A judge has ruled it was unreasonable to fire a “lonely” rural police officer after he had sex with a woman he was investigating for assault.
The senior police officer, whose name cannot be revealed, was dismissed from his duties after coming forward in February 2022 to confess that he had “messed up”.
“I knew there was no way around it, that I had to go straight to them and tell them basically what had happened,” she said.
The officer was dismissed by Victoria Police in June last year, about 18 months after reporting the incident to a senior officer the following morning.
He was cleared of any wrongdoing after appealing the decision to the Police Services and Registration Board, but the case reached the state Supreme Court this year after the Chief Police Commissioner attempted to challenge that ruling.
The court was told the officer was off-duty and drinking with a colleague at Rafferty’s Tavern in Warrnambool on February 14, 2022, when he was approached by the woman he had been tasked with investigating in relation to an alleged assault.
The couple began socializing and had sex later that night after the woman offered to drive him home.
The board commended the officer for his “moral courage” in revealing what had happened and found that a charge of breaching discipline had not been proven.
The senior officer, whose name cannot be revealed, was dismissed from his duties after coming forward in February 2022 to confess that he had “messed up.”
Judge Michael McDonald, handing down the sentence on Thursday, found the officer had breached conflict of interest policies but agreed the initial decision to fire the man was “harsh, unfair or unreasonable” and referred it back to the Police Services and Registration Board for further punishment.
“We are not suggesting that his brief relationship with (the woman) was a great idea or a good thing for his career. It was not,” the board wrote.
‘But it was a very human decision, made by a young man in a new city, after a break-up, on a night out after too many drinks, who was lonely, who was responding to attention, who was possibly not thinking too well.’
The Chief Commissioner’s barrister, Elizabeth Bennett SC, argued that the Board’s decision effectively condoned the officer’s actions and called it “illogical”.
In issuing his ruling on Thursday, Judge Michael McDonald found that the officer had indeed violated conflict of interest policies.
But he accepted that the initial decision to sack the man was “harsh, unfair or unreasonable” and sent it back to the Police Services and Registration Board to decide on a new sanction.
“It is useful to refer the (official’s) request for review of the dismissal decision to a differently constituted Board for a new hearing,” he said.
‘The Board has broad discretion as to what type of relief should be granted. The Board will need to reconsider the exercise of that discretion.’