions. The other issue is I don't think police
6:37
Speaker 4: in general have got an issue with being accountable. I
6:41
Speaker 4: don't think they've got an issue with being questioned as
6:44
Speaker 4: to their judgment. They're pretty well educated these days, despite
6:49
Speaker 4: what the intellectual community says, or they're not educated like
6:54
Speaker 4: social workers. There's a good reason for that. They're not
6:57
Speaker 4: social workers. And so at Bryant's experience, he would have
7:03
Speaker 4: been an in and out of court. He would know
7:05
Speaker 4: exactly what his obligations were. And my other argument would
7:11
Speaker 4: be if the present commissioner or even the past commissioner
7:16
Speaker 4: had been concerned with this to the point that he
7:19
Speaker 4: was a liability, they would have suspended him. And they didn't,
7:24
Speaker 4: and he still isn't. There's something else going on here,
7:27
Speaker 4: and I would argue, so we can put it in
7:30
Speaker 4: another context and we can go further. This matter has
7:34
Speaker 4: been investigated by the Professional Standards branch. They're not a
7:38
Speaker 4: friend of rank and file police. I need to make
7:42
Speaker 4: that very very clear. They're not a friend. The DPP
7:47
Speaker 4: was part of that screening process. They are definitely not
7:51
Speaker 4: a friend of rank and file police and first responders.
7:55
Speaker 4: The Oversight Body that looks at New South Wales Police
7:59
Speaker 4: has reviewed it and my information is they've also cleared him.
8:03
Speaker 4: Now they're definitely not a friend of police at all.
8:07
Speaker 4: These are driven by the legal establishment who've got their
8:10
Speaker 4: own set of rules and they do whatever they like,
8:13
Speaker 4: and that's one of the big problems we've got with
8:16
Speaker 4: our system. But on top of this, when the matter
8:20
Speaker 4: goes before the coroner and for whatever reason, she decides
8:24
Speaker 4: to insist on him being charged, the DPP then has
8:28
Speaker 4: decided against his own organization's decisions to prosecute him. And
8:34
Speaker 4: the DPP that prosecuted this officer knew that he'd been
8:38
Speaker 4: cleared by a number at various levels, but they still
8:42
Speaker 4: pursued it. To make it even worse, he's not a
8:46
Speaker 4: member of the police Association and so he's had to
8:50
Speaker 4: fund his own defense. The police department didn't fund it.
8:54
Speaker 4: He's ad to fund his own defense. And on the
8:56
Speaker 4: basis of that, I'm informed he chose a judge only
8:59
Speaker 4: trial because he couldn't afford a jury trial.
9:03
Speaker 1: What's the difference in costs we're talking, Yeah.
9:05
Speaker 4: This is absurd. It's thousands and he couldn't afford it.
9:10
Speaker 4: This is simply absurd. If someone from the DPP gets charged,
9:14
Speaker 4: I doubt they've got to put their own legal builts.
9:17
Speaker 4: But if a parliamentarian gets charged, they certainly don't put
9:22
Speaker 4: their own legal builts. But this officer did. But to
9:25
Speaker 4: make it even worse when the judge only trial found
9:30
Speaker 4: him guilty. And I don't know what her reasonings were.
9:33
Speaker 4: I don't think she was unreasonable, but I think she
9:36
Speaker 4: was caught in a very difficult place. The DPP, who
9:40
Speaker 4: had previously insisted he didn't do anything wrong, were asking
9:44
Speaker 4: for a custodial sentence at the end of the trial,
9:48
Speaker 4: rather than saying to the judge, well, what do you think, Well,
9:51
Speaker 4: what's the precedent? This has been heavily politicized and we
9:56
Speaker 4: know that policing is very political, but there is no
9:59
Speaker 4: reason for it to be this politicized.
10:03
Speaker 1: MCAT. Does this happened? As you say?
10:05
Speaker 2: The professional standards says no case to answer. The group
10:09
Speaker 2: within the DPP, which exclusively prosecutes police and politicians and says,
10:15
Speaker 2: looks at it as well and says no case to answer.
10:18
Speaker 2: How does the coroner then exert so much weight and
10:21
Speaker 2: influence that all that gets reversed? And then now going
10:25
Speaker 2: hell for leather to prosecute him and lock him up
10:27
Speaker 2: as well.
10:29
Speaker 4: Well. I think there's been conferences in the Northern Territory
10:33
Speaker 4: which explain this situation better than anything we've got here.
10:38
Speaker 4: There's no doubt at all that the indigenous lobby is
10:42
Speaker 4: a very powerful lobby, but it's a very conflicted lobby.
10:45
Speaker 4: We know that. Look, I can speak very comfortably about this.
10:50
Speaker 4: I grew up in an orphanage. I'm not going to
10:53
Speaker 4: have anyone telling me I don't understand the disadvantage these
10:57
Speaker 4: people come from. I had nothing, you know, and I
11:00
Speaker 4: had to work very very hard, and I'm not saying
11:03
Speaker 4: they don't to get what I've got today. It hasn't
11:06
Speaker 4: been easy. I got married, I've got no children. As
11:09
Speaker 4: you know, I was even in an outlaw motorcycle gang
11:12
Speaker 4: trying to find a place when I was very young.
11:16
Speaker 4: Life hasn't been that easy for me. And I don't
11:19
Speaker 4: point the finger at this young guy and say you
11:22
Speaker 4: need to grow up, or do his family and say
11:25
Speaker 4: you needed to do a better job. But I do
11:28
Speaker 4: say when his father says on national television, we want answers, well,
11:33
Speaker 4: maybe if the father looked in the mirror, he might
11:35
Speaker 4: find some of those answers. Maybe if he looked at
11:38
Speaker 4: his own community, he might find more of those answers.
11:42
Speaker 4: If he looked at our political system, he might find
11:44
Speaker 4: a few more. And what we have in this situation
11:49
Speaker 4: that has come to this was if I was to
11:52
Speaker 4: just promote a book that was written by a woman
11:55
Speaker 4: called Hannah A. Rent, and she wrote a great book
11:58
Speaker 4: called on Lives and Politics, and one of the most
12:02
Speaker 4: influential parts for me was where she said, one of
12:06
Speaker 4: the difficult things in this is where people present an
12:10
Speaker 4: opinion as if it's a factual truth or even a
12:13
Speaker 4: rational truth, and it's neither. It's just an opinion. And
12:18
Speaker 4: then what they do they present fiction as if it's nonfiction.
12:22
Speaker 4: We've seen it in four corners in the last week.
12:26
Speaker 4: You get a subjective, one off situation and you objectify
12:30
Speaker 4: it so that it's happening on every corner and every week,
12:34
Speaker 4: and then when you discuss it, you don't include the
12:37
Speaker 4: people who know anything about it. Often you don't include anyone.
12:41
Speaker 4: It's a monologue. It's not a dialogue. And we are
12:44
Speaker 4: in a liberal democracy where that is not the way
12:48
Speaker 4: we deal with things. And when we use human rights
12:52
Speaker 4: in terms of respecting people's dignity. It doesn't mean that
12:56
Speaker 4: the media or that politicians can decide who is deserving
13:01
Speaker 4: and who isn't. We have a rule of law. Of
13:05
Speaker 4: law says everybody is equal before the law, and that
13:08
Speaker 4: includes police. That doesn't exclude them. Somehow or another, that
13:14
Speaker 4: argument has been pushed to one so either but they're
13:17
Speaker 4: more accountable than anyone else. No, they're not. They're equally
13:20
Speaker 4: as accountable. And that's supposed to be a separation of
13:24
Speaker 4: powers to do with this, and in this instance, I
13:28
Speaker 4: don't think there has been a separation of powers.
13:32
Speaker 2: I don't want to second guess the judge here about
13:35
Speaker 2: the reasons. I don't want to be pulled into contempt
13:37
Speaker 2: or anything. But I think when I talked about this
13:40
Speaker 2: on my Facebook page, a lot of people pose the
13:43
Speaker 2: question would the outcome have been the same Hadjy Wright
13:49
Speaker 2: been a white boy. I think that's appalling if our
13:53
Speaker 2: justice system is run like that on the basis of
13:56
Speaker 2: a swear up because of colonialism or prejudice, or race
14:00
Speaker 2: or anything else, and I think it's very unhelpful. I'd
14:04
Speaker 2: rather than this discussion not get into that, because I
14:06
Speaker 2: think that's a whole nother debate. Yes, yes it is,
14:09
Speaker 2: but I think what does this do to our community
14:14
Speaker 2: if police are worried about being prosecuted when they're carrying
14:19
Speaker 2: out their lawful duty. I mean, when I looked at
14:21
Speaker 2: this case, what I will say about the proceedings is
14:24
Speaker 2: Briant was stationary in his vehicle.
14:27
Speaker 1: How do you get a dangerous driving charge?
14:29
Speaker 2: I thought police were basically exempt from all the driving
14:35
Speaker 2: rules except where there was evidence of dangerous driving or
14:39
Speaker 2: excess negligence. I failed to see how the elements of
14:44
Speaker 2: the offense dangerous driving were made out in this case.
14:47
Speaker 4: Well, I think this is another thing where Briant is
14:50
Speaker 4: had to find money to fund his own legal because
14:54
Speaker 4: he's not a member of the association. And what's happened
14:57
Speaker 4: over the last ten to twenty years is the police
15:00
Speaker 4: itself has been very carefully divided by the interect actual
15:05
Speaker 4: community by blaming them for almost everything that goes wrong.
15:10
Speaker 4: You know, we've got black lives matter, We've got antifier.
15:13
Speaker 4: I'll say this. At the beginning of the nineteen sixties,
15:17
Speaker 4: a group of Jewish intellectuals moved back from America to Germany,
15:22
Speaker 4: and we're trying to they were the Frankfurt school we're
15:25
Speaker 4: trying desperately to do with student undrest at that particular
15:30
Speaker 4: time in Germany, these people were very left wing. Adorno,
15:35
Speaker 4: Hauckheimer and Marcus an Habermas were the four, but Hannah
15:42
Speaker 4: a Remp was there too. These are very influential people,
15:46
Speaker 4: and what they said, what they were dealing with were
15:50
Speaker 4: left wing fascists the way they were behaving, and that
15:53
Speaker 4: is exactly what's taken place in this state. These people
15:58
Speaker 4: aren't left wing. These people are highly privileged, highly educated.
16:03
Speaker 4: I work in the Universe city sector and it's horrible
16:06
Speaker 4: the way they've weaponize the complaint system amongst intellectuals, the
16:12
Speaker 4: way they undermine each other, the way they pretend. You know,
16:17
Speaker 4: you go to a meeting and someone looks at everyone says,
16:19
Speaker 4: as we've all agreed, and I used to say, no,
16:23
Speaker 4: we haven't agreed to anything, and this is and then
16:26
Speaker 4: the next thing you've been complained about. Now this has
16:30
Speaker 4: then been transferred over to the police. So the police done,
16:34
Speaker 4: They're not part of any discussion. And so this police
16:38
Speaker 4: officer is simply doing what he thought was the proper
16:42
Speaker 4: thing to do. Now there may be policies, etc. But
16:45
Speaker 4: are those policies in line with what the law says,
16:49
Speaker 4: because if they're not, it doesn't matter what the policy is.
16:52
Speaker 4: That's what the law says.
16:55
Speaker 2: Right, Well, if the law has been applied correctly, I
16:59
Speaker 2: think it's only inevitable that New South Wales police should
17:05
Speaker 2: stop all pursuits, particularly those of people on motorcycles. We've
17:10
Speaker 2: seen the same thing in Queensland, where only an exceptional
17:15
Speaker 2: circumstances will police ever chase people on motorbikes.
17:20
Speaker 4: Well, that's the same here.
17:21
Speaker 1: Well, no it's not, though it's not yet.
17:23
Speaker 4: It's not yet, Well it is really Maybe formally it's not,
17:28
Speaker 4: but informally it has been for a long long time.
17:31
Speaker 4: I don't remember when I was in the police. A
17:34
Speaker 4: number of times there was a car go by and
17:37
Speaker 4: come out of the radio and my partner would say
17:40
Speaker 4: what do we do? I said nothing, I'm not chasing
17:42
Speaker 4: after that lunatic, you know, to find out it's some
17:45
Speaker 4: fourteen year old who's driving his dad's car without a license.
17:49
Speaker 4: I'm not getting involved in it. And a couple of
17:52
Speaker 4: times where we did try to follow the vehicle because
17:55
Speaker 4: they've burn and the fence was fairly serious. A robbery
17:58
Speaker 4: or whatever. We'd eventually just get to where the car
18:02
Speaker 4: was and we'd bring the police dogs and some times
18:05
Speaker 4: they'd find the young people hiding. Sometimes they wouldn't, but
18:09
Speaker 4: we certainly wouldn't try to catch them in a high
18:13
Speaker 4: speed pursuit. It just wasn't what I would do, but
18:16
Speaker 4: sometimes you have no option. I always remember a good
18:20
Speaker 4: mate of mine, Peter Ryan, he's a detective now retired
18:24
Speaker 4: for years. We're on afternoon shift at Regent Street and
18:28
Speaker 4: he came in and he said he was doing what
18:30
Speaker 4: the night shift? I said, how is the night shift? Oh,
18:33
Speaker 4: you wouldn't believe. Me and Bucco were just driving down
18:37
Speaker 4: Anzac Parade. Next thing I know, there's bullets going all
18:40
Speaker 4: over the car. People have identified our car as a
18:44
Speaker 4: police car and they started shooting bullets at us. So
18:48
Speaker 4: what are the police supposed to do in these circumstances.
18:52
Speaker 4: I don't know, but there needs to be some clear instructions.
18:55
Speaker 4: I know what Peter Ryan and his mate did. They
18:58
Speaker 4: pulled over the car and they got the person in
19:01
Speaker 4: the car. But the thing is policing, isn't It's not
19:05
Speaker 4: like social work where you pick and choose your clients.
19:10
Speaker 4: It's not like law where you can. You don't get
19:12
Speaker 4: to pick and choose who you're dealing with.
19:15
Speaker 1: You don't.
19:15
Speaker 2: And it's a very fine judgment call damned if you
19:18
Speaker 2: do dand if you don't. And I think the officers
19:21
Speaker 2: involved in that situation would have to weigh up public safety.
19:24
Speaker 2: What's going to happen if he let this offend on
19:27
Speaker 2: a stolen motorbike continue at high speed sixty eight seventy
19:31
Speaker 2: kilometers an hour.
19:32
Speaker 1: Is there a threat to public safety?
19:33
Speaker 2: And the judgment was taken that we should impede his
19:37
Speaker 2: progress and stop this.
19:39
Speaker 1: But having done that, now they're exposed.
19:42
Speaker 2: He's exposed to what I would call disproportionate consequences. He
19:48
Speaker 2: certainly did not set out to kill that young boy.
19:52
Speaker 2: He wanted to do his duty. And now he's not
19:55
Speaker 2: going to jail, but he'll never get a government job.
19:59
Speaker 2: He's probably financially ruined. He'll probably get a no confidence
20:02
Speaker 2: vote from the commissioner in the coming day.
20:05
Speaker 1: That's the process. You'll have to show you.
20:08
Speaker 4: No, I don't think he will. I think you'll find
20:11
Speaker 4: that once the appeal goes in, then his conviction will
20:15
Speaker 4: be put aside until the appeal is heard. And I
20:19
Speaker 4: think Malanion and the prior commissioner. We're both very very decent,
20:24
Speaker 4: good people. They're not going to get rid of him
20:27
Speaker 4: because of public sentiment. There's an issue here that he's
20:31
Speaker 4: entitled to the presumption of innocence. That's the end of it,
20:35
Speaker 4: and both of them stick very clear to that. People
20:38
Speaker 4: might not be happy with that. But every time a
20:41
Speaker 4: politician gets caught up, the first thing they talk about
20:44
Speaker 4: is the presumption of innocence. Every time a lawyer gets
20:47
Speaker 4: caught up ripping off his trust fund, either, there's a
20:51
Speaker 4: presumption of innocence. Every time a social worker gets caught
20:54
Speaker 4: it's the same thing. So bad luck police are entitled
20:58
Speaker 4: to the same benefit of the doubt, and from a
21:00
Speaker 4: human rights perspective, they're entitled to be treated with dignity.
21:05
Speaker 4: And that's the end of it. That's the theory behind it,
21:08
Speaker 4: and it should be the practice as well. But it's
21:11
Speaker 4: somehow or another, isn't the.
21:13
Speaker 2: Police I was talking to you over the weekend. We're
21:16
Speaker 2: an uproar because they are not confident that he'll get
21:21
Speaker 2: up on appeal. What is going to be the fact
21:24
Speaker 2: or the point of law that will get him off
21:27
Speaker 2: hard to see. So they are thinking about the worst
21:30
Speaker 2: case scenario, but also their liability going forward, because even
21:36
Speaker 2: if there isn't a change in policy about pursuits, what
21:39
Speaker 2: if you're a commander the next time this happens. Do
21:43
Speaker 2: you put your neck on the line, Do you put
21:46
Speaker 2: your colleagues next on the line by ordering a pursuit,
21:50
Speaker 2: or do you say, let's abort it's not my motorcycle,
21:54
Speaker 2: let's let him go. And we've seen it in other jurisdictions,
21:58
Speaker 2: Michael Kennedy that the crooks understand this and that they
22:02
Speaker 2: know if they're on motorbikes they won't be pursued. And
22:06
Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a significant cost of
22:09
Speaker 2: the community if we, as a blanket rule say we're
22:13
Speaker 2: not going to pursue or try to impede the progress
22:17
Speaker 2: of young people like Jai Roe who steel motorbikes and
22:20
Speaker 2: enjoy ride or use them for other criminal purposes. The
22:24
Speaker 2: stakes are pretty high in my opinion.
22:27
Speaker 4: I think you're right. The problem is you only know
22:30
Speaker 4: when the pursuit has been terminated, and it can be
22:34
Speaker 4: terminated by the police radio. They can terminated at any time,
22:39
Speaker 4: and you've got to continually be bringing them up to
22:42
Speaker 4: date with what's going on. But it's only at the
22:46
Speaker 4: end of the day when you know what the person's
22:50
Speaker 4: running from, what it's all about, that you realize you
22:55
Speaker 4: probably could have let it go, or probably you would
22:59
Speaker 4: been criticized further. You know. You imagine if this was
23:03
Speaker 4: some sort of pedophile sex of who's trying to get
23:06
Speaker 4: away from an event and the police say, oh no, no, no,
23:10
Speaker 4: we're not going to chase that. You imagine the uproar.
23:13
Speaker 4: I think there's got to be a serious conversation about this,
23:18
Speaker 4: not just by the people who know nothing about policing,
23:22
Speaker 4: and not just in monologue either. It's got to be
23:25
Speaker 4: by people who understand. And it's got to involve the minister.
23:30
Speaker 4: It's got to involve senior police. It doesn't involve those
23:35
Speaker 4: from the intellectual community who are part of the cultural elite,
23:41
Speaker 4: who write books or do painting or musicians. I mean,
23:46
Speaker 4: they're not part of the criminal justice system. And the
23:49
Speaker 4: criminal justice system is a filthy system. It is dirty
23:54
Speaker 4: from the top to the bottom. People get their hands
23:57
Speaker 4: dirty all of the time. This isn't about a bunch
24:00
Speaker 4: of do gooders that are trying to push a book
24:03
Speaker 4: down at Writer's Week. This is about people's survival. It
24:07
Speaker 4: is about their future. It's about whether people get criminal
24:10
Speaker 4: records or whether they enter the criminal justice system. And
24:14
Speaker 4: I don't think a lot of the commentary around this
24:18
Speaker 4: is well informed at all. I don't think it's well
24:20
Speaker 4: informed one a little bit.
24:21
Speaker 1: I don't think it is at all.
24:23
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to excuse you as being not
24:25
Speaker 2: part of the intelligencia.
24:27
Speaker 1: You're the author of the.
24:28
Speaker 2: Police means ends and the rule of law, a Marxist,
24:31
Speaker 2: no less challenge of class agency corruption and reform in
24:35
Speaker 2: analysis of policing.
24:36
Speaker 1: So you're part of that intelligent discourse.
24:39
Speaker 4: Well, I'm part of it, but I'm certainly part of it,
24:43
Speaker 4: and I'm certainly a Marxist. But I don't regard a
24:46
Speaker 4: lot of my colleagues who claim to be they're not.
24:50
Speaker 4: I don't regard them to be socialist in deeds and
24:54
Speaker 4: in words. You know, it means, you know, social justice
24:59
Speaker 4: means everybody gets afforded human dignity when they're made to
25:04
Speaker 4: be part of a system, and when the state takes
25:08
Speaker 4: action against that person, it does so and treat people
25:12
Speaker 4: decently and properly. Now that doesn't exclude the police, that
25:17
Speaker 4: includes everybody I've.
25:19
Speaker 2: Been reading the blogs and Facebook posts and all that
25:22
Speaker 2: sort of stuff the last few days, and the people
25:23
Speaker 2: who were saying this is a just outcome are saying
25:27
Speaker 2: that this should never happen again. In other words, Briant
25:32
Speaker 2: should not have taken any action. There should not have
25:35
Speaker 2: been a pursuit. But I wonder, Michael Kennedy, would those
25:40
Speaker 2: same people be happy to pay the higher insurance premiums
25:45
Speaker 2: when the police don't chase people who steal cars, break
25:48
Speaker 2: into homes, do different things. Will they be happy to
25:52
Speaker 2: cop the consequences of abandoning the roads to the crooks
25:56
Speaker 2: on motorbikes.
25:58
Speaker 4: Well, I'd even put it more. These people talking cliches.
26:02
Speaker 4: Anyone who talks in cliches has stop thinking, or they're
26:06
Speaker 4: incapable of thinking. And for them to suggest, for a minute,
26:10
Speaker 4: we want to make sure this never happens again. You
26:13
Speaker 4: know that would have been Barabbas's last words when he
26:17
Speaker 4: was put on the cross next to Jesus. We want
26:19
Speaker 4: to make sure this never happens again. You know that
26:22
Speaker 4: is just a copy out. Of course, it's going to
26:25
Speaker 4: happen again, and it will happen over and over and
26:28
Speaker 4: over again. We've got to stop deluting ourselves to thinking
26:33
Speaker 4: that these things can be dealt with by some good wishes.
26:37
Speaker 4: The criminal justice system is not about good wishes. It's
26:42
Speaker 4: a system that's supposed to be accountable. And if this
26:45
Speaker 4: system is accountable and the appeal goes forward, we'll see
26:49
Speaker 4: what happens. But Bryant shouldn't be persecuted or because Arthur
26:54
Speaker 4: Philip came here in seventeen eighty eight uncolonized Australia, he
27:00
Speaker 4: shouldn't be paying the price for a load of colonization
27:04
Speaker 4: or for a stolen generation. And I'm fully aware of
27:08
Speaker 4: what a stolen generation is. I'm part of what's called
27:11
Speaker 4: forgotten generation. And let me tell you the police had
27:16
Speaker 4: nothing to do with that. Those things were legislated by
27:20
Speaker 4: politicians who had a law degree. They were prosecuted by
27:24
Speaker 4: lawyers that were in the judiciary. They were defended by lawyers.
27:29
Speaker 4: The indigenous people were removed from their families on the
27:33
Speaker 4: basis of what lawyers had to say, and social workers
27:37
Speaker 4: and welfare workers did and teachers who were the informants.
27:41
Speaker 4: Some police were happy to assist, some police weren't. But
27:45
Speaker 4: they were just the taxi drivers. They didn't develop this
27:49
Speaker 4: legislation in the States or in the Commonwealth, and the
27:53
Speaker 4: whole process of talking about all of this neglects to
27:58
Speaker 4: point out the people that have created this mess in
28:02
Speaker 4: which Aboriginal communities have to survive, and the people that
28:06
Speaker 4: have created this mess of poverty of neglect are not
28:11
Speaker 4: the police. The police haven't sent people to jail so
28:15
Speaker 4: that they're over represented in the jail system. That's magistrates
28:18
Speaker 4: and judges. And so if we want to tidy this up,
28:22
Speaker 4: there's got to be accountability for the criminal justice system,
28:26
Speaker 4: not just its low level functionaries. That's not going to
28:30
Speaker 4: change anything, you know, And my colleagues in academia they
28:34
Speaker 4: overlook that. They seem to think we can single people
28:38
Speaker 4: out and we can make examples of people and that'll
28:41
Speaker 4: be the end of it. Well, it won't. My colleagues
28:43
Speaker 4: in the police tend to think the same thing. You
28:46
Speaker 4: see by their comments it's about individual responsibility. Well, I
28:52
Speaker 4: think when you've got a young guy at fourteen trying
28:55
Speaker 4: to get away from the police on a style of motibike,
28:58
Speaker 4: I think talking about responsibility is a bit of a
29:01
Speaker 4: waste of time. You know, you're talking about causal factors
29:05
Speaker 4: and how do we minimize this and how do we
29:08
Speaker 4: manage these problems? Not how do we make sure this
29:11
Speaker 4: never happens again?
29:15
Speaker 2: Or Mick, do we actually if we just say, okay,
29:18
Speaker 2: we have to accept the colonialism cause almost disadvantage and
29:22
Speaker 2: it provides a mitigating circumstance for young people committing crimes,
29:26
Speaker 2: do we just have to give up and say we
29:28
Speaker 2: have a now two tier policing system where if you're
29:32
Speaker 2: one of those people in that cohort and you fall
29:36
Speaker 2: victim of these sort of circumstances, it's okay that a
29:39
Speaker 2: member of the police force is held to account because
29:43
Speaker 2: we now have a two tier system.
29:46
Speaker 4: Well number one, i'd say by my Irish Catholic and
29:49
Speaker 4: that's the oldest British colony in the world, and Irish
29:53
Speaker 4: have persecuted all over the world. I've never heard of
29:56
Speaker 4: one of them say or you can't blame me. I
29:59
Speaker 4: was colonized and they were, so I think that there
30:04
Speaker 4: is a place for that. But I think just sint
30:07
Speaker 4: to the politician from Alice Springs made it very clear
30:12
Speaker 4: should we give young people an excuse? And she said,
30:17
Speaker 4: if you think Aboriginal people are stupid because they were colonized, yeah, sure,
30:21
Speaker 4: but they're not. She said, they're not stupid. They're not stupid,
30:25
Speaker 4: and anyone who suggests that they are stupid and that's
30:28
Speaker 4: why they I don't go along with that either. And
30:31
Speaker 4: on top of all, my other my wife's aboriginals from
30:34
Speaker 4: the order order people. So you know, I don't come
30:38
Speaker 4: at this from a position of being uninformed. I don't
30:41
Speaker 4: know what the answer is. And I've got a big
30:44
Speaker 4: issue with people who claim that they do have the answer,
30:48
Speaker 4: and then they only engage in monologue. They don't engage
30:51
Speaker 4: in dialogue. Right when we're dealing with these things. What
30:55
Speaker 4: we have to deal with an interaction that a guy
30:59
Speaker 4: called Habitus called it. He said, it's about communicative action.
31:04
Speaker 4: We've got to be serious and adults about it. We've
31:06
Speaker 4: got to look at what he's going on. We've got
31:09
Speaker 4: to reflect on our own views, and if we're not
31:11
Speaker 4: in life, we've got to be prepared to say, I
31:13
Speaker 4: think I might have got that wrong. We've got to
31:16
Speaker 4: be prepared to change to make the world a better place.
31:20
Speaker 4: We're not in the era of the eight eight hundreds
31:23
Speaker 4: where they went to public etings and they were like
31:26
Speaker 4: going to the football. You know, we're supposed to be
31:30
Speaker 4: tolerant and reasoned. And I don't see a lot of
31:33
Speaker 4: tolerance and reason coming out of this debate at all.
31:37
Speaker 2: I really don't, And I think it's all up in
31:39
Speaker 2: the clouds. This discussion's taking place. When the question is
31:43
Speaker 2: going to be raised on the streets, it'll be in
31:45
Speaker 2: the minds of the next commander of police who is
31:49
Speaker 2: looking at a situation like this. He's got a choice.
31:52
Speaker 2: He's got to think about public safety. He's got to
31:54
Speaker 2: think about the welfare of his officers and the offenders.
31:58
Speaker 2: What do you think he does next time? If the
32:00
Speaker 2: same set of circumstances, he or she shall I say,
32:03
Speaker 2: what will he or she do next time given this experience?
32:07
Speaker 4: I don't know. They've also got to be concerned about
32:11
Speaker 4: their career. And if you're going to look at say,
32:13
Speaker 4: a journalist rang me the other night and said, have
32:15
Speaker 4: you seen Four Corners? And I said why? And he said,
32:20
Speaker 4: what do you think the public thinks? I said, Well,
32:22
Speaker 4: the public don't watch Four Corners, nor do they watch
32:24
Speaker 4: the ABC. But Four Corners insists on doing what it
32:29
Speaker 4: does by trawling. Over the last thirty years, they even
32:34
Speaker 4: raised in terms of police behavior, the Wood Royal Commission.
32:38
Speaker 4: What they didn't raise is the public humiliation of police
32:41
Speaker 4: that were totally innocent. What they failed to raise was
32:45
Speaker 4: the way that these people had their lives ruined. They
32:49
Speaker 4: were accused of things that people within the Royal Commission
32:52
Speaker 4: knew that they had nothing to do with. Yet none
32:55
Speaker 4: of that has ever raised. All of a sudden, we
32:58
Speaker 4: have a bunch of people calling themselves your honor, and
33:01
Speaker 4: all they are is a bunch of people that are
33:04
Speaker 4: politically appoint There's nothing honorable anymore about being politically appointed.
33:09
Speaker 4: I've finished by saying this to you. I was lucky
33:12
Speaker 4: enough in the police. My boss, then Dennis Gilligan, allowed
33:17
Speaker 4: me to do interchange with the French police. So I
33:20
Speaker 4: went to Paris and I work with the detectives in
33:23
Speaker 4: Paris in the Brigade on Approximatism, that is the anti
33:27
Speaker 4: pimp squad, That's what that is. So I work with them,
33:31
Speaker 4: and I realized all of a sudden that in France,
33:35
Speaker 4: if you're a prostitute and you're a heroin, you're not
33:39
Speaker 4: going to get any business because in France, I have
33:42
Speaker 4: a different attitude towards it all. So I go to
33:45
Speaker 4: court with my colleague Patrick Evans. We go to the
33:48
Speaker 4: Palaide of Justice and I sit in on a court matter,
33:52
Speaker 4: and I'm trying to figure out the difference between the
33:54
Speaker 4: French system and our system, and I'm very intrigued by
33:58
Speaker 4: it all. So I go into the court room and
34:00
Speaker 4: I sit down, and my French is not too bad.
34:03
Speaker 4: I understood the court and it's a guy that was
34:07
Speaker 4: drunk and he was pulled over after an accident and
34:10
Speaker 4: they found a pistol under his seat that wasn't registered anyway.
34:14
Speaker 4: His defense lawyer was arguing for him the same as,
34:18
Speaker 4: Oh he's a good man, he's got a good family,
34:20
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. And my colleague didn't make a comment.
34:24
Speaker 4: He said, have you heard enough? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
34:26
Speaker 4: I have heard enough. This is similar to back home,
34:30
Speaker 4: and that's an inquisitorial system. We have an adversarial system,
34:34
Speaker 4: but it was very similar. So as we're walking out
34:37
Speaker 4: of the court, I turn around as I normally do,
34:40
Speaker 4: and I bow to the judge in the courtroom, and
34:45
Speaker 4: my friend just walked straight out. And as I get out,
34:48
Speaker 4: I said to him, Patrick, don't you people acknowledge the
34:52
Speaker 4: judiciary in the courtroom. And he turned around and he
34:55
Speaker 4: opened the door and he pointed at the judge. He said,
34:59
Speaker 4: we had a revolution about that sort of thing, and
35:01
Speaker 4: people lost their heads. He said, he's no better than
35:05
Speaker 4: he should be grateful to me. He's even got a job.
35:09
Speaker 4: This is a people's court. He's no better than me,
35:12
Speaker 4: and I'm no better than him. And from where I stand,
35:16
Speaker 4: not that particular thing, but that sort of elitism is
35:20
Speaker 4: what he's standing in the way of our criminal justice
35:24
Speaker 4: system being reformed. We have a group of people that
35:28
Speaker 4: seem to think they can do whatever they like. We've
35:31
Speaker 4: got a shit fight at the moment going on in
35:34
Speaker 4: one of the tribunals, and they can't even get rid
35:38
Speaker 4: of them unless both sides of the upper House in
35:41
Speaker 4: the lower House agrees to get rid of them because
35:44
Speaker 4: they've been politically appointed.
35:47
Speaker 2: Yes, well, Michael Kennedy, after a simple question, get a
35:50
Speaker 2: political answer. Let's take it back to the police on
35:54
Speaker 2: the beat, though. I think that's what people want to
35:56
Speaker 2: know here is what happens next time. Are the streets
36:00
Speaker 2: going to be safe? Do we have to now advocate
36:03
Speaker 2: our safety in the streets to the politics you're talking about,
36:06
Speaker 2: because we might offend indigenous groups or disadvantaged people.
36:12
Speaker 4: Well, what we're talking about is the outcome for the
36:15
Speaker 4: law enforcement in terms of whether we live in a
36:18
Speaker 4: society that's dangerous. No, we don't. We live in a
36:21
Speaker 4: very safe place. Crime is not on the increase. It
36:25
Speaker 4: might seem to be, but it isn't. Even Victoria, Mexico,
36:30
Speaker 4: if you like, is a very safe place really wet
36:34
Speaker 4: the crime statistics, Yes it is.
36:37
Speaker 1: We're on fire at the moment, Mick. We're absolutely on
36:39
Speaker 1: fire down here.
36:41
Speaker 2: We've got home in vader we got Machheti attacks, we've
36:43
Speaker 2: got arsenal, we've got everything.
36:45
Speaker 4: But they have always existed and there is no great
36:50
Speaker 4: increase one way or the other. The homicide levels in
36:54
Speaker 4: Australia have stated a reasonably stable rate for years. In
37:00
Speaker 4: New York, which is a comparable population, they were getting
37:04
Speaker 4: fire one hundred murders a year. In New South Wales
37:08
Speaker 4: they were getting eighty or ninety. There were car thefts.
37:11
Speaker 4: That's gone up and it's come down, and it's gone
37:14
Speaker 4: up a bit again. We had drug problems with heroin.
37:17
Speaker 4: It's now methamphetamine, which is a totally different drug. With heroin,
37:22
Speaker 4: most of the people would not often go to sleep
37:25
Speaker 4: with metha amphatamine. They just want to fight everybody, and
37:28
Speaker 4: so there are different things. But we still live in
37:31
Speaker 4: a very safe country. We do, but it's relatively less safe.
37:37
Speaker 4: And what we're talking about here is not the statistics.
37:40
Speaker 4: We're talking about perceptions of safety, and I think the
37:44
Speaker 4: betterment case affects that perception of safety and what police
37:49
Speaker 4: will do in the future when this occurs, and also
37:52
Speaker 4: the willingness of police to put themselves in hahns waight,
37:56
Speaker 4: not just on the job, but in the potential legal consequences.
38:00
Speaker 1: It's already hard enough to get people to sign.
38:02
Speaker 2: Up to the police force, let alone with this circumstance.
38:06
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be a very strong debate
38:09
Speaker 2: in New South Wales and I don't think it's a
38:11
Speaker 2: clear answer, but I don't see next time any commander
38:16
Speaker 2: putting his troops or her troops in harm's way to
38:20
Speaker 2: stop an offender like Jay Wright.
38:23
Speaker 4: I had a very lengthy conversation with an old colleague
38:26
Speaker 4: and this is what we discussed, the same thing, and
38:29
Speaker 4: I said, you know, when I was in the police,
38:31
Speaker 4: despite all of the criticism, despite all of the difficulties
38:36
Speaker 4: that I encountered, if I was told they weren't going
38:38
Speaker 4: to pay me for I would still have gone to work.
38:42
Speaker 4: He said, well, funny, I'm the same, and you'll find
38:45
Speaker 4: the majority of police are so devoted to what they
38:49
Speaker 4: do they will go to work without even being paid.
38:52
Speaker 4: If that was the case. I think the intellectual community
38:56
Speaker 4: doesn't understand the total commitment that the average not all police.
39:02
Speaker 4: You might be able to find one and won't do
39:04
Speaker 4: anything unless he's paid. Well, good luck to them. The
39:07
Speaker 4: majority of police would go to work and do their
39:11
Speaker 4: job because they believe in what they're doing, and they
39:15
Speaker 4: don't believe they're keeping the world safe. They've just got
39:18
Speaker 4: a job to do that matters at matters, and they
39:22
Speaker 4: would do it without pay. It's difficult to recruit people,
39:27
Speaker 4: it's impossible to retain them, but there is always an overflow.
39:32
Speaker 4: I can tell you. The provider of education has recently
39:36
Speaker 4: been changed down in the Gold and Police Academy. I
39:40
Speaker 4: don't think the first meeting that they had with the
39:45
Speaker 4: social work professor was particularly useful when she informed them
39:50
Speaker 4: she didn't like police, But that's been overcome and dealt with.
39:55
Speaker 4: These are the hurdles that police are having to deal
39:58
Speaker 4: with and the stuff to do with Jai is really
40:03
Speaker 4: it's something in the background the major stuff. He is
40:06
Speaker 4: just going to work every day. It's being able to
40:09
Speaker 4: work with support agencies that never want to turn up
40:13
Speaker 4: when it's really difficult, but always say that you need
40:16
Speaker 4: more training, and you get plenty of training. You're just
40:20
Speaker 4: left on your own to do with things. And then
40:23
Speaker 4: in the end when they say to police, would you
40:25
Speaker 4: do this if you weren't paid, they say, like I did, Yeah,
40:29
Speaker 4: I would, even if.
40:31
Speaker 2: The consequences are years in jail, loss of career, public shaming,
40:37
Speaker 2: and that's what for Ill and I do have sympathy
40:40
Speaker 2: for him and his family. But particular way you've painted
40:42
Speaker 2: it for Sergeant Benedict Bryant.
40:44
Speaker 4: So if he beats it, he will come back to
40:47
Speaker 4: work and he will do his job as if nothing happened.
40:51
Speaker 4: I hope, so I can almost guarantee it.
40:59
Speaker 2: That's doctor Michael Kennedy, senior lecture in the Policing Program
41:03
Speaker 2: at Western Sydney University. This case is a very challenging
41:08
Speaker 2: one for police, the community and the politics makes it
41:13
Speaker 2: very toxic. This is not making our streets safer. I
41:18
Speaker 2: think we're going to see New South Wales follow Queensland
41:22
Speaker 2: to a formal policy where pursuing people on motorbikes will
41:28
Speaker 2: be greatly discouraged. And what that will mean on the
41:33
Speaker 2: streets the public will see in their insurance premiums. You
41:39
Speaker 2: either get behind the police or you stand in front
41:43
Speaker 2: of them in our community. And I don't think this
41:46
Speaker 2: is supporting our police whose aim is to make our
41:52
Speaker 2: community more safe and to have an individual police officer
41:57
Speaker 2: carry the weight of politics of colonialism. Disadvantage is tolerable
42:05
Speaker 2: burden which will hit young people who are thinking about
42:10
Speaker 2: joining the police force. It's already hard enough getting to
42:13
Speaker 2: join now after this it just got a little bit harder.
42:17
Speaker 2: And I hope that there's a lot of support for
42:20
Speaker 2: our men and women out on the front line dealing
42:23
Speaker 2: with these.
42:23
Speaker 1: Sorts of issues. Anyway, enough politics.
42:26
Speaker 2: If you've got a crime to report, please call Crime
42:29
Speaker 2: Stoppers on eight hundred triple three, triple zero, or you
42:32
Speaker 2: can always email me. Some people don't trust the police.
42:35
Speaker 2: You can always email me Adam Shanner, writer at gmail
42:37
Speaker 2: dot com. I'll be very happy to take your inquiries
42:41
Speaker 2: and questions and treat them with the utmost confidentiality.
42:44
Speaker 1: This is Adam shan for Real Crime.
42:46
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