Top NSW cops named in phone tap scandal
FIRST ON 7: 7News can reveal Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, and deputy Cath Burn have been named over an investigation into a police bugging scandal.
On the most sacred day of the police calendar, Police Remembrance Day, comes news two of the state's most senior cops are being investigated by the ombudsman.
This morning, 7News informed Commissioner Scipione he is one of them.
"I'm not privy to what those investigations are looking at and nor should I be," Scipione told 7News.
The other is deputy, Cath Burn. The ombudsman is investigating her role in police Internal Affairs when it bugged the phones and homes of more than a hundred police officers with no apparent justification, more than a decade a ago.
Some would become the state's most respected and senior, including fellow deputy commissioner Nick Kaldas, recently retired assistant commissioner Ken McKay, detective inspector Wayne Hayes and civilians, including 7News investigative producer, Steve Barrett.
The ombudsman is also investigating the commissioner's denials he had not seen the findings of a strike force that investigated the bugging scandal, revealed on 7News last September.
"Oh look I haven't seen the report," Commissioner Scipione said.
"The allegation is that you have misled the public over Strike Force Emblems, have you?" 7News asked the Commissioner.
"Again, that's something that would be most appropriately dealt with by the ombudsman," he replied. "I know that he is well into this investigation."
"At the right time, when the ombudsman's finished the investigation, then we'll talk."
The most contentious part of the scandal is how Internal Affairs investigators convinced Supreme Court judges to sign warrants allowing dozens of police officers to be bugged. It is the basis of many of the fifty or so complaints to the ombudsman.
The government watchdog is "investigating whether warrants were obtained on the basis of false and/or misleading information."
