DELINQUENT POLICE FORCE IGNORES A COURT ORDER

The corruption goes right to the top in the police force of the Australian State of New South Wales

As Kim Hollingsworth, one-time prostitute, stripper and student police officer, tried again to be admitted to the NSW police force, the Commissioner of Police had to hand her barrister a damaging report into sexual high jinks at Goulburn's Police College. Ms Hollingsworth, 40, is seeking to have the NSW Commissioner of Police dealt with for contempt. She also wants to be re-employed with more than six years' back pay.

In a day of legal argument at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission yesterday, the report, by the retired judge Barrie Thorley, was among 100 pages of documents produced on subpoena to Ms Hollingsworth's legal team. The Thorley report is understood to give details of a college environment of heavy drinking and sexual and racial harassment. It coincides with the Ombudsman's report last week of instructors having sex with students, offering better marks for sexual favours and offenders not being properly disciplined.

Ms Hollingsworth, who was a stripper at police functions before being accepted into police training - and whose modelling video showing her topless on an ad for SBS TV was shown around at the police recruitment branch after her interview - attracted "unwelcome" approaches from other students during her time at Goulburn in 1995. This prompted the college's sexual harassment officer to assemble students and spell out the sexual harassment policy. It was only after Ms Hollingsworth reported a detective who asked for help in setting up a brothel that she formally revealed her previous occupation as a prostitute. One of the two senior officers directly involved in the decision to "terminate" her was then assistant commissioner, now Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney.

Ms Hollingsworth said she hoped to be re-employed. "It's always been my dream. It's been [a long time] but my passion for the police service hasn't ended." Yesterday's hearing concerned a 1999 Industrial Relations Commission order that Ms Hollingsworth be reinstated as a student officer. But the order was not carried out. The commission heard that the position "student police officer" no longer existed. Ms Hollingsworth's barrister, David Patch, said the police commissioner had "extremely wide powers" to appoint anyone to any position in the force.

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