NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas was heavily targeted in the bugging operation. Photo: Peter Rae
Deputy NSW police commissioner Nick Kaldas deserves an apology for being targeted with dozens of listening device warrants more than a decade ago, an upper house inquiry is expected to recommend.
The report of the parliamentary inquiry into a long-running bugging scandal that has rocked the upper echelons of the NSW police force will also find that a new inquiry should be held into how listening device warrants are obtained.
It will also be critical of successive police commissioners, including the current Commissioner Andrew Scipione, for the lack of action to resolve complaints over the decade-old scandal.
NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione (centre), flanked by NSW Premier Mike Baird and Prime Minister Tony Abbott, has been criticised for failing to resolve the scandal. Photo: James Alcock
The inquiry examined the conduct and progress of Operation Prospect, an Ombudsman’s investigation into a police bugging operation, code-named Mascot, which ran between 1999 and 2001 and targeted allegedly corrupt police.
The scandal has rocked the top of the police force as another Deputy Commissioner, Catherine Burn, was team leader of Mascot – the operation targeting Mr Kaldas. Mr Scipione oversaw the operation for a time.
Mascot used a corrupt former policeman, code named M5, to target allegedly corrupt police with a listening device. But it emerged there was insufficient or no evidence of wrongdoing by many of the more than 100 police and civilians whose names appeared on warrants issued by the Supreme Court.
It emerged during the inquiry that Mr Kaldas was named in 80 warrants for listening devices issued to Mascot.
It is understood the inquiry’s report, due to be tabled in the NSW Parliament on Wednesday morning, will recommend that the state government issue a formal apology to Mr Kaldas over being targeted by the operation.
It will also recommend an apology be given to Channel Seven journalist Steve Barrett, who was named on 52 warrants.
The long-running tensions between Mr Kaldas and Ms Burn boiled over on the final day of the inquiry’s hearings, when Mr Kaldas accused Ms Burn of raising his name with an informant later used to bug him more than a decade ago.
Ms Burn had earlier detailed serious corruption allegations against Mr Kaldas that had led him to be targeted by a bugging operation of which she was a member, codenamed Mascot, during 1999-2001.
NSW Premier Mike Baird has indicated his preference is to wait for the outcome of a parallel inquiry by NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour into the bugging scandal, which is not due to report until June, before taking any action.
“The government’s cover-up is continuing”: David Shoebridge. Photo: Simon Alekna
The release of a secret report into a police bugging scandal has been blocked by Premier Mike Baird’s department, leading to warnings the dispute may end up before the Supreme Court.
The Strike Force Emblems report examines allegations of illegal bugging by the NSW police’s Special Crime and Internal Affairs (SCIA) and the NSW Crime Commission between 1999 and 2001, but has never been made public.
Its contents are sensitive as the current Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, and a current deputy commissioner, Catherine Burn, worked at SCIA and one of the detectives being bugged was Nick Kaldas, now also a deputy commissioner.
Last month, the NSW upper house passed a resolution seeking release of the Emblems report to a parliamentary inquiry into Ombudsman Bruce Barbour’s two-year investigation of the bugging scandal.
Although the government opposed the motion, it passed with the support of Labor, the Greens and the Shooters and Fishers Party.
But the Premier’s department wrote to the Crown Solicitor asking if it was “arguable” that under parliamentary rules the report can be released only with the permission of NSW Governor David Hurley, as it concerns “the administration of justice”.
On Friday, the Crown Solicitor tabled legal advice agreeing with this view, because the report contains references to court proceedings and perjury. In response, the Premier’s department has declined to release it to the Parliament.
A motion requesting the Governor’s permission is not possible before the upper house inquiry because Parliament has risen until after the March 2015 election.
Greens MP David Shoebridge, a member of the parliamentary inquiry set to examine the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Emblems report, said the decision showed “the government’s cover-up is continuing”.
“They appear to be willing to make any argument to prevent the release of what is obviously a highly damaging report,” he said.
Mr Shoebridge said he would refer the decision to the Parliament’s independent arbiter, Keith Mason, QC.
“But clearly there are substantial issues of legal principle here that may have to be determined by the Supreme Court,” he said.
“This secrecy must stop”: Greens justice spokesman David Shoebridge. Photo: Darren Pateman
The police bugging scandal that has plagued top levels of the NSW force for more than a decade will be examined by a NSW parliamentary inquiry with concerns the Ombudsman has taken too long to finalise his investigation.
The state government tasked the Ombudsman in October 2012 with inquiring into allegations surrounding illegal bugging by the NSW Police’s Special Crime and Internal Affairs and the NSW Crime Commission between 1999 and 2001 and the investigation that followed into it.
But after more than two years, the $3 million inquiry, dubbed Operation Prospect and held behind closed doors, has released no specific details.Â
Now, The Shooters and Fishers Party, with the support of Labor and The Greens, will establish an inquiry that will examine the bugging allegations, the subsequent police investigation into those allegations and the Ombudsman’s inquiry. It will report by February 2015.
Shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch said Labor was in support of the inquiry because the original matters involving allegations of police bugging “were extremely serious”.
“It’s taken way too long to get to this stage,” he said. “These things will undoubtedly benefit from ventilation in public”.
The Greens justice spokesman David Shoebridge said the inquiry would remove the secrecy behind the police bugging scandal which has affected the most senior ranks of the NSW Police.
The current Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, and a current Deputy Commissioner, Catherine Burn, worked at SCIA at relevant times. One of the detectives SCIA was bugging was Nick Kaldas, now also a Deputy Commissioner.
“What we have is a secret police investigation that obtained secret warrants, that was then reviewed by a secret police investigation and is now being considered by a seemingly endless secret Ombudsman’s inquiry,” Mr Shoebridge said. “This secrecy must stop.”
Between 1999 and 2001, the  SCIA and the crime commission ran a covert investigation codenamed Operation Mascot into allegedly corrupt NSW police.
Central to Mascot was a serving NSW police officer, codenamed M5, who went to work for SCIA and the commission, wearing a wire to bug his colleagues, some of whom were undoubtedly corrupt. But many of those he sought to entrap were honest police.
Some listening device warrants obtained by SCIA and the commission contained more than 100 names, mainly of former and serving police.
In many cases, the affidavits presented to Supreme Court judges contained no information whatsoever that would justify the bugging, and Fairfax Media has established that some of the information in the affidavits was false.
Many police involved in the case believe numerous criminal offences have been committed by some officers of the SCIA and the commission.
Complaints by police, including some from within SCIA itself, were internally investigated by NSW police from Strike Force Emblems as far back as 2004. But inquiries were stymied by the secrecy provisions of the NSW Crime Commission, which refused to co-operate or hand over crucial documents.
Successive governments refused to release the Emblems reports â but they were obtained by Fairfax Media. The reports said “criminal conduct” and revenge might have been behind the mass bugging.
The first Emblems report found there may have been “criminal conduct” involved in the bugging of 100 serving and former police.
Even M5, the NSW police officer doing the undercover bugging, confessed that in some cases he was “settling old scores” and “assisting, nurturing corruption”.
(09-25) 13:49 PDT OAKLAND — A divorce attorney pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that she hired a private investigator, who was a central character in Contra Costa County’s “dirty DUI” scandal, to illegally install listening devices inside the car of a client’s ex-husband.
Mary Nolan, 60, appeared in Oakland federal court, where she also pleaded innocent to four counts of tax evasion. She faces up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted on all counts.
Nolan was first linked to disgraced private investigator Christopher Butler,50, in 2010, after two men told The Chronicle that she used their drunken driving arrests against them in divorce and custody battles. Both men have since filed civil lawsuits against Nolan alleging she orchestrated their arrests through Butler.
Butler pleaded guilty earlier this year to using attractive women to meet estranged husbands in bars and set them up for drunken driving arrests by police officers tied for him.
Butler, who is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday afternoon, admitted in court papers that Nolan referred clients to him. He also estimated that he bugged between 75 and 100 cars during his tenure as a private investigators.
Nolan was never charged in connection with the drunken driving scandal that snared Butler and others.
But prosecutors alleged in their separate case against Nolan that in at least one instance she hired Butler to bug the car of a client’s spouse so she could use the recorded information against him in divorce proceedings.
Nolan’s court appearance drew the attention of Phil Dominic, 55, of Oakland, who said Nolan represented his ex-girlfriend in a 2010 custody dispute over their son. His case is not the one forming the basis of the criminal case against Nolan.
Dominic said Nolan lied about him to family court judges and destroyed his relationship with the mother of his son, as well as his child.
“This is Christmas for me,” said Dominic, who heckled Nolan as she left the courthouse.
Dominic said he was organizing a group of men whose wives were represented by Nolan to discuss taking legal action against the attorney.
“I told her one day she’d get caught,” Dominic said. “I told her, ‘One day I’m going to see you on the other side.”
Outside court, Nolan’s attorney Jay Weill declined to comment.
Nolan is scheduled to appear in court next month for further proceedings.
Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
OAKLAND — A divorce attorney pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that she hired a private investigator, who was a central character in Contra Costa County’s “dirty DUI” scandal, to illegally install listening devices inside the car of a client’s ex-husband.
Mary Nolan, 60, appeared in Oakland federal court, where she also pleaded innocent to four counts of tax evasion. She faces up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted on all counts.
Nolan was first linked to disgraced private investigator Christopher Butler,50, in 2010, after two men told The Chronicle that she used their drunken driving arrests against them in divorce and custody battles. Both men have since filed civil lawsuits against Nolan alleging she orchestrated their arrests through Butler.
Butler pleaded guilty earlier this year to using attractive women to meet estranged husbands in bars and set them up for drunken driving arrests by police officers tied for him.
Butler, who is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday afternoon, admitted in court papers that Nolan referred clients to him. He also estimated that he bugged between 75 and 100 cars during his tenure as a private investigators.
Nolan was never charged in connection with the drunken driving scandal that snared Butler and others.
But prosecutors alleged in their separate case against Nolan that in at least one instance she hired Butler to bug the car of a client’s spouse so she could use the recorded information against him in divorce proceedings.
Nolan’s court appearance drew the attention of Phil Dominic, 55, of Oakland, who said Nolan represented his ex-girlfriend in a 2010 custody dispute over their son. His case is not the one forming the basis of the criminal case against Nolan.
Dominic said Nolan lied about him to family court judges and destroyed his relationship with the mother of his son, as well as his child.
“This is Christmas for me,” said Dominic, who heckled Nolan as she left the courthouse.
Dominic said he was organizing a group of men whose wives were represented by Nolan to discuss taking legal action against the attorney.
“I told her one day she’d get caught,” Dominic said. “I told her, ‘One day I’m going to see you on the other side.”
Outside court, Nolan’s attorney Jay Weill declined to comment.
Nolan is scheduled to appear in court next month for further proceedings.
