People and especially policing personnel should know that
within their state's various crimes Acts, tampering with evidence is a criminal
offence.
The mainstream media only reports a minute fraction of criminal
offences carried out by policy enforcers.
We have also obtained documentation that shows a Victoria Police officer has shredded evidence submitted for a court matter.
This is unacceptable criminal behaviour from the personnel of Victoria Police, no doubt below 'community expectations'.
See Fairfax article
from the 24th of May 2018 of the headline:
Policemen
deleted phone footage of assault on teenage boy, trial told
Two policemen deleted video footage from a teenage boy's
mobile phone showing one of the officers assaulting the boy's friend, a
trial has heard.
A County Court jury was on Thursday shown footage that Stuart Laird, then
17, recorded of policeman Simon Mareangareu throwing a punch at his friend
Kyan Foster. The incident took place about 2am on Christmas Day 2014
at a Vermont intersection.
At the start of the video, Mr Mareangareu tells Mr Foster, aged 16 at the
time, not to be smart. As the teenager spells his name, the policeman
asks: "One name? Is that one name?"
Moments later, someone says "smartarse" and Mr Mareangareu throws
a punch at the boy.
Prosecutors told the court the punch left the teen
with a badly bloodied nose.
Later in the footage another policeman, Dennis Gundrill, tells
Mr Laird: "Get rid of that video right now." Mr Laird stops the
recording but starts a new recording soon after.
The court heard that Mr Laird's father later paid a "significant
sum of money" to experts in retrieving lost data and the videos were
recovered.
In the second recording one teenager calls out: "You can't twist
my arm. Ow! Get off my arm please."
On this video, one of the policemen says they want to speak to the teenagers
about burglaries.
Prosecutors allege Mr Mareangareu unlawfully assaulted Mr Foster
and that after the boys were arrested, both officers deleted
the recordings from Mr Laird's phone and lied in police statements.
Mr Mareangareu has pleaded not guilty to intentionally causing
injury, false imprisonment, two charges of attempting to pervert the
course of justice, and three of perjury.
Mr Gundrill has pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment, perjury
and two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Outlining his case on Thursday, prosecutor Bruce Walmsley, QC, said the
teenagers were on their way home from a friend's house, where they had
used marijuana and Mr Foster drank two beers. They told the policemen they
hadn't done anything wrong.
After the scuffle, the boys were arrested and separately taken to
a police station and charged with assaulting police, resisting
police and possessing marijuana, which had been found in a backpack.
Mr Walmsley said as Mr Laird left the police station he discovered
the recordings on his phone had been deleted. "He will tell you he
didn't delete them," the prosecutor told the jury.
Prosecutors allege the policemen didn't tell their supervising
officer about the videos or that they allegedly deleted them.
Mr Walmsley said Mr Mareangareu and Mr Gundrill adopted an attitude
of "let's get rid of the video, let's get it to court and then we
will all be free".
Mr Mareangareu compiled a brief of evidence against the boys, the court
heard, and in May 2015 encouraged Mr Foster's mother to get her son to go
to court and do a deal with a prosecutor.
The trial will continue on Friday when the accused men's lawyers address
the jury.
