Pubdate: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 Source: Sun Herald (Australia) Copyright: 2000 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd Contact: http://www.sunherald.com.au/ Author: Candace Sutton Revolt In Ranks A CABRAMATTA police officer has been relocated "for his own safety" by the Police Commissioner away from the heroin-selling hot spot while the Police Integrity Commission investigates his allegations of corruption and failure to control drug trafficking in the suburb. Sergeant Tim Priest, a former drug squad officer and the son of State RSL president Rusty Priest, is on leave from the south-western Sydney police station. He is due to transfer to Campbelltown station because "they consider me under threat from outside and from within". "(The threat is) from within the police force at Cabramatta and from drug dealers in Cabramatta who, with the way things are destabilised at the moment at the station, they might consider it an opportune time to hit me," he said. The highly-respected officer has made claims against a number of senior police. In a seven-page document passed by Commissioner Peter Ryan to the Police Integrity Commission for investigation, Sergeant Priest said senior officers had interfered with his and other officers' attempts to arrest drug dealers. Cabramatta had instructed "junior police not to make drug arrests" and had not attended serious crime scenes for attempted murders and home invasions because they did not want to incur overtime. He said police had not taken action against a local pub, "possibly the sleaziest hotel in Sydney (and) a major source of drug-related crime", and at the height of shootings and gang activity in Cabramatta an officer had dismissed the violence, saying: "It's only Asians shooting Asians." Sergeant Priest said he was victimised because of his attempts to stop drug crime and expose corruption. He claims he was demoted from detective rank to uniform after blowing the whistle about the blind-eye turned to drug trafficking and related crime in the Cabramatta area. He attacked State Government crime figures which have lowered Cabramatta's crime rate to below that of Mosman's, by not including murder or drug statistics. "You would have to be an idiot to say that," he said. "It's the heroin capital of Australia. "And it's as bad again as it was three years ago, with more young kids wandering in to town and dying of overdoses. "Maybe their philosophy is if we contain it all in Cabramatta then it's a south-western Sydney problem, but the kids come from all over - the north shore, the eastern suburbs." Sergeant Priest said senior ranks were covering up the true crime rate "to attain promotion. They are prepared to destroy any decent police officer willing to fight the odds and continue to make a difference". "This current police force is so clean, clinically clean and free of corruption, at least from sergeant down, but there seems to be this culture that if you speak out or don't agree with the policies you get cut to pieces." For the past 18 months, he and other officers at Cabramatta had been subjected to intimidation and accusations. "Other cops took it because they thought they had to, but once we started to support each other, the movement grew," Sergeant Priest said. Adding to the problems at Cabramatta is uncertainty about the position of patrol commander Superintendent Peter Horton. He announced last week he wanted to leave Cabramatta after a series of meetings by police from the Cabramatta patrol unhappy with their commander. Earlier this month, officers voted to put on hold a motion of no confidence in Superintendent Horton. A similar motion was to be put to Cabramatta police this week. The Police Association and Cabramatta Chamber of Commerce have claimed that heroin dealing has increased to the point where police have lost the initiative to control it. Chamber of Commerce president Ross Treyvaud said businesses and residents were fed up with escalating violence and drug sales. "While the situation at the police station continues to fester, there are 100 drug sellers in the street near the railway station at any one time," he said. "We have been told there are budget restraints, which reduce the number of police on the streets in the town centre to three or four. That's four versus 100." Mr Treyvaud claimed Operation Puccini, a visual policing system involving street cameras and closed-circuit televisions instigated in 1997, no longer was effective after Fairfield City Council, which paid for the scheme, sought a cheaper security firm to operate it. A spokesman for the commissioner said he was not aware of Sergeant Priest's letter "at such short notice" but that it may have been received and passed on to such a body as the Police Integrity Commission. - --- MAP posted-by: Greg