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Assistant Commissioner Anthony Crandell,the Commander of Strike Force Parrabell and the former NSW Police Force Corporate Sponsor for Sexuality,Gender Diversity and Intersex.Credit:Oscar Colman

NSW Police acknowledged in Parrabell’s June 2018 report both its own acceptance “and society’s acceptance of gay bashings and shocking violence directed towards gay men,and the LGBTIQ[lesbian,gay,bisexual,transgender,intersex and queer] community” in the 24 years under review.

Crandell told NSW’s special commission of inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes on Tuesday that it was difficult to separate “investigative incompetence from bias” in the initial police response to the deaths under review,and “difficult to attribute any deliberate bias towards any investigator”. He said academics who conducted a review for the final report formed a similar view.

Police found evidence of a bias crime in eight cases and a further 19 cases were suspected bias crimes. Two cases were excluded from the review.

Crandell was shown a June 2018 email to him from Sergeant Geoffrey Steer,former co-ordinator of the disbanded Bias Crime Unit,who wrote that he was “forced out” of the unit in 2017 and had experienced “ongoing attacks and harassment by the NSWPF with respect to my work in the hate crimes field”.

Asked what he understood this to mean,Crandell said:“He was obviously upset,but forced out or otherwise,I didn’t read into that. I just thought he was a deeply hurt person.”

Crandell said he believed Steer was upset in part about comments he had made in the press about adopting a new approach to classifying bias.

Steer told Crandell in the email that he believed his own work was being criticised.

“In reality the issue has always been that hate crimes have never been accepted by the NSWPF and has never had organisation support,” Steer wrote. He added that “my experience with hate crimes in the NSWPF fully supports the concept of organisational cognitive dissonance”.

“My experience with hate crimes in the NSWPF fully supports the concept of organisational cognitive dissonance.”
Sergeant Geoffrey Steer in a June 2018 email to Assistant Commissioner Anthony Crandell.

“If the information supplied differs from the core belief then all information,no matter how relevant or accurate will be disregarded to avoid conflict with core belief systems.”

The force had “clearly fought every attempt to integrate a hate crimes response into everyday policing”,Steer wrote.

Crandell told the inquiry that he believed Steer “thought there was no corporate focus on bias crimes. I would say that our awareness has evolved”.

Asked if Steer was “onto something” about alleged cognitive dissonance in the force,Crandell said:“I’m sure that that was his perception.”

Crandell said his own view was that NSW Police had “absolutely not” turned its back on bias crimes.

The inquiry heard Parrabell was effectively downgraded in 2015 from a wider-ranging operation to a strike force. Crandell told the inquiry he would have liked to reinvestigate the cases but “there simply wasn’t the resources”.

He agreed that as of 2014 there was a widely held view at senior levels of the police that claims related to the number of gay hate-related murders and bashings in the 1980s and ’90s were exaggerated and unfounded.

Crandell stood by the observation in the Parrabell report that “fear associated with anti-gay attitudes of officers” led to crimes not being reported to NSW Police,and noted figures from ACON,formerly the AIDS Council of NSW,reporting at least 20 bashings of gay men per day at the time.

He agreed the LGBTIQ community at the time were mistrustful of police and added:“I think there’s elements of that today.”

The inquiry will explore dozens of deaths in NSW between 1970 and 2010 after every known unsolved homicide from that period of time was reviewed,totalling more than 700 cases.

Earlier on Tuesday,Justice John Sackarrejected an argument by police that his terms of reference were limited and concluded the inquiry was “entitled,indeed obliged” to investigate the conclusions drawn in Strike Force Parrabell and the manner in which they were drawn,as well as the establishment of the Bias Crime Unit.

The inquiry continues.

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