Cop stung for $10k and sacked for rant
A GOLD Coast cop who launched bullying action against senior officers has been booted out of the police service, but not before being demoted.
Senior Constable James Treanor has been punished for a dramatic meltdown at a police mental health breakfast, despite beating a public nuisance charge over the incident.
He was stood down and charged after an expletive-ridden tirade against the Assistant Commissioner Brian Wilkins, at the “Black Dog” breakfast at Broadbeach Bowls Club in March 2019.
Southport Magistrates Court heard an “agitated” SenConstable Treanor yelled obscenities about Mr Wilkins and threatened to “blow my brains out in the carpark” after being rebuffed by the Assistant Commissioner at the breakfast.
In the rant, captured by police body-worn cameras and played at the hearing, SenConstable Treanor was heard calling Mr Wilkins a “f--king coward” and a “c--ksmoker’ as colleagues tried to calm him.
But police withdrew the public nuisance charge on the first day of the trial after SenConstable Treanor agreed to accept a formal caution.
However, police bosses have used the incident as grounds to demote him to constable, costing him about $10,000 in pay, as well as forcibly transferring him.
A disciplinary ruling handed down last month found that while it was accepted he was suffering from a “major depressive order” at the time of his outburst, it did not excuse his “inappropriate conduct” which had attracted “significant media scrutiny” that “reflected adversely on the QPS”.
Sen-Constable Treanor’s conduct was also found to have subjected colleagues and the court to a “needless” trial because he had refused to accept an adult caution.
But his six-month demotion is to be suspended at the end of this month after he was medically retired, ending his 14-year police career.
The retirement will take effect a week before a hearing into bullying allegations against senior officers was due to begin in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.
Sen-Constable Treanor said his career had been “destroyed” and he was now considering further legal options, including a Human Rights Commission complaint. “You have a mental health breakdown and you’re charged, expected to plead guilty, demoted and medically retired – that’s the QPS response to mental health and human rights,” he said.
“When you become a police officer, you expect to be exposed to things like dead bodies and violence.
“You don’t expect to have your career destroyed by management.”