EXCLUSIVE: Senior NT Police officers who lied to the Coroner in sworn statements accessed internal police records stored on computer drives ahead of the ICAC’s investigation into their conduct, with at least one of them allegedly attempting to delete evidence of the racist TRG awards, the NT Independent can reveal.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation also said evidence exists that shows some of the officers who submitted the false statements shared jokes via text messages about their involvement in creating the awards after submitting the statements.

The latest revelations raise even further questions about the integrity and thoroughness of the joint ICAC-NT Police investigation that sought to determine if the five senior officers knowingly provided false information in relation to the racist awards – which is a criminal offence – and follows one officer admitting to the Coroner in a previously secret stat dec that he had access to evidence collected off the personal drive of a former police officer.

The NT Police executive and the ICAC have refused to provide comment on the flawed investigation, including how Sr Sgt Meacham King, one of the officers who was under investigation, had access to the information contained on a former officer’s hard drive.

The NT Independent previously revealed the Office of the ICAC recovered roughly six terabytes of data from police computers in relation to the TRG’s annual Noogudah awards including images, videos and other material from the award ceremonies dating back 15 years.

It is understood those pictures and videos show all five senior officers – Sgt King, Craig Garland, Shaun Gill, James Gray-Spence and Mark Clemmens – in attendance at various ceremonies over the years where “Noogudah” awards were presented.

“Every one of the five officers who denied knowledge of the awards are all seen in images and videos [obtained by the ICAC] in attendance at the award presentations and even presenting the awards,” one source said.

Copies of the award certificates were also found on the officers’ work drives, as part of the investigation.

The NT Independent previously revealed that Sgt King, Supt Garland and Sgt Gill all produced award certificates with racial connotations for the annual ceremony, despite claiming no knowledge of the racist awards in their sworn statements.

Multiple police sources told this masthead that all current and former TRG officers had access to their own “P” drives before and after the investigation commenced, which were for personal items stored in the police database that contained pictures and other material related to the awards. They also had access to the “L” drives – the specific location of the Territory Response Group’s files.

“One of those officers…has been found to have logged into the drives and has tried to delete records of the awards after making his first statutory declaration,” a source with deep knowledge of the investigation said.

“Other officers who made stat decs to the Coroner have also logged into these drives.”

Sgt King produced three statutory declarations to the Coroner about the awards. He denied the awards “have any connotation to race” in his first statement, dated February 28 – the same day the other four provided their statements under oath.

However, on February 29, Sgt King filed another stat dec in response to the Coroner’s office specifically asking him to produce “all the certificates that were given to the recipients each year”.

Sgt King wrote that he had “seen these certificates in the past but from memory, we haven’t awarded certificates for over eight years”.

“I don’t know where any of these certificates could be now so I am unable to provide them,” he wrote in the sworn statement to the court.

Around the same time, it has been alleged by police sources who have seen data entries, Sgt King accessed the P drive and the L drive where the award certificates, pictures and videos were stored.

On March 1, a number of Noogudah certificates were produced by Zach Rolfe at the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker that showed clearly racial overtones, including one certificate with the Aboriginal flag as the backdrop, that refuted the officers’ sworn statements, but counsel for the NT Police Ian Freckelton, who organised the five officers to sign the stat decs two days earlier, asked Coroner Elisabeth Armitage for the certificates to be suppressed from media reporting.

Mr Freckelton has previously declined to answer questions, including why those specific five officers were chosen, if Police Commissioner Michael Murphy instructed him to use them and if he was aware their statements were inaccurate and amounted to perjury before they were submitted.

The award certificates were later released publicly on March 18, but it is unclear what Mr Freckelton or Mr Murphy knew about the files on the police computers.

Sgt King later admitted on a third stat dec, dated May 1, that he personally created PowerPoint presentations for the awards for nearly seven years after they went digital-only in 2015 – the same year the ICAC incorrectly stated the awards had stopped. He did not tell the Coroner that in his previous two statements, including the statement responding to requests for copies of the award certificates.

“No actual certificates were issued [after 2015], it was just a presentation with images/writing etc,” he wrote in the third statement.

“Most of the slides within these p-points were created by myself with input from others…”

Sgt King claimed he forgot about the racist elements of the awards during his first and second stat decs, only remembering after being “shown other images from power points or similar dating back as far as 2006”, which he acknowledged contained language that was “racist, offensive and inexcusable”.

“I have been advised that they were located on a personal drive (on our work system) of a former police officer,” he wrote.

He did not explain who showed him that material, but sources have confirmed that it was not the Office of the ICAC as Sgt King refused to be interviewed by the anti-corruption body and was inexplicably not compelled to provide evidence.

He did not respond to questions from the NT Independent including about accessing the computer drives that contained evidence of the award certificates around the time he filed the first two false statutory declarations.

Instead of questioning any of the five senior officers, the Office of the ICAC concluded its investigation by stating there was “no admissible evidence” to pursue the officers, in part due to commissioner Michael Riches’ “assurances” to some officers that any evidence they provided would remain anonymous. That material, provided by other officers, was not put to the five.

However, the ICAC has never explained why all five officers were not directly questioned about the accuracy of their sworn statements against the evidence made public through the inquest – or the material recovered from the police computer drives – that included the award certificate with an Aboriginal flag as a backdrop, as well as a graphic of a person in blackface, another award for the “most coon-like BBQ ever” and another Noogudah award given to a drunk officer for displaying the “utmost level of Aboriginality while being an elite member of the TR[G]”.

Some of the images and videos of the award ceremonies where the racist material was distributed were leaked to social media in recent weeks that shows officers at the annual end-of-the-year award ceremonies. Other material not yet released shows Commander James Gray-Spence, who is currently the officer in charge of Alice Springs, also attending the ceremonies where racist awards were distributed, which contradicts his claim that the Noogudah award “has no Indigenous connection”.

‘Noogudah’ is what TRG officers called Aboriginal people: Cop

Another former TRG member told the NT Independent the word “Noogudah” is what officers called Aboriginal people, but he contended the unit was not racist.

“That’s what we called Aboriginal people, but the unit was not racist towards Indigenous people,” he said. “We did it to take the piss out of everyone. That’s what the awards were about, everyone being taken down to the same level.”

He said changing the name to the Voldemort Award in late 2022, after the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker had started, was not a coincidence, which he said intentionally references the Aboriginal cultural tradition of not speaking the name of the dead.

Voldemort is the villain in the Harry Potter books, who is also known as “He who shall not be named”.

The eight-month ICAC investigation does not appear to have explored that aspect of the awards, despite incorrectly claiming the awards ceased in 2015.

The joint investigation also did not speak to a number of former officers and others who were willing to provide evidence. It also remains unclear what the NT Police’s involvement was in the investigation.

It was revealed in the final report that commissioner Michael Riches told Mr Murphy the day after the investigation started that he did not intend to make any adverse findings against the five officers despite the stated objective to investigate the potential criminal conduct of knowingly filing false information in sworn statements.

Numerous sources told the NT Independent they respect all five officers for their work over many years, but that their decision to knowingly file false statements with no repercussions has cost the NT Police its credibility.

“The absolute lies and cover-ups within the NT Police force has hit a new low,” one source said. “This is going to cost us more losses of police, loss of even more credibility within the NT community and sadly the respect of other police forces around the nation.”

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has previously ruled out referring the five officers for further investigation for perjury and Mr Murphy has also stated he considers the matter closed following the conclusion of the joint investigation.