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NSW police bugging inquiry: Division in top ranks exposed as Nick Kaldas, Catherine Burn testify

The New South Wales police force is in crisis after two of its most senior officers went head-to-head at a public inquiry into an internal bugging scandal.

The NSW parliamentary inquiry heard explosive allegations about a mass cover-up over the 15-year-old police corruption investigation.

Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas was one of the prime targets of the surveillance operation, which he said destroyed the careers of many officers and led to a suicide.

The operation, known as Mascot/Florida, was run by his now fellow Deputy Commissioner, Catherine Burn, and overseen by the current Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione.

Deputy Commissioner Kaldas accused the investigators on the taskforce of committing illegal acts to try and set him up, along with other honest police.

"My appearance here is the culmination of over a decade of angst, of me complaining about misconduct and suffering reprisals and discrimination," Deputy Commissioner Kaldas told the hearing.

"I recognise now as I did all along that by speaking out there may be a recrimination against me.

"Arguably I've suffered much and gained little, but I do this because it's the right thing to do."

Deputy Commissioner Kaldas told the inquiry there was clear evidence police investigators themselves had committed serious criminal acts when they targeted more than 100 police for suspected corruption.

He said in many cases, including his own, investigators appeared to have gone after police for one reason alone: to knock off their rivals and square up old scores.

"I now know I was intensely targeted by that unit in the now notorious operation Mascot/Florida 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 roll-over police officer code-named M5 as their tool," Deputy Commissioner Kaldas said.

"Subsequently, he claimed to have been used improperly, that he knew he was being used to even personal scores on behalf of SCIA personnel."

While there were a handful of charges laid by the Mascot/Florida taskforce, Deputy Commissioner Kaldas said the far greater crime had been the massive cover-up ever since by police chiefs and crime agencies behind the investigation.

They included the Police Integrity Commission, the NSW Crime Commission and more recently the Ombudsman's Office, which was given special powers in 2012 to get to the bottom of the scandal.

"I and other legitimate complainants had no right to silence," Deputy Commissioner Kaldas said.

"[We] could not even discuss with doctors or psychologists what was being done to us by the Ombudsman.

"He simply took the side of those complained against and the onslaught continued.

"It felt to me like this was a well-planned attack to silence me as one of the main complainants."

Deputy Commissioner Burn gave evidence strongly denying she had ever been involved in fabricating evidence against police targets.

The deputy chairman of the inquiry, Greens MP David Shoebridge, quizzed Deputy Commissioner Burn over why she had wired up M5 to repeatedly try to entrap Deputy Commissioner Kaldas.

Mr Shoebridge: "You didn't get anything the first time that you sent M5 against Mr Kaldas. So you went back again and again?"

Deputy Commissioner Burn: "Oh there were definitely a number of approaches. There's, as I say, three to four at least, and perhaps even more."

Deputy Commissioner Burn said investigating fellow police was always difficult and many of the allegations levelled against her and fellow investigators had been made in ignorance.

"Doing internal investigations, working on allegations that involve police - your colleagues - is a very difficult task," she said.

"But it is a necessary task and if we didn't have that happening, I don't know what we would do.

"There is always going to be a degree of conflict."