IAPE Evidence Blog

Her­ald Sun (Aus­tralia)
BYLINE: Padraic Murphy

Vic­to­ria, Australia

Miss­ing evi­dence probe

THOUSANDS of dol­lars have dis­ap­peared from a police sta­tion, spark­ing another embar­rass­ing inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion for Vic­to­ria Police.

About $8000 van­ished from the secure evi­dence room at Moonee Ponds sta­tion between June 2007 and Jan­u­ary last year, say police sources.

The money is believed to have been held at the sta­tion before it was due to be banked into con­sol­i­dated revenue.

Only a hand­ful of autho­rised peo­ple had access to the room. A police spokesman said an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Eth­i­cal Stan­dards Depart­ment was continuing.

“When this was dis­cov­ered a full audit of the prop­erty hold­ings was con­ducted. The mat­ter is cur­rently being inves­ti­gated by the Eth­i­cal Stan­dards Depart­ment,” said Insp Nigel Howard.

“As it is a mat­ter under inves­ti­ga­tion we won’t go into detail as to how much money was alleged to have been stolen, and why it was being held at the sta­tion. No one has been charged at this time.”

How­ever, police sources claimed the ESD inves­ti­ga­tion had been marred by sev­eral changes in inves­ti­gat­ing officers.

“They must have had three or four dif­fer­ent crews on it,” one source said.

Insp Howard said: “A num­ber of pro­ce­dures have been intro­duced at Moonee Ponds police sta­tion to ensure the secu­rity of prop­erty or cash held at the station.”

The miss­ing cash was not included in a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request, granted to the Her­ald Sun last month,
which revealed dozens of items had been stolen from police sta­tions between Jan­u­ary 2007 and April this year.

Five of the 47 cases released to the Her­ald Sun were sus­pected of being inside jobs, with the remain­der believed to be the work of oppor­tunist thieves.

A spokesman for the Office of Police Integrity said the ESD Moonee Ponds inves­ti­ga­tion would be reviewed once it had been completed.

Copy­right 2009 Nation­wide News Pty Limited

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
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