Enforcers deny doing deals with criminals

Geesche Jacobsen June 7, 2011

THE head of the NSW Crime Commission, Phillip Bradley, has rejected suggestions the commission advocates for criminals to have charges dropped, or that such discussions are ever linked to attempts to confiscate their assets.

Phillip Bradley ... 

public interest comes first. 

Photo: Brendan Esposito

The commission always put the public interest ahead of its own, and the only undertaking it gave to informers was that it would ''act responsibly and that we provide accurate information'' to authorities, Mr Bradley told the Supreme Court yesterday.

Mr Bradley gave evidence at the trial of the senior commission investigator Mark Standen, who is accused of conspiring with the drug dealer-turned-informer James Kinch and businessman Bill Jalalaty to import pseudoephedrine.

Asked about Mr Standen's involvement with Mr Jalalaty, who was the husband of the former Federal Police agent Dianne James, Mr Bradley told the court: ''I did know there was a woman; I'm not sure I knew her name. [Mr Standen] had told me he had a friend from the Federal Police … Dianne James or Jones. … I don't think he told me she was the partner of the business associate.''

The court has heard Mr Standen first met Mr Kinch after he was arrested in Sydney in March 2003 and charged with money laundering and drug matters. In May 2003 Mr Standen had asked Mr Bradley to contact the deputy director of public prosecutions, Greg Smith, about Mr Kinch's money laundering charge, which Mr Standen described in an email to his boss as the ''stumbling block to our confiscation settlement''.

The Crown prosecutor Tim Game, SC, yesterday asked Mr Bradley: ''Is it appropriate for what happens to a charge to be a stumbling block to confiscation?''

''I think the short answer is no,'' Mr Bradley replied.
Asked if in this case he thought there was a connection between the two matters in Mr Standen's mind, he said he thought ''there was at least a connection in the mind of Mr Kinch''.

The money laundering charge was dropped soon after a document prepared by Mr Standen, but sent to Mr Smith under Mr Bradley's signature, said Mr Kinch had given valuable information and offered to plead guilty on the drug charges.

Mr Bradley conceded yesterday that ''it would be easy to interpret my letter as some sort of advocacy''.

The trial continues.