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Cop guilty of tipping off target

A former policeman has been found guilty of trying to tip off a suspected white extremist that his phone was being tapped.

A District Court jury took about four hours to convict Robert David Critchley, 43,of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The former senior constable had fought an allegation that while he was monitoring calls as part of a covert police operation into white supremacist groups, he had made an anonymous call to Murray Holmes, the friend of the operation’s primary target Jacob Hort, and suggested Mr Hort get a new SIM card.

The State had alleged Critchley was motivated by sympathy for the nationalist extremist groups and that he had used two payphones while walking to work on January 15, 2010 to try to tip-off Mr Holmes, whose phone was not being monitored in the operation.

Critchley took the stand in his trial, rejecting claims he was a racist and saying he had friends "from every culture you can think of" and a Thai step-mother.

He told the jury he had dialled the number for Mr Holmes, who was connected to the music industry, only to check whether the number he had in his memory was correct because he wanted to pass it on to his musician step-son so he could make a demo tape.

He said he had not spoken to anyone on the other end of the line, and only dialled the number a second time after believing the first phone box had been faulty.

Critchley admitted he had written Mr Holmes’ number on a post-it note, which police later found him trying to hide when he handed over his wallet, but said he had forgotten about the note when checking the number at the phone box.

He said he tried to hide the note from police and lied to officers because he had been in a "blind panic" and feared they would misinterpret the situation.

Critchley claimed he had listed the names of white supremacist and national extremist groups on his mobile phone because he intended to research them given his role in the covert operation.

Crtichley, who is originally from the UK, also suggested he could not have made the tip off call because Mr Holmes had described the caller as sounding "Irish".

The former officer resigned from the police force last year after Police Minister Rob Johnson approved a recommendation from Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan that he be removed.

Crtichley was granted bail pending his sentencing in February next year, with his passport surrendered as part of the bail conditions.

The judge warned him that the granting of bail did not mean he would necessarily avoid a term of immediate imprisonment at sentencing, with the prosecutor indicating the State believed immediate time behind bars was an appropriate penalty for the serious crime.

Hort was convicted in July 2010 of criminal damage and discharging a firearm during an incident in which several shots were fired at a Queens Park mosque.