NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas has slammed the handling of a police bugging inquiry.
Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas gives evidence at Emblems inquiry at NSW State Parliament today. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
DEPUTY Police Commissioner Catherine Burn has admitted running a covert bugging operation against fellow police deputy Nick Kaldas when they were both mid-ranking officers.
Ms Burn worked as a team leader within the Police Special Crime and Internal Affairs department and ran Operation Mascot, a secret bugging operation that was set up to investigate allegations of police corruption in the late 1990s but which now threatens to tear the state's police force apart.
Speaking to a Parliamentary inquiry into the bugging scandal, Ms Burn confirmed she was in charge of an undercover officer codenamed M5 who approached Mr Kaldas wearing a listening device at least three or four times during the investigation.
Mr Kaldas, the then head of the homicide squad, was one of around 114 police officers and a small number of journalists who were targeted during Operations Mascot and Florida, which have since been the subject of allegations that it was run to settle personal vendettas within the police.
Mr Kaldas was in dispute with two senior officers within the SCIA at the time the bugging operations began.
"Mascot was an investigation into serious allegations of crime and corruption involving serving and former NSW Police officers," Ms Burn told the inquiry.
KALDAS BLASTS PHONE TAP BAD BUGGERS
Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn gives evidence today. Picture Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
Deputy Commissioner Burns arrives. Picture Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
Journalist Neil Mercer gives evidence at the Emblems inquiry at State Parliament. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
The Daily Telegraph. Source: DailyTelegraph
"It was extremely serious, the allegations were extremely serious.
"We had an opportunity with M5 to do something I think was actually unusual for the time and that was to attempt to gain corroboration for allegations that may have been made in the past or at the time."
Ms Burn said M5 knew Mr Kaldas but had never worked with him. She denied further allegations that some of the warrants obtained under Operations Mascot/ Florida were improperly sourced.
Mr Kaldas quickly realised M5 was an undercover officer and sent him packing.
He slammed the state's Ombudsman for its role in the bugging scandal during his appearance at the inquiry on Friday morning.
Mr Kaldas also aired extraordinary claims of racism, grossly unfair targeting and improper conduct by some of the state's most senior officers during Operations Mascot/ Florida.
Mr Kaldas's phones, home and office were bugged and M5 allegedly tried to entrap him during the operation.
A subsequent Ombudsman investigation is reviewing the entire process and Mr Kaldas said he fears its intentions towards him, having appeared before the authority on a number of occasions.
"My experience with the Ombudsman was that having made a complaint in late 2012 and providing a material and a written submission in 2013 I was called down for a hearing on the 5th of September 2014," Mr Kaldas said.
Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas made explosive allegations this morning. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
Deputy Commissioner Kaldas arrives this morning. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Corp Australia
"I faced an onslaught, a concerted attack on my integrity and credibility.
"My emails, phone records, diary, notebooks etc were invaded and quoted to me.
"I felt that the horrors of Mascot/ Florida were happening to me again.
"It felt like this was a well-planned attack to silence me as one of the main complainants."
Mr Kaldas said he was grossly and unfairly targeted during Operations Mascot/ Florida, overlooked for promotion, racially abused and suffered more a decade of angst that had deeply affected himself and his family.
"We the police, would not treat criminals this way," Mr Kaldas told the inquiry, adding that the operations had been illegal and improper.
"My appearance here is the culmination of over a decade of angst, of me complaining about misconduct, suffering reprisals and discrimination."
Mr Kaldas outlined how in the late 1990s and early 2000s he had a "well documented and well known conflict" with senior SCIA officers, including former commander Mal Brammer, Detective Sergeant John Dolan and Ms Burn.
"This conflict was so deep that it should have precluded those individuals and that unit from targeting me – it was simply too big a conflict of interest," he added.
"I now know that I was intensely targeted by that unit using the full resources of Special Crime and Internal Affairs and its partners the NSW Crime Commission and the Police Integrity Commission, using a corrupt rollover police officer codenamed M5 as their tool."
Mr Kaldas said his disagreement with Mr Brammer, Det Sgt Dolan arose partly after he made a complaint about Mssrs Dolan and Bramer about them plagiarising some of his work to restructure the force's undercover operations.
Deputy commissioner Nick Kaldas. Picture: John Grainger Source: News Corp Australia
Journalist Neil Mercer enters State Parliament for the Emblems inquiry today. Picture: John Grainger Source: News Corp Australia
He revealed that he later nearly came to blows in a car park with Det Sgt Dolan.
Mr Kaldas said M5 visited him a number of times but he quickly realised it was a ruse and that M5 was carrying a listening wire.
He later learnt that police had given him a the codename "guido" during the bugging operation – a racist epithet that Mr Kaldas said referred to his ethnic backround.
Mr Kaldas and his family are Coptic Orthodox – a Christian minority in Egypt.
Mr Kaldas said he began complaining, along with "many others" after the full extent of Operations Florida and Mascot came to light. He said there was absolutely no justification for him being bugged.
NSW Police launched an internal investigation into the bugging scandal, called Strike Force Emblems,
"What happened next was that I was dragged through a series of harrowing hearings and interviews by the Crime Commission and the Police Integrity Commission and my career was derailed for some four years," Mr Kaldas added.
"I was denied promotion, ignoring merit, and a dark cloud hung over me.
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