The father of Constable Zach Rolfe said Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker acted corruptly by allegedly hiding a police report into the death of Kumanjayi Walker from the court in the committal hearing for the police officer’s murder charge, and said the NT’s top cop needed to resign or be sacked.

Richard Rolfe was interviewed on Mix 104.9 by Katie Woolf on Monday morning, following a jury finding Constable Rolfe not guilty on three charges, including murder, for the 2019 shooting death of Mr Walker in Yuendumu, during an attempted arrest.

He said he thought Mr Chalker’s behaviour was corrupt in withholding evidence from both the defence and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“The Pollock report was well known, and to fail to provide that to the court, I believe is a clear example of corrupt behavior by the police commissioner,” he said.

“I am only using that (term corrupt) because the previous ICAC Commissioner Ken Fleming spoke out just days after the shooting. He spoke about corrupt behavior and called that out, and using his definition of corrupt, I think I’m quite correct in drawing the same analogy with the police commissioner.”

Mr Rolfe was specifically referencing the case of Mr Chalker not disclosing the existence of two coronial reports prepared by Coronial Senior Investigating Officer Detective Superintendent Scott Pollock, to the Rolfe defence team or the DPP. The defence team had to issue a subpoena for it after becoming aware of it ahead of the Supreme Court trial.

Mr Chalker did not respond to an NT Independent request to respond to the claims against him made by Mr Rolfe in the interview.

Mr Rolfe also said Mr Chalker needed to resign, or be sacked, and that the NT Police was the worst employer in Australia.

“No commissioned officer has ever checked on Zach’s welfare, or his family’s since the arrest, and they have persecuted him relentlessly,” he said.

“…Without doubt they are the worst employer in the country, they have no duty of care. So it’s atrocious.

“And the only way the Northern Territory Police force can rebound to be the great police force that it once was, is to immediately remove Jamie Chalker.

“Whether he is sacked immediately, or he resigns, I don’t mind. But he must go. He is corrupt. He has lied. He has misled the Yuendumu community.

“He had promised that my son would be convicted. Promised that he would be in jail. He gave an inappropriate interview to the The Australian in February 2020, where that is basically what he said.

Mr Chalker is on record saying that in that interview he was expressing confidence the case would withstand a court process, not to be “expressing ­confidence” in obtaining a ­conviction as was first reported.

Mr Rolfe said his son was “okay, obviously relived that part of the truth has come out”, but questioned Mr Chalker’s actions in the press conference he gave on Friday after the verdict.

“…The fact that the police commissioner came out a couple of hours after the verdict was delivered, to give what could only be described as a rambling and bizarre press conference where he was making veiled threats against Zach, seemed, very, very strange.”

In that press conference Mr Chalker spoke about the coronial inquiry into Mr Walker’s death and how more “facts” would come out at that time.

“… The coronial inquest that is due later this year will oblige us to maintain our level of respect and not continue, as others have, to proffer opinions and views in the absence of fact,” he said.

“I look forward to our institutional response as part of the coronial inquest where the facts will come to the fore that will diminish a significant amount of the mistruths and the rhetoric that is out there that has had no basis or foundation.”

Mr Rolfe said that after the verdict, he understood the police commissioner had directed someone in the police executive to phone the NT Police Association to tell them the commissioner was suspending Constable Rolfe immediately, and Ms Woolf asked him if his son had been given a disciplinary notice for speaking to the media after the verdict.

“There has been no reason given. There’s no paperwork,” he said.

“I’ve read that report in the NT Independent, and they’re saying that they have heard from multiple police sources that that’s the case.

“I thought that Zach standing on the footsteps of the Supreme Court building saying that he was relieved, it was the right verdict, but he wanted to provide space to the Walker family and the Yuendumu community to speak at this stage, and walked off. I can’t imagine he could have said anything more perfectly than that.

“So if he has been issued a section 79 for saying something that the police commissioner failed miserably to say in his six minutes, 33 second ramble, it would astound me.

“But that is the police commissioner you’ve got.”

Constable Rolfe also recorded a video interview with The Australian newspaper that was conducted in 2019 but that was published after the verdict on Friday where he said police “didn’t tell the truth”.

Mr Rolfe said while he was very hurt by the trial of his son, there was pain across the entire Territory.

“It’s not just a dad that’s really hurt, the Yuendumu community, the Walker family, the entire police force, and every member of the Northern Territory community, they’re hurting because they are not getting a police force that they deserve,” he said.

“Because they don’t have the leadership. Last week was the most emotional, most highly charged part of the entire two years, four months waiting for this to get to trial, and we saw another incident where there was a shooting in Palmerston.

“Where was the police commissioner? He was in South Australia playing golf.

“They (Yuendumu community) should be sad (at the death of Kumanjayi Walker), and this only, no doubt, angered them that they’ve waited two years four months for something that they’ve been promised.

“And they’ve trying to come to grips with the fact of ‘why didn’t it work out the way that the police commissioner and chief minister was suggesting’.

“… I think that large sections of the media, not all, but large sections of the media did try to paint a narrative that Zach was going to be found guilty and he would be spending time in jail.

“…The Ben McDevitt testimony, which was probably the second most crucial testimony of the entire trial, it was never even written about in the NT News.”

Former police officer Ben McDevitt told the court that Rolfe had not acted inconsistently with his training in the shooting of Walker.

Mr McDevitt is a former Australian federal police assistant commissioner, and semi-retired consultant, and was called as an expert witness the use of force in Constable Rolfe’s defence.

He told the court it was “ludicrous” to suggest Constable Rolfe should have used his hands to contain Mr Walker, countering evidence given by Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Barram, who held senior positions training NT police officers.

Mr Rolfe said his son was still waiting on paperwork to see if he could return to work but doubted he would want to continue as an NT Police officer.

“But I can’t imagine Zach returning while you have a man with the level of integrity of Chalker as police commissioner.

“The Northern Territory public is made to decide, do you want someone with Zach Rolfe’s integrity, or do you want Jamie Chalker?

“They need a leader that’s on the ground, not ready to tee off on the third.”