R v PURCELL [2010] NSWDC 98

New South Wales District Court

CITATION: R v PURCELL [2010] NSWDC 98

HEARING DATE(S): 7 May 2010 2 June 2010

JUDGMENT DATE: 2 June 2010

JURISDICTION: District Court Criminal

JUDGMENT OF: Berman SC DCJ

DECISION: For the common law offence of misconduct in a public office the offender is fined $2,000. For the offence of misleading PIC he is ordered to perform 200 hours community service.

CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Misconduct of a holder of a public office - Give misleading evidence at hearing before Police Integrity Commission - Police officer disobeying directive from senior officer

LEGISLATION CITED: Police Act 1990

CASES CITED: Ryan v The Queen (2001) 206 CLR 267

PARTIES: The Crown Adam Michael Purcell

FILE NUMBER(S): DC 2008/37955; DC 2008/236000

COUNSEL: J Dailly SC - Offender

SOLICITORS: Director of Public Prosecutions Burstone Cole & Mulock - Offender

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: In the spring of 2006 the offender was a Superintendent of Police and Commander of the Hurstville Local Area Command. He was a fine policeman who was well respected by his colleagues. The next step for him was to become an Assistant Commissioner of Police, but that is no longer a possibility. He is no longer a police officer. He is a hotel manager suffering a chronic adjustment disorder. He is fully aware that he has only himself to blame for this change in circumstances because in the spring of 2006 and the autumn of 2007 he committed two criminal offences.

2 On 4 October 2006 two children were sexually assaulted in a public park within the Hurstville Local Area Command. The offender received a telephone call, providing him with what was then known about the offence, at 1.44pm. Within minutes of completing that call, and certainly before informing anyone in the Police Media Unit, the offender telephoned a television reporter named Robert Ovadia. He told him about the nature of the assault and its location. He asked Mr Ovadia to lie for him if he was asked how he learnt of the offence by saying that he had heard of the incident over a radio scanner. Mr Ovadia was, it would seem, quite willing to engage in that deception in order to maintain the offender as a source of information.