Remember this [March 2007]?
Bashed Peace Activist Abandoned By The CMC
This is a photo of peace activist Jim Dowling the night he was arrested. He lives in ex-policeman Peter Dutton's Queensland electorate. A year and a half ago Jim Dowling was assaulted by police at a public meeting at Queensland University of Technology. This week he received a letter from the Queensland Police informing him that he was wrong in his assessment that the police had acted unlawfully.
He says the Assistant Commissioner of Police informed him:
“These enquiries revealed that the allegations subject of your complaint could not be substantiated. Therefore I do not propose to take any further action and I now consider the matter to be finalized.”Mr Dowling says that at no stage has he been interviewed or questioned about what happened by the police or anyone from the CMC (Crime and Misconduct Commission).
He says, "After a day or two of recovering from a small dose of self pity I dutifully filled out a CMC complaint form available online. There were only a few lines to explain my complaint so I attached the short article I had written about the event... I naively thought this was just the start of my complaint process rather than the only thing the CMC would ever want to hear from me."
The police told him they wouldn't investigate the matter until the charges against him were heard and determined. It was to be six months before this occurred and a further two months of deliberation before the Magistrate ruled that he had done nothing for which the police could detain him and the charges were dismissed.
"She said the evidence of all my witnesses (who included lawyers and former federal attorney general Michael Lavarch) was credible. She declined however to state the obvious: that the contradictory police and security guards' evidence was therefore not credible, and that they had therefore perjured themselves," said Mr Dowling.
He then informed the CMC in writing of the outcome of the trial and said that his complaint now also included the allegation that the police and security guards had perjured themselves in court.
"This was in June 2006, immediately after the Magistrate had ruled police acted illegally in arresting me. It was to be a further five months before a friendly “investigating” police officer contacted me. His name escapes me because, other than that few minutes of conversation, I never heard from him again....I asked him when he was going to interview me. He told me that would not be necessary, as he had enough information from my initial complaint and a transcript of the court case of charges against me...
"When I insisted he at least try to interview Peter Dutton’s assistant (she was present at my assault, but police had tellingly declined to produce her as a witness), he reluctantly took details...
"Not a few weeks, but four months later, the only “report” I have received is the abovementioned sentences from the assistant commissioner. It is interesting to note that the commissioner had still watered down my complaint to, 'Essentially you complained that police assaulted you and used excessive force during the course of your arrest and detention. Further that handcuffs were applied too tight and that police had accused you of stealing oxygen.' I had never complained that handcuffs were too tight, but rather that Constable Jennings had lifted me up by my handcuffs behind my back as he was dragging me. This had caused my wrist to bleed. I also was not complaining about feeling insulted by police accusing me of 'stealing oxygen' but was merely mentioning his smart-alec reply when I told him I could not breathe with his hand on my neck forcing my head between my legs.
"There is no mention of most of the assault, no mention of illegal arrest, perjury, police collusion in evidence etc. The 'investigating' police obviously think there is nothing wrong with police officers having word for word the same personal recollection of events in their sworn statements, including the same spelling mistakes.
"Oh well, maybe it was all a dream………Not sure if I want to wake up to the real world though…."
If Dutton is so fantastic, why doesn't he just run for Dickson and win it?
