Page 1268 - Week 04 - Thursday, 8 May 2014
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In addition to this ongoing monitoring and previous reviews, the Chief Police Officer has initiated two internal reviews related to pursuits. The first review is of the national guideline “ACT Policing: urgent duty driving and pursuits”, led by the AFP’s chief driving instructor, with ACT Policing having a number of members from both operations and traffic operations on the review committee.
The second review requested by the Chief Police Officer was a review of all pursuits which occurred in the ACT during the previous two years, with specific attention to be paid to pursuits which occurred in 2014. Convened by the Deputy Chief Police Officer (Response), this body of work included terms of reference focusing on the appropriateness and currency of the existing national and ACT Policing governance framework relating to pursuits, the alignment of ACT Policing practices and procedures with state and territory counterparts, levels of compliance with ACT best practice relating to pursuits, adequacy of current legislation to combat offenders who fail to stop when requested by police, and any trends in relation to the uptake of pursuits which result in police members or the public being placed in undue danger. The results of this additional review are due to be made to the Chief Police Officer in the very near future.
There have also been judicial reviews of pursuits. In January this year ACT Coroner Peter Dingwall published his report into the fatal collision on Canberra Avenue in 2010. In his report Coroner Dingwall found that the driver of the stolen motor vehicle was attempting to evade apprehension by New South Wales police officers. The New South Wales police officers were carrying out their duty to investigate and apprehend offenders and no criticism could be made of those officers. Although the officers had decided to terminate the pursuit, the pursuit had not yet been terminated at the time of the collision. However, termination of the pursuit at that stage would not have altered the ultimate result. The coroner was not satisfied that the pursuit should have been terminated at any time earlier than it was and the four deaths were caused by the actions of the driver of the stolen vehicle.
Relevantly, two of Coroner Dingwall’s recommendations related to improvements in police pursuit policy. Firstly, the coroner recommended that a training package be prepared and delivered to New South Wales police who are special members of the AFP, dealing with cross-border pursuits and compliance with the AFP national guideline, “ACT Policing: urgent duty driving and pursuits”. Secondly, he recommended that a training package be prepared and delivered to ACT-based AFP members who are special members of New South Wales police, dealing with cross-border pursuits and compliance with the New South Wales police safe driving policy. These recommendations have been fully implemented by ACT Policing and New South Wales police. This training now forms part of the mandatory training package for AFP special constables and New South Wales police recognised law enforcement officers and commenced in April 2011 and May 2012 respectively.
The government is committed to ensuring that ACT residents are safe. Part of that commitment is to provide a robust framework which gives our police the ability to maintain law and order and apprehend offenders. This robust framework needs to include the ability to pursue suspects when appropriate.
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