Olen said Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann,also an investigation co-ordinator in the unsolved homicide team,had “participated in an ABC Australian Story to air this Monday night. He anticipates that that story will be critical of the original investigation.”
Young responded:“As I am the one who will actually be dealing with the investigation and family from here in,I want to put on the record that the decision not to proceed with further active investigation was based on two reviews conducted by the likes of[homicide squad officers],in addition to John Lehmann.”
Olen replied:“What are you going to say to the[police] minister and the family next week after John Lehmann in his soon-to-be broadcast national and international USA interview ... indicated that the case is open and a team is working on it?”
Gray asked Willing:“What are we to take from that? Does that mean that although a decision had actually been made to investigate no further,John Lehmann had said publicly that the case was open and a team was working on it?”
Willing replied:“I take it that that’s what he said in that interview. I don’t recall it at all.” He said Lehmann had the authority to open an investigation.
Gray pressed:“If he did say that,that was false,wasn’t it?”
“That’s correct,” Willing replied.
On Tuesday,Willing was taken to the transcript of Lehmann’s comments to the ABC on February 11,2013. Lehmann said the case was with the unsolved homicide team and NSW Police “haven’t closed the books on this case;it’s an open case”.
Willing said this was “not an untrue statement” because unsolved cases remained on the books. To the extent the statement suggested police were actively working on the case,that was “not right”.
Willing said in an issues paper in January 2014 that the unsolved homicide team had set up Strike Force Macnamir[a re-investigation of Johnson’s death] in February 2013 “following intense lobbying by members of the Johnson family”.
He agreed this was intended to indicate that otherwise it wouldn’t have been established.
Willing said he wrote to the NSW coroner in March 2014 and requested a further examination of Johnson’s death.
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The inquiry heard that a barrister acting for then-police commissioner Andrew Scipione told the Coroners Court in 2015 that police did not resist a third inquest. However,police raised concerns about diversion of resources among other matters.
The then-coroner Michael Barnes said in November 2017 that he was persuaded that Johnson “died as a result of a gay hate attack”.
The inquiry continues.
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