EDITORIAL: Previously redacted sections of the Pollock/Proctor report revealed by the NT Independent this week is the closest to a smoking gun yet that the NT Police, at the direction of Commissioner Jamie Chalker’s office, attempted to pervert the course of justice by charging Zach Rolfe with murder while aware there was insufficient evidence for the most serious charge in criminal law.

What the undredacted excerpts show is that investigators, who had rushed to lay charges in November 2019 after the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker, did not have the required evidence to support the charge, but engaged use-of-force “expert” witnesses who were not qualified, to create the evidence they needed to justify the murder charge in contravention of specific orders from the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions and what should have been their own ethical standards.

This is shocking and should shake any confidence Territorians have left in its law enforcement and justice systems. We say this again, this matter goes to the heart of our democratic institutions.

The criminal investigators knew what they were doing was wrong and yet they did it anyway, against directives from the DPP, who also somehow went along with it all against their own advice and supposed ethical standards.

Police investigators used an internal “use-of-force expert” who had taught outdated use-of-force training at the Police College to recruits for years, who was too entrenched in the criminal investigation to provide impartial evidence, who had “pressure” exerted on him by unknown players – and who at one point was called out by another college trainer as having a “conflict of interest” – because they needed the charge against Rolfe to stick and go to trial.

They also paid for and “edited” a report by an international use-of-force expert to substantiate their initial compromised findings, again, against legal advice.

The new documents this week also show Chalker’s office told the lead investigators they could not approach any independent expert in Australia to provide independent evidence. That directive seemingly prevented those investigators from canvassing the list of names they had been provided for independent evidence.

Back in 2021, when it appeared the gravity of the situation was about to be disclosed publicly, we saw the DPP and the deputy DPP resign suddenly, just weeks ahead of the original trial date. We now know their office had played along with the police and used one of those “experts” at trial who they knew was compromised and unqualified and used the other inappropriate international “expert” at the committal to secure the murder trial, despite knowing his report had been manipulated by prosecutors to suit their narrative that Rolfe was a murderer.

Even if you do not condone Zach Rolfe’s actions and believe he is a racist cop, the fact the police and prosecutors appear to have acted maliciously against him to secure the murder charge casts a pall over our entire justice system.

Perhaps even more troubling is that it appears nobody is doing anything about it – at least not publicly.

The Pollock/Proctor report with redactions lifted was eventually provided to legal parties to the ongoing coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker last September, but no mention of what Chalker had hidden in the report under supposed “legal professional privilege” has been raised during the inquest, despite all the main players having provided their evidence, including former assistant commissioner and man in charge of the criminal investigation Nick Anticich and Commander Martin Dole who assisted him.

While Rolfe’s legal team has attempted on a few occasions to illicit fresh evidence from senior investigators during the inquest, they have been hampered at every turn by Counsel Assisting the Coroner Peggy Dwyer, who constantly objected and repeatedly suggested there was insufficient time for questions when it appeared she recognised where inquiries were going.

But even if Peggy and Coroner Elisabeth Armitage lived up to their pledge to set aside appropriate time to examine the police’s criminal investigation – instead of pursuing Ms Dwyer’s preferred narrative of racist text messages – it would not matter in the slightest.

According to the NT Coroner’s Act, Ms Armitage cannot include any evidence of illegal conduct she discovers in her final public coronial report. Instead, she is obligated to refer those potential findings to, of all people, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the NT Police Commissioner – the very positions caught up in the alleged misconduct.

The country’s other territory seems to appreciate the importance of what happens when the public lose faith in their justice system.

The ACT has recently launched a public inquiry into allegations police there exerted influence on the DPP to not pursue charges against the man alleged to have raped former political staffer Brittany Higgins and whether public bodies breached their duties.

Back here in the NT, it’s business as usual, even as we saw the Police Commissioner, who had pledged not to discuss the ongoing coronial inquest, take a victory lap in late November, telling anyone who would listen that “the truth” presented at the coronial to date had proved that he acted appropriately at all times and that the rank-and-file officers who had called for him to resign now love him.

His actions, and those of counsel assisting, call the entire coronial process into question. Was this the outcome all parties involved had agreed to and worked towards?

There was a reason Chalker panicked when Rolfe’s legal team first caught wind of the existence of the Pollock report back in May 2021.

He had buried evidence and once its existence was exposed, he went to great lengths to have key parts redacted, including having a taxpayer-funded lawyer attempt to get the courts to issue a suppression order to block the media from reporting on the fact that he hid the documents ahead of the murder trial.

Chalker’s lawyer claimed nothing “nefarious” had occurred when he buried evidence, but failed to offer a believable explanation for why the NT’s highest cop failed to produce evidence that refuted his experts’ testimony.

We can’t make this stuff up. The NT is far too strange on its own, especially when people of questionable ethical standards are put in critical positions of power. It’s no coincidence the institutions are crumbling all around us and necessitating visits from the Prime Minister to query whether the NT can handle its own affairs.

As for the ICAC’s supposed investigation into the allegations of “improper conduct” relating to the arrest and charging of Rolfe, well, the old bean-counter who runs that outfit would clearly rather be writing stale policy in a department somewhere than exposing corruption, as seen by his latest work.

He claimed last year that his “investigation” into this sordid affair would focus on “the period between the shooting incident and the presentation of Mr Rolfe for charging”.

We’re not sure those kinds of imprecise terms of reference cover the apparent corruption that transpired during the investigation that the NT Independent has exposed over many months. Frankly, we’re also not convinced Michael Riches is up to the task of investigating the Police Commissioner for corruption.

What we have seen so far from Chalker is a mind-melting cocktail of misleading the public and Parliament by claiming he was not involved in the criminal investigation, moving to bury evidence ahead of the murder trial, having damning parts of that information redacted under questionable authority, manipulating “expert” evidence, intimidating witnesses, and ultimately flying to Alice Springs to declare victory when the inquest closed for the year.

We know he will not resign, even after 80 per cent of officers who responded to a union survey last year telling him they wanted that.

So when is someone going to restore the public’s confidence in the entire legal and justice system by removing him and launching an investigation led by an independent, interstate body into his actions?

Unfortunately, at this point, we don’t believe that would go far enough to restore the public’s faith in its institutions, after nearly a year of impropriety being substantiated and no action having been taken by those in positions of power.

We’ve seen this before. If Chalker is found guilty of any impropriety, it would mean that two of the last three NT Police commissioners engaged in corruption.

The only way to restore the public’s trust at this point is for an independent public inquiry with Federal Government oversight into the NT Police force. Call it a royal commission, a federal public inquiry, whatever you want, but the one thing for certain is that it’s long overdue in the Northern Territory.