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Officials Could Have Been Charged Heiner Shredders Could Have Been Charged By Dao Thi Nga (12 May 2003) Those responsible for shredding documents gathered by the 1990 Heiner Inquiry could have been charged with destroying evidence or attempting to pervert the course of justice, a former senior public prosecutor has said. Associate Professor of Law at Bond University, David Field, who was Queensland's Solicitor for Prosecutions during much of the 1990s, was commenting on a decision not to prosecute senior public officials over the destruction of the documents gathered during an investigation into a Brisbane youth detention centre. In 1995 the-then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) determined that because of the wording of a Supreme Court form, charges could not be laid against those involved because at the time of the destruction no court action connected with the documents was actually underway. However, two months ago a man was charged and committed to stand trial under Section 129 of the Criminal Code for destroying material likely to be required in a judicial proceeding when no such proceeding was underway. The conduct complained of in this case was essentially no different from that in the Heiner case, Professor Field said. He said an offence under Section 129 did not require that the case be one which was destined for the Supreme Court. “Given the restricted de facto jurisdiction of that Court to matters involving homicide and serious drug offences, it would clearly be a defective law were it so limited,” Professor Field said. Moreover, the wording of Section 129 was not capable of supporting an inference that the judicial proceeding must already be on foot when the document was destroyed before an offence might be committed, he said. “This would be a most unfortunate interpretation”, he said, “since it would result in a situation in which a person could escape all legal liability for destroying vital evidence against him, provided that he did so prior to any charges being laid.” Professor Field also said Section 140 of the Criminal Code (“attempting to pervert justice”) which covered an alternative charge brought against the man committed to stand trial two months ago, was equally applicable in the Heiner case. He said apart from exceptional powers given to undercover police officers he was totally opposed to any arrangement under which a person was not prosecuted “for behaviour which would lead to the prosecution of anyone else who committed it”. 1288 page visits Content Management Software 2008