VIDEO: Tasmanian police bugged conversations between lawyers and clients in Risdon Prison
GREG BARNS SC, TASMANIAN PRISONERS LEGAL SERVICE: These rooms are used not only for lawyers to meet with their clients, but also Centrelink might be meeting with a prisoner, counsellors, forensic psychiatrists and psychologists.
There’s an expectation that what you can tell a professional person is something that will be kept in confidence.
If we’d known in 2017 that there was a listening device in that room, we would have demanded that we could use another room.
WILLIAM MURRAY, REPORTER: In June 2017 Tasmania Police installed two surveillance devices in one of the meeting rooms inside Hobart’s Risdon Prison.
One for audio, the other video and audio.
At a nearby police station the recordings could be monitored in real time.
MEG WEBB, INDEPENDENT MP: Surveillance in a prison environment is a really serious thing to do. It’s a serious breach of privacy for citizens who are already being incarcerated.
I’m not convinced that the Jeff Thompson matter would’ve met that high bar.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Jeffrey Ian Thompson was a lawyer acting for Susan Neill Fraser as she prepared a second appeal against her conviction for killing her partner, Bob Chappell.
REPORTER: He disappeared off their yacht in Sandy Bay in 2009, and his body has never been found.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Police suspected Thompson was going to assist that appeal by getting prisoner Stephen Gleeson to make a false identification through the use of a photo board.
They’d formed this view after listening to an intercepted phone call and moved quickly to obtain a warrant for the surveillance devices, which a magistrate granted.
DAVID EDWARDSON KC, LAWYER: I’ve never in all my 30-plus years of practice, I’ve never come across a situation where a magistrate, or any judicial officer, has permitted the bugging of a professional waiting room.
WILLIAM MURRAY: The meeting between Thompson and Gleeson came and went but the surveillance devices remained on and recording for another two months - 723 visits were made to Risdon’s four visitor rooms during that time.
It’s not known how many took place in the room which was bugged.
DINESH LOGANATHAN, LAWYER: A lot of my clients at least called me up wanting to know if their case was compromised because of those recordings, any I couldn’t give them any answers.
I mean client legal privilege is one of the main pillars of the justice system.
DAVID EDWARDSON: Police simply aren’t entitled to have any access at all to any communication that would fall into that category.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Tasmania Police attempted to use the evidence collected by the surveillance devices in their case against Jeffrey Thompson.
David Edwardson was part of Thompson’s legal team which, when they found out about the recordings, fought to have them ruled inadmissible.
DAVID EDWARDSON: That was a bitterly fought case, and at every single level everything that we did was resisted.
WILLIAM MURRAY: In July last year Supreme Court Justice Michael Brett ruled the warrant for the bug was invalid because the magistrate wouldn’t have issued it had they known it would be left on for so long.
A key piece of evidence deemed illegal, the case against Thompson was abandoned.
MEG WEBB: Hearing about our prison being bugged illegally by the police and having that be something that doesn’t come to light for five years is highly concerning to me.
What failures were there in our systems, in our oversight systems? Why did it take five years for this to come to light in a court case?
WILLIAM MURRAY: The technical services officer who installed the bug said he was only asked to download its content once in order to retrieve the recording of Jeffrey Thompson and Stephen Gleeson.
He also said real-time monitoring at the police station appeared to have been shut down after that meeting.
Yet Justice Brett said he couldn’t exclude the possibility the material was accessed by police, and questioned why the devices were left on especially given the video camera could be switched off remotely.
GREG BARNS: Those that we represent, prisoners, would find it very hard to believe that you would leave a listening device in a very sensitive area of the prison where there are professional visits taking place and forget about it or just say, "Oh well we didn’t mean to leave it there for two months and we haven't listened to anything else."
WILLIAM MURRAY: Tasmania Police commissioned the state’s former solicitor-general Michael O’Farrell to review all surveillance device warrants issued since 2012 allowing them to bug a prison room.
FELIX ELLIS, TAS. POLICE MINISTER: This review is important. Obviously, we want to make sure that our police are complying with the rules when it comes to surveillance devices.
WILLIAM MURRAY: While Tasmania Police insist Mr O'Farrell will have complete independence, the terms of reference - set out by the police - make it clear they have already decided they did not misuse the recordings.
"Whilst the hard drive may have captured private conversations unrelated to the (Thompson) investigation, and potentially conversations which were subject to legal professional privilege, they were not listened to, or retained by, Tasmania Police."
DAVID EDWARDSON: Look, nothing to see here response by any police organisation doesn’t fill me with any confidence at all.
You can’t have TasPol in effect setting the parameters of the investigation, because it has all the hallmarks of bias, or at least apprehended bias, and it won’t give anybody any confidence at all.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Tasmania Police declined 7.30’s request for an interview, and said it was limited in what it could say prior to the review.
Police Minister Felix Ellis rejected the suggestion the review would be perceived as biased.
FELIX ELLIS: The review is being done by a former solicitor-general, it’s not being done by police.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Lawyer Greg Barns believes Mr O’Farrell is so limited by the terms of reference, he won’t be able to answer some fundamental questions.
GREG BARNS: How many people used that particular room, what were the nature of the visits, and those people should be contacted, and their lawyers and other professionals should be contacted.
But also, there needs to be an inquiry into why it happened and how it happened and whether or not it has happened previously or has happened again.
WILLIAM MURRAY: Unless it is definitively and independently proven otherwise, lawyers say even the suspicion that police could have breached legal privilege will have consequences.
DINESH LOGANATHAN: There are some people who are in custody, who have been sentenced, who have lodged appeals based on this discovery that they could’ve been compromised.
Legal privilege is considered a core pillar of the justice system. It protects a client from having their conversations with legal counsel being used against them in court so they can speak freely and in turn, receive the best advice.
But between June and August of 2017, Tasmania Police secretly recorded dozens of conversations that should have been confidential after they bugged a meeting room at Risdon Prison. Will Murray reports.