Attorney General downplays calls for Finn Royal Commission
Attorney-General Michael Mischin says he believes any worthwhile information capable of cracking the 40-year-old murder of brothel madam Shirley Finn would have been revealed long ago.
Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan has today renewed his call for information to assist WA Police’s cold case review of the murder.
Questioned this morning on whether a separate inquiry was required, Mr Mischin said a coronial inquest would be up to the coroner.
Mr Mischin said he would consider any requests by Police Minister Liza Harvey and Mr O’Callaghan for coercive powers in the form of a Royal Commission into the murder, but would have to be persuaded that would be useful.
“It might have been worthwhile something like over 10 years ago, but we are looking at a case from 1975. I was still in high school in 1975,” he said.
WA Attorney General Mischin. Picture: Simon Santi/The West Australian
“Many of those who would have known anything about the case at the time are probably dead if they can be found at all, whether their memories are reliable is another factor.”
Several callers who have contacted The West Australian in the week the case has been back in the headlines claimed they had useful information but didn’t want to take it to police because the force was suspected of involvement in the murder.
Mr Mischin said he didn’t accept that people had no avenue to bring forward information, pointing out WA had a Corruption and Crime Commission since the early 2000s, as well as an Ombudsman.
“The police service now is wholly different to what it was back in 1975, just about anyone with any position of responsibility in the police service now is a newcomer to the field and has no vested interest other than finding out the truth,” he said.
“I would give very little weight to the idea they have had no opportunity to reveal this information earlier.”
Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan.
Mr Mischin and Mrs Harvey were this morning critical of shadow attorney-general John Quigley for not revealing until last week that a senior police officer had told him in the 1990s that bullets from Ms Finn’s body had been traced back to the WA Police firearms unit.
“I don’t know if he’s got a legal obligation to have said what he knows earlier but certainly I would have thought he would have had an ethical and a moral obligation if he had anything to contribute to the investigation,” Mr Mischin said.
Mrs Harvey said it appeared Mr Quigley had been “sitting on” the information.
Mr Quigley claimed last week he had not told police because the information had come from police in the first place.
Mrs Harvey said that was “not good enough”.
