tal [lass] ArPDT 1 \ IN T FEDERAL POLICE ) ) No. FPDT 2 of 1988 DISCIPLINARY TRIBUNAL ) COMMISSIONER OF POLICE against SERGEANT PATRICK JOHN GALLAHER DECISION TRIBUNAL: MR B.R. MAGUIRE, Q.C. DATE : 26 August 1988 PLACE 3 Sydney THE TRIBUNAL FINDS: That the Respondent, Sergeant Patrick John Gallaher, is not guilty of the six disciplinary offences of which he was charged, namely, two offences of false statement alleged in notifications numbered 30/8788 and 32/8788; two offences of improper conduct alleged in notifications numbered 35/8788 and 34/8788; one offence of accepting a gift alleged in notification number 31/8788; and one offence of carelessness alleged in notification number 33/8788. AND THE TRIBUNAL ORDERS THAT: 1. The said charges be dismissed. 2. The Commonwealth pay the Respondent's costs. 3. The parties have liberty to apply as to the quantum of the said costs. By the Tribunal, —, REGISTRAR The matters that come before the Tribunal for Gecision all arise out of a major importation of drugs at Sydney airport on 23 May 1986. That importation, or the investigation surrounding it, have borne the name "Operation Creole" throughout. On the same day, a party of police, not including the respondent nor the sergeant immediately senior to him, namely Sergeant King, attended the house of one N in the suburbs of Sydney, where a search was conducted. That party of police was not in possession of any warrant entitling them to do that, but they appear to have met with the co-operation of N, even to the extent that HN surrendered his passport to Detective Sergeant Doszpot, who had found it at the premises. Shortly after the 23rd, it may even be on the following day, the respondent, Gallaher, saw N, with whom he had had a brief association some years before. The evidence discloses that N, having been the subject of police attention on the 23rd indicated by some means that he would like to see Gallaher. It seems to have been convenient to those in charge of the operation that Gallaher should thereupon become the police contact with N in the hope that N would provide information about operation Creole and any other matters that might be of interest to the police. From that time onwards until September 1986 Gallaher and N were in fairly frequent consultation. At each of the meetings between them, except one, Gallaher was accompanied by his partner, Constable Palmer. The passport having been' surrendered voluntarily by N to police on 23 May 1986, thereafter passes into a state that amounts in my mind to a mystery because whilst it has been the subject of a great deal of evidence in the proceedings before the Tribunal, there is no satisfactory explanation as to its whereabouts until there had elapsed a period of about 10 weeks. On 18 August 1986 Constable Snell lodged the passport at some part of the police premises where a register of passports is kept. Constable Snell's evidence is to be found in exhibit B, she being unavailable to give evidence before the Tribunal, but there is no dispute about the fact that she lodged the passport in the register and appropriate entries were made in respect of it at that time. I find it difficult to understand how a passport would remain in police custody for such a long period without being registered in the register. The Commissioner's Instructions and Orders are not clear on the point but it seems to me that the purpose of the register is to enable the fact of the possession of the passport to be recorded and to protect the document itself whilst it remains in police custody. The passport during that period of 10 weeks was the subject, I have no doubt, of a number of conversations between N and the respondent, Sergeant Gallaher. I have also no doubt that it was the subject of some discussion between Sergeant Gallaher and Sergeant King. Further, it is clear from the evidence that on 25 August 1986, that is a week after the initial registration of the passport, that it was withdrawn from the registry by Constable Palmer; and it is also clear that on the following day it was handed back to the man, N. Those circumstances give rise to one of the complaints with which the Tribunal has to grapple. I shall return to that matter shortly. During the same period of time a number of other important events occurred. At some stage during the to-ing and fro-ing between N and the respondent, Gallaher, a bottle of Arak, said to be a Lebanese alcoholic beverage, passed from the hand of N to the hand of Gallaher. The date on which that occurred is not clear and is not material, but that event also is the subject of one of the complaints with which the Tribunal is concerned. During the same period there was an occasion when reference was made in a conservation between N and Gallaher to the fact that Gallaher's superior, Sergeant King, was Jewish. For the moment I shall put the matter in as neutral a way as I can by simply saying "reference was made". That event is the subject of two of the complaints with which the Tribunal is concerned and I shall return to them. Following the conversation about Sergeant King's religion and following the return of the passport to N, a decision was made on 28 August 1986 that there would be a further search of N's house which was fixed to happen on 2 September 1986. That decision was made at a conference of relevant police, including Sergeant King and the respondent, Sergeant Gallaher. Sensibly the decision included the decision to obtain for this a search warrant. The search duly took place on 2 September and it revealed a counterpart receipt for the passport which N received on 26 August, but it did not discover the passport itself. N was arrested on that occasion and interviewed at the Redfern premises of the Australian Federal Police and charged on the same day at the Central Police Station with some offence arisina out of the Creole importation. I pause to note that on 1 September 1986, that is during the interval between the decision to search and the actual search, the evidence discloses (page 258 of the transcript) that the respondent, Gallaher, was transferred and indeed promoted away from the drug unit, where all the preceding events had taken place, to, the major crimes squad. Following N's arrest and charge he remained in custody for some days about which the evidence does not enable me to be certain, but it is clear that he was ultimately bailed within a relatively short period of time and that the passport was produced by N to the authorities as one of the preconditions for the bail that was allowed to him. It is also clear that by the time the search of N's premises had taken place, Sergeant King was aware of the fact that the passport had been returned to N, and was aware of the fact that there had been the discussion to which I have referred between N and Gallaher about Sergeant King's own religion. There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that Sergeant King took any exception beyond reproving Gallaher in respect of either of those matters. And it is plain that no senior officer was involved in the matter until after the happening of what really is the turning point in the whole case, namely the events of 9 September 1986. By that date, N had been bailed and as emerges from Gallaher's diary (exhibit Q) N telephoned Gallaher on that day. This was a common enough event and on the evidence before me, frequently met the response that thereafter Gallaher and Palmer would attend at N's home. That is what they did on this occasion and it is quite clear from the evidence that they went to his home in the suburbs, where there was a conversation that presents one of the major issues to be determined here by the Tribunal. That arises in this way: the burden of N's story that day was that whilst he had been in custody, he had had some discourse with one Afif Abdallah, who had informed N that he, Abdallah, had been keeping Sergeant King under surveillance and scrutiny and that he was laying plans to have King murdered upon the happening of certain future events adverse to Abdallah. I am quite satisfied that the conversation, that is the conversation between N and Gallaher took place. JI have no idea whether the conversation between Abdallah and N took place, and it really does not concern the Tribunal. Following this conversation, Gallaher acted promptly. He endeavoured to contact Sergeant King. King was neither at his station nor at home which he shared with two other members of the Australian Federal Police. Gallaher left messages with those two members and also communicated with those two members, not mere requests to communi.cate, but substantive messages about the matter that had been conveyed to him by N earlier in the day. Gallaher also communicated with a commissioned officer, namely Inspector Wells, at the latter's home on the same subject. Following that, on the next day, 10 September 1986, a conference took place involving Mr. Wells, Sergeant King and Sergeant Gallaher relating to the threat transmitted by N and said to have come from Afif Abdallah to kill Sergeant King. Thereafter Sergeant Gallaher committed to writing in the form of an information sheet (which is exhibit A before the Tribunal) an account of what he says had taken place on the preceding day between N and himself. It is that document that gives rise to two further charges with which the Tribunal is concerned. The gravamen of the allegation arising out of that document is that Gallaher knowingly, or alternatively, carelessly, made a false statement in that document. The false statement alleged comes in two parts: one that has to do with the family circumstances of Sergeant King and one that has to do with his private motor vehicle. Put shortly, the Commissioner's case is that those features of the matter were falsely or carelessly injected into the information sheet in order to "gild the lily", as Counsel for the Commissioner put it in his opening address. At some point of time after the conference on 19 October about which I cannot be clear, the view seems to have been taken by the senior officers involved, namely Inspector Wells and a Mr. Sing, that Sergeant Gallaher had mishandled his relationship with N. On 20 October 1986, Sergeant Cootes of the Internal Investigation Division, first telephoned Sergeant Gallaher in an attempt to arrange an interview into the events arising out of Gallaher's association with N. On 30 October, Gallaher was served with a direction to answer questions, and on that day he wrote a report and was thereafter interviewed by Sergeant Cootes. That report (exhibit F) and a transcript of the tape recording of the interview (exhibit D) are both before the Tribunal. Counsel for the Commissioner has sought to make a case that these two features of the threat conveyed by N to Gallaher did not in fact happen, by reason of the failure of Gallaher to spell them out when interrogated. I will not go into all the cross-examination, or all the submissions that have been made in relation to this matter, because I am of the view that Gallaher's initial response to the threat conveyed by N on 9 September 1986, which included the telephone conversations he had with Detective Sergeant Hopkins and with First Constable Walters, sufficiently corroborates in my mind Gallaher's evidence given before me, that those features were indeed part of the threat conveyed by N to Gallaher. Sergeant Hopkins gave evidence before the Tribunal, she having been called by Counsel for the Commissioner. She was called to give evidence about matters not directly related with the terms of the threat. However, she was cross-examined by Mr. Wasilenia of Counsel for the respondent about the terms of the telephone conversation which Sergeant Gallaher had had with her on 9 September. She was asked at page 107: "Do you recall any of the details that Sergeant Gallaher conveyed to you on that night?" She answered: "Yes, I do. They were that the contract was for $150,000; it was on Paul; that they knew where he lived; that he was separated from his wife; that he had two boys; and where they lived; and they knew what sort of car he drove." First Constable Walters had earlier been called by Counsel for the Commissioner and had been asked in-chief about the telephone conversation that he had had with Sergeant Gallaher on the same occasion. He was somewhat vague in his recollections I thought, but at page 61 he said: "And there was other conversation I recall in relation to Sergeant King's car, but what the content of that conversation is..." and he did not finish that sentence. At page 62 he had been asked whether Gallaher had said anything to him about the threat containing reference to Sergeant King's family. His answer was: "There was a mention but I cannot put into context what that reference was. I can recall there being a reference to the family; as to what it was, I cannot recall." My own view of the evidence of those two witnesses is such that I am quite unable to say that Sergeant Gallaher invented these two features of the complaint, for whatever motive, and I am not persuaded that he made a false statement as particularized in matters number 30/8788 and 32/8788, and in due course they will be dismissed. It is perhaps convenient next to deal with 31/8788, which involves the bottle of Arak. This allegation is brought pursuant to the Australian Federal Police (Discipline) Regulations, regulation number 15, which is in the following terms: "A member shall not directly or indirectly solicit or accept a gift or gratuity from a person concerned directly or indirectly with any matter in which the Australian Federal Police, or the member in the performance of his duties, is interested or concerned." There is no doubt on the evidence that the bottle of Arak passed from the hand of N to the hand of the respondent Gallaher. It is interesting to note in passing that these facts first surfaced in the knowledge of police other than Gallaher and his partner during the course of the interview which Cootes conducted with Gallaher, the transcript of that interview is now exhibit D. The respondent's own explanation for receiving this bottle of liquor from N is to be found in part at least at page 240 of the transcript. Put shortly, his case is that had he declined to take the bottle away with him he believed that that would have insulted N and that his work as the officer communicating between the Australian Federal Police and N with a view to obtaining information would have been set back. I have been referred to definitions from dictionaries, legal and - otherwise, as to the meaning of "gift". I think the matter can be simply disposed of by saying that the draftsman has, in this 10. regulation, proscribed the acceptance of a gift, and that whatever meaning the common law may give to the word "gift" this regulation expressly proscribes the acceptance of a gift. In the light of the evidence of the sergeant as to what his purpose was, and in the light of the undoubted fact that he obtained no advantage for himself from the receipt of the bottle and its contents, I am quite unable to say that his asportation of the bottle away from N's home amounted to an "acceptance" by Gallaher of the bottle of Arak as a gift. In due course that matter will be dismissed. That brings me to 33/8788 and 35/8788 which are the two allegations relating to the discussion between N and Gallaher of the fact that Sergeant King was Jewish. Those charges are framed in the alternative and it is an element of each of the charges that what was done was done without the authority and consent of Sergeant King. Counsel for the Commissioner in opening the matter at page 9 put the issue thusly, and although I have not debated it with him I am sure he would not now adhere to what he then said: "And the question will be whether it was agreed between King and Gallaher that those personal details should be disclosed to N before in fact they were disclosed." That really is not the issue. As to the charge involving an allegation of improper conduct, namely 35/8788, the onus lies on the Commissioner to establish that Gallaher communicated the factual matter referred to, to N and that he did so knowing that ll. he did not have Sergeant King's authority to do so. As to the alternative charge, 33/8788, the Commissioner must establish that Gallaher disclosed the matter referred to and that he did so carelessly in the sense that he did not really know whether Sergeant King had given his authority and consent or not. In both cases I remind myself that the Commissioner bears the criminal onus of proof in relation to these charges. We are in a difficult and sensitive area. The other man's religion can be a matter of great sensitivity. It can be a matter which is as between even good friends, a taboo; or it may not be; and in enlightened times, and one hopes that we live in enlightened times, the other person's religion is less likely to be a total taboo or as sensitive an issue as it might have been in earlier times. There is evidence before the Tribunal that as between Sergeant King and at least some of his colleagues, his religion was not a subject of discussion into which nobody may trespass without offence. I am told by Sergeant Gallaher, and this is not contradicted, that there had been on prior occasions discussions around the drug unit about Sergeant King's' religion. He described to me the aftermath, if that is the word, of an occasion when Sergeant King had brought to the unit some wine and cakes which were apparently surplus to some family religious ceremony, and shared them with some of his brother offices. EQ So I think that in order to get at the truth of this sensitive matter, it is important to bear that kind of consideration in mind. It also emerges at page 333 that Gallaher himself was the butt, it would seem, of some humour in the unit in connection with his rendezvous with the Lebanese bishop at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, about which so much evidence has been given, and about which so much debate has taken place. Sergeant King, in his evidence at page 27, said this: To the best of my recollection of a morning Gallaher and I were having one of our then debriefings about his meetings, and Gallaher informed me that in a conversation with Younes he had told him that I was a Jew and I hated all Arabs." At page 30, he was asked - and this is still in chief - whether he had a recollection of the respondent ever specifically bring up with him, in advance, the fact that he, the respondent, was going to disclose to N, Sergeant King's religion. And the witness answered: "I cannot recall having a discussion with Gallaher in which he expressly stated that he was going to tell Younes that I was a Jew and I hated all Arabs in those terms." I pause there simply to emphasize the word "expressly", which is Sergeant King's own word, and seems to imply that, leaving aside any expressed intention on the part of Gallaher there seems to have been some discussion about Sergeant King's religion which has remained in the back of Sergeant King's mind. At page 54, he was cross-examined by Mr Wasilenia to this effect: Question: "It is the case, is it not, that whenever he did raise it you did not know whether in fact 13. had done it and was then asking for your approval after the fact or whether he was going to do it?...That is right." Sergeant Gallaher's first account of these events is to be found on page 2 of exhibit F, which is the report that he prepared for the IID on 30 October 1986. He said there in part: "I deny that I used the fact of Detective Sergeant King's religion in my dealings with N against Sergeant King's wishes. I had discussions with Sergeant King in relation to my handling of N. It was agreed by myself and Sergeant King that I would use what is commonly known as the good guy bad guy approach with N in an attempt to. gain information. By this I mean that I was to appear to be N's friend while King didn't like him. This approach worked. However, WN questioned why King didn't like him as they hadn't met. I discussed several approaches with Sergeant King and decided to use the fact that King was Jewish and N is Lebanese as a reason. Detective Sergeant King never told me that this was against his wishes." He then proceeds to set out an account of what he says took place. In exhibit D, which is the transcript of the record of interview, he was asked question 85: "So you're stating quite categorically that Sergeant King agreed to the use of his religion prior to you using it? That is correct. That is my understanding of the situation." Sergeant Gallaher, of course gave evidence about this area of contention before the Tribunal, and that evidence commences at page 242 of the transcript: "N raised the subject with me one night: King is Jewish, I have been told King is Jewish because he has got a_ solicitor who is representing Afif Abdallah who is one of the principals of Creole, and he is a Jewish solicitor." Now, as I understand that somewhat garbled piece of evidence, the 14. respondent was recounting a conversation between N and himself in which N was asserting to the respondent that he, N, knew that King was Jewish and that N's source of knowledge was a chain of hearsay through Afif Abdallah and a solicitor. The respondent was asked on that same page: Question: "You did not confirm or deny?...Not, at that stage." And he went on to say in the same answer: "And then the next day I went back and spoke to King about it and I said to King; well it appears to me that they know that you are Jewish and it is not going to do us any harm if we say well, yes, he is Jewish and he does not like dirty Arab drug dealers." And the respondent thereafter told me that he, ona subsequent encounter with N, confirmed to N that which N had asserted to him, namely, that Sergeant King was Jewish. And he gave evidence of his motive in doing that. Cross-examination at page 332, he said this: "And King just went along with it." And that is a reference back to the conversation that Sergeant Gallaher swears that he had had with King. In the light of the answer that Sergeant King gave in cross-examination (at page 54 to which I have already referred) I am not persuaded that Sergeant Gallaher did what he did otherwise than in the belief that he had Sergeant King's authority to do so. And in due course those two charges will be dismissed. That brings me finally to 34/8788. This allegation has been i LS amended without objection; the amendment being that' the time-frame alleged has been considerably condensed. Put shortly what is alleged is that between 18 August 1986 and 26 August 1986, at Sydney, without lawful authority, the respondent did cause the passport of N, held in the custody of the Australian Federal Police, to be returned to N. I have already recounted some of the evidence about the movements of this passport. That which I have not mentioned and which is most important is the evidence of King and of Gallaher about the status of the passport and the nature of the control being exercised over it, and about the continuance, or otherwise, of N's consent to the passport being held by the Australian Federal Police. The case for the Commissioner is this: that Sergeant King, who was in charge of this operation - certainly as between himself and Gallaher, wished to hold the passport, and (at page 30) Sergeant King told the Tribunal that on a number of occasions he refused to allow return of any of the property - that is, the property of N which included the relevant passport. He said this: "And on both issues I refused." He also said this: "In all of my conversations with Gallaher I told him on each of those occasions that neither the passport nor the other property was to be returned to N." Under cross-examination at page 48, the sergeant was asked: "Now at no stage did you tell Gallaher that 16. you were retaining the passport, did you?...The only time I told him I wanted to retain the passport was in those initial stages after it was first seized, first handed over." That, T regard, as a very significant answer given by Sergeant King, and I remind myself that we are talking about a time frame of 11 weeks or so between the acquisition by Detective Sergeant Doszpot of the passport at N's premises during the first search on 23 May 1986 and the handing back to N of his passport on 26 August 1986. What Sergeant King is saying in that answer at least under cross-examination is that there was no expressed proscription by him against the handing back of the passport after the early stages, and I take him to mean the first week, or two, or three of that 11 week period, and I think that is a very significant answer. On the following page he was asked this: "And it is the case, is it not, that you were telling him, look I have not finished with it but as soon as I do you will have it?...Yes." Now, that answer seems to me to justify a sergeant of the seniority of Sergeant Gallaher to come to the belief that when at whatever time in the future Sergeant King might have finished his researches and inquiries in relation to the passport, then, having regard to the fact that it was not being held by reason of the force of a search warrant, that it might be returned to N. The evidence on this matter is voluminous. There are parts of it 17. that are totally irreconcilable, and there are parts of it that give rise to conjecture as to motives, but at the end of the day, I have come to the conclusion that I believe Sergeant Gallaher when he tells me that he believed that he was entitled to return the passport to N at the time that he did. I refer to his evidence at page 250 when he was asked this question: "Did he ever tell you that N could not have his property back - the passport back?---No, he did not." that is, Sergeant King - "ever tell you that N could not have his property back - the passport back? ... No he did not." The Commissioner, of course, in these proceedings bears a heavy onus. Before getting to the questions of fact involved in this charge, it was submitted by Counsel for the respondent that even accepting the Commissioner's case at its highest, the offence was not made out. I simply pause to say that I do not accept that proposition of law. The chain of command would be in chaos if any junior officer was entitled to run his own race if he perceived that one of his superiors was acting otherwise than in the best interests of the Australian Federal Police or acting contrary to law. What I am certain was part of the thinking on Gallaher's part was this: that N had retracted his consent to the passport being 18. held and that retraction had been conveyed on Gallaher's evidence to Sergeant King. I accept Sergeant Gallaher's evidence on those matters, and once that stage is reached, N is entitled to have the passport back, but I do not accept the proposition that Sergeant Gallaher would have been entitled to take the law into his own hands and return it behind the back of Sergeant King. However, that is not the view of the facts that I take. My view of Gallaher's evidence about this matter, particularly having regard to the concessions made by Sergeant King, quite frankly, in the course of his cross-examination is that Gallaher had been given the authority in advance by King to return the passport at whatever time in the future King and his other officers had finished their investigations. Gallaher was entitled, in my view, to accept that when the property - the other property was returned and the passport was registered in the register that that was a signal that there was no further requirement for the passport and that it might be returned. He acted, in my view, in the belief that he had the authority of King to do so. In looking at the evidence of both these men - that is, Sergeant King and Sergeant Gallaher - it is important to remember that we are dealing with a span of time over nearly three months that elapsed more than two years ago, and where there are absences of recollection or where there are sometimes even internal conflicts & in the evidence of one witness or another, that that lapse of time can provide an explanation for those apparent conflicts. I am not looking at a situation where an experienced detective sergeant ought to commit to his memory with great precision the words of an offender so that they can be reproduced by the sergeant in the witness box at a criminal trial a year or two, or even further ahead. Both of these men were extraordinarily busy and they both carried great responsibilities in the drug enforcement and other areas. They would have worked, I am sure, very closely together and would have had in a three-month period scores of conversations, some of them brief, some of them lengthy. It is not to be wondered that their recollections should at least in part diverge in all the circumstances. Bearing in mind the onus that rests upon the Commissioner, I am not satisfied, as I have already said, that that offence is made out, and in due course it will be dismissed. Before I part with this matter, there are some other features of the case that I think justice requires that I should deal with. The first of those is the proposition put to Sergeant Gallaher in the course of cross-examination that he had, in effect, tipped off the man, N, as to the second search that was to happen at N's home on 2 September, 1986. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that that allegation is made out. A number of the police involved in that operation 20. at N's home on that day were called: namely, Gray, Lenehan, McFadden and Thomas. Gray, Lenehan and McFadden each had things to say about it which conveyed the impression that N was up and dressed and aware of what was happening out in the street. That may well be. Thomas was there, but described nothing of that nature. Jones and Payne were there, as emerges from the evidence of McFadden at page 154. I have seen neither Jones nor Payne. It seems to me that N may well have had his suspicions aroused by what had not been happening in the days immediately preceding the search. In the period from Wednesday, 13 August 1986, to Tuesday, 26 August, there had been contact between N and the respondent Gallaher on many occasions. There had been six meetings culminating in the meeting with N and the bishop at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport on the 26th; there had been at least two telephone calls. It was a very busy period as between N and Gallaher. From the afternoon of the 26th, which I might interpolate, amounts to a seventh meeting in that period of two weeks - there was no meeting at all before the search on the 2nd. That is, a whole week elapsed during which N had not seen the respondent. The respondent's recollection about this was not particularly clear, but he seemed to be telling me at page 352a that there had been a telephone call made by one of them or the 21. other about the prospect of Gallaher's going to see N, but that E g he Gallaher, had not gone to see l) by reason of a direction given to him by one of his superiors. Those circumstances suggest to me that N might have been getting very anxious indeed by the morning of the search, and it is not to be wondered at that he was waiting for the arrival of the police, who indeed, turned up. But I simply add that I accept Sergeant Gallaher's denial that he tipped N off in that respect. The other matter to which I want to refer is this: Sergeant King, under cross-examination by Counsel for the respondent, said something about Sergeant Cootes of the Internal Investigation Division, and I think I should touch on it, although it has not keen and could not be fully litigated before the Tribunal. The very fact that it is raised merely ought to be noted by the Tribunal and, perhaps only with an eye to the future rather than the past, the Commissioner ought to think about it. Sergeant King said at page 55: "During the interview or towards the end of the interview Cootes suggested something to the effect of; here is an opportunity to get somebody like Gallaher out of the job and it was up to somebody like me to make sure that that was done." And King went on to say that that expression did not accord with his own desires. That matter has been denied by Sergeant Cootes and by the other member of the force who was working with him. It is not relevant for me to make any decision about whether that 22. happened or not, and, as I have said, it was not fully litigated before the Tribunal. I simply say that it is difficult to imagine why Sergeant King, in the circumstances in which he was involved in this matter, would invent something of that nature and would then communicate it to the Gallaher camp. It does Sergeant King credit that that intelligence was conveyed to the Gallaher camp. Finally, I want to say this; that one never hears, in this Tribunal the whole background to any set of events that attract the notice of the Tribunal. The human condition is a very complicated tapestry. There must have been at some point behind the events that I am dealing with, differences of opinion, abrasions to personalities, and matters of that kind. The work done on behalf of the community by the Australian Federal Police is of such enormous importance that it must rise above matters of that kind. I record now that I directed Sergeant King to be present whilst I was giving my decision in this matter. I did not tell him then why I wanted him there, but the reason is that I wanted him to have as full an understanding of my reasons in this matter as was possible for him to have. He could never hope to get that understanding from reading the transcript or hearing about matters second, third or fourth hand. I will say no more than this; that I hope that today is a beginning rather than an ending. As to each of these six charges, they are dismissed. I order the Commonwealth to pay the respondent's costs of the proceedings, 23. and I grant liberty to apply as to the quantum of those costs, should that become necessary. B.R. MAGUIRE, MEMBER