BackThe New South Wales (NSW) Ombudsman Bruce Barbour tabled a special report in Parliament on 28 February 2013 on his office’s monitoring of the police investigation into the death of a Brazilian student.
The report details how police investigated the student’s death in the lead up to the coronial inquest and outlines a number of inadequacies or failings with the police investigation into the conduct of the involved police officers and other systemic issues. These include:
- failure to comply with established police procedures for conducting critical incident investigations
- failure to effectively examine the lawfulness of the actions of the involved police officers, and
- failure to properly analyse each use of force to determine whether each use complied with the law and police operating procedures.
The Ombudsman has made recommendations aimed at strengthening police guidelines to ensure all relevant evidence is gathered during future critical incident investigations and to make it clear that any identified misconduct or systemic issues can and should be addressed at the earliest opportunity. The Ombudsman has also recommended legislative changes to ensure his office is notified of all critical incidents.
Source: Office of New South Wales Ombudsman
