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Top watchdog slams Gold Coast police culture of cover-ups and dodgy stats

GOLD Coast police falsified crime figures and used tactics to make victims of crime drop their complaints, the Auditor General has found. The scathing report said senior police either didn’t notice or didn’t stop the practices. The Gold Coast already had some of the worst crime rates in Queensland and the revelations raise questions about the true extent of crime in the city. Police Minister Mark Ryan, who has been highly critical of The Bulletin’s reporting of the crime crisis, said: “This report cannot be sugar-coated.”

FOR years, the Gold Coast

Bulletin has been critical of the secretive nature of policing in this city. Today we know what senior officers were hiding.

The Queensland Auditor General has found police have been doctoring crime data and encouraging victims of crime to withdraw complaints. We drew attention to the allegations in January and they have been borne out.

This is a betrayal of the Gold Coast public and an insult to every hard-working cop on the coalface of the city’s crime crisis. The dodgy figures were already the worst in the state in some categories. What’s the true picture?

Clearly, the city needs more police officers. Any argument to the contrary is based upon a lie.

In a stinging commentary published yesterday, Police Minister Mark Ryan rubbished our reporting on reduced police budgets and police numbers.

Now we trust he understands the true situation.

He has less than a year to get Gold Coast crime under control before the Commonwealth Games. How did these cover-ups occur? The buck stops with the Gold Coast police hierarchy, the commissioner and ultimately Mr Ryan.

Perhaps the Crime and Corruption Commission, already probing the 2016 Gold Coast City Council election, should dig deeper and give the local police service the clean-out it needs to restore confidence.