How a decision about a blow job in a Police Car changes everything for Queensland’s future
Rick Flori, a former veteran Police officer with over 25 years’ experience, had seen just about all he could take in the way of certain police behaving poorly when he became aware of some officers using police cars to have sex while on duty. Rick says it was becoming more and more apparent that there were two sets of rules. One for police and one for the public.
“I thought how can we put on a uniform, charge and arrest people for the very same things that some police are doing? It’s just dead wrong. If people want to assault others, or have sex in public, that’s a matter for them, but don’t become a cop don’t do unlawful things in Police Cars that the tax payer is paying for. You simply can’t be breaking the same rules you are paid by the public purse to enforce.”
As I sit and speak with Rick about this, everything he is saying is plain common sense but then there is the cold hard reality for officers that want to hold their colleagues to account.
Queensland originally had legislation called the “Whistle-blowers Act 1994, later renamed the Public Interest Disclosure Act in 2010. One of the purposes of these acts was to allow officers to make disclosures and report any misconduct without suffering any form of retaliation. The act clearly outlines that it is a criminal offence to commit a reprisal on anyone that has made a public interest disclosure.
Officers actually have an obligation to report misconduct once they become aware of it, it is an of offence not to. That is what makes this tale so twisted.
Rick then made a decision that would ultimately end his career. He made a public interest disclosure by sending an anonymous letter to the Crime and Misconduct Commission outlining an allegation that an officer was receiving a blowjob in a police car in a Red Rooster carpark by another officer both outside the officer’s district and while on duty. The officers involved were disciplined but remained in the service. The transcript of a related hearing (which was open and reported by media) is not being released, even though it was an open hearing in QCAT.
Rick says the bullying towards him began as rumours swirled that it may have been he who raised the incident.
Following this disclosure about the carpark incident,a group of officers at Rick’s station were profiled because there were increased allegations of particular officers assaulting members of the public. Rick had witnessed a video of a man being viciously bashed by police while in handcuffs and the most Senior officer ( a relative of the Police Commissioner) caught washing away the blood from the scene.
Knowing that reporting this internally would not work, Rick then decided to leak the video to the media. That video became the infamous Surfers Paradise bashing video and was at the centre of a 5-year legal stoush where Rick was charged with Misconduct in Public Office.
When Rick’s house was raided by police looking for that video, the anonymous letter previously sent to the Crime and Misconduct Commission was found. The Public Interest Disclosure Act meant that the letter could not be used against him in any way. Nonetheless, despite there being a legal requirement for confidentiality, the letter was referred to, dozens of times, in correspondence by the arresting officer for the leak of the bashing video. It didn’t take long for word to get around the QPS that Rick was the author of that letter and it wasn’t too long before he felt the wrath of being a man willing to speak up about something that was wrong. The threats began.
In February 2018, a jury decided Rick Flori was not guilty of misconduct in public officer over the release of the bashing video. However, by that point, the damage was done. The service knew that he sent the letter and that he also leaked the video.
It wasn’t the Public Interest Disclosure Act that protected Rick, it was the public.
Not a single person has been charged for committing a reprisal since the commencement of that Public Interest Disclosure Act. Rick Flori is a living breathing example of how the legislation is not practical, and not being utilised for that in which it was intended.
In 2015, the Police Commissioner, in an interview with the ABC, said, “Our people are held to the same standards as the public. In fact, we have higher standards. We have systems in place to make sure we don’t go back to the dark old days (Fitzgerald)”.
So my question is this, why is it that Rick Flori finds himself in a position without his job in the police service? and why is it that he has no other option but to sue the QPS and some of its officers both for reprisals and for all the money he has lost including the hardship he has faced since making that disclosure?
Last month, Justice Bowskill in the Supreme Court heard the QPS argue that the sex act in the car park is not “official misconduct”. The reason the classification of this act is so important is that, for Rick to be afforded the protections of that PID Act, he must have believed and now a Judge must decide that what he was reporting constituted official misconduct.
The CMC in 2013 said what took place in the carpark was classed “official misconduct” and, when making the disclosure, Rick also whole-heartedly believed it was official misconduct.
Now there are thousands of people waiting for one Judge to decide if the letter Rick wrote was a public interest disclosure.
If she agrees it was and, if Rick is successful in his action, there will be case law where an officer has successfully sued for retaliation after disclosing misconduct.
Every member of the police service, now and in the future, stands to benefit from this case because the line will no longer be blurred. The bar will be set where it should have been set, long ago.
Every member of the public stands to benefit from the fortitude of Rick Flori because there will be a much higher chance of officers being held to the same account to which members of the public are held.
It has now been 30 years since a bottle of whiskey sparked the Fitzgerald Inquiry, an enquiry into long term, systemic political corruption and abuse of power. Originally planned to run for 6 weeks, The Inquiry lasted for almost 2 years.
Rick Flori has now put his money where his mouth is and has taken on the QPS and, essentially, the establishment. He has the full support of his family and friends and receives dozens of messages daily from people in the community who are fed up with the double standards and who are grateful for his enormous sacrifice.
Now the waiting game is on to find out if the legislation will finally be utilised for its intended purpose. If one has to commence action through a court before any protection is possible or afforded it seems the legislation needs to be adjusted and quickly. If a person that wants to make a disclosure needs to get a law degree to be able to interpret the law around making a disclosure it would seem it has been written in a way that is designed to fail, perhaps that is what we need to start talking about too. Why was this act written if not one person has ever been able to rely on it?
