Australia: Hard to catch a crooked cop

CORRUPTION fighters have launched a last-ditch attempt to force the sacking of a Brisbane police officer at the centre of a sex scandal. The Crime and Misconduct Commission is appealing to the Misconduct Tribunal to have constable Mark William Bioletti sacked despite a court throwing all charges out against him in 2004. Constable Bioletti, 36, has been suspended without pay since 2003 after two women alleged he tried to blackmail them for oral sex.

Magistrate Chris Owens ruled in 2003 that there was insufficient evidence to try Constable Bioletti in relation to the first complainant and then a year later the Crown dropped all charges against him. But the CMC wants the tribunal to take disciplinary action against him.

The complex case against Constable Bioletti began in 2001 when two women lodged separate complaints against him. Documents obtained by The Courier-Mail reveal that Constable Bioletti visited the home of a woman, who cannot be identified, in relation to the welfare of her children. He allegedly repeatedly asked the woman: "Are you prepared to do anything for the children?"

The other complainant alleged that Constable Bioletti conducted a body search for wires, and told her she was "on top of the drug list" which he was investigating. He allegedly pushed her head towards his lap, said, "a favour for a favour" and unzipped his fly.

A tribunal hearing was again scheduled last month but it was postponed when Constable Bioletti successfully argued there was a perceived conflict of interest with a tribunal member who used to work at the CMC. A new date is yet to be fixed. The matter has been heard in the tribunal at least twice and in a March 2007 tribunal senior member Paul Freeburn, QC, ordered the allegations be heard separately.

To complicate the matter further, when the CMC originally took the case to the tribunal in 2005, member John Baulch, SC, found it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. Mr Baulch found that if he did have jurisdiction, he would not have been satisfied that the first allegation could be made but would have found that the second woman's could have been made. The CMC appealed and the tribunal overturned the original member's decision but Constable Bioletti successfully appealed to the Supreme Court in 2006.

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