Police unit goes cold on unsolved death cases

Poor investigative practices and systemic issues of case mismanagement within the NSW Police Force have been laid bare during a Special Commission of Inquiry into suspected gay hate deaths in Sydney.

The inquiry on Friday heard more than 400 unsolved homicides sit on file with the unsolved homicide squad.

Unsolved homicide squad Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw conceded his team "quite possibly" did not look at any cases between 1970 and 2009 and agreed he had "absolutely no idea as to the dimension of the problem".

Although 201 cases were identified for reinvestigation, Det Chief Insp Laidlaw was unable to say how these cases were selected, where the list could be found or whether anyone had been tasked with the reinvestigations.

"Did you just pick them at random?" Counsel Assisting James Emmett SC asked.

Just 76 cases were found to have been reviewed between 2009 and 2017.

"So will it be, what, 40 to 50 years on your current track to review them all?" Mr Emmett asked the chief inspector and 38-year veteran of the force.

Commissioner John Sackar earlier asked Det Chief Insp Laidlaw why an urgent audit of all unsolved cases had not taken place.

"These are all people's lives and people's family's lives," Justice Sackar said.

"Am I missing something or do I detect that the police as an institution don't rate unsolved homicide too highly in terms of priorities?"

The inquiry heard that before 2004 there was no system in place for the management or review of unsolved homicides.

Despite relying on a tracking file as a "live document" to keep recording unsolved homicides and suspicious deaths, the inquiry was shown that the last matter added to the file was recorded in August 2016.

Det Chief Insp Laidlaw said the official record management system used by his team since it was established in 2004 was still a work in progress when asked why no data had been recorded for the past seven years.

The inquiry heard at least six high-profile suspected gay hate cold cases currently being examined by the Commission were not recorded on tracking file. 

Det Chief Insp Laidlaw was unable to explain why the case details of William Allen, Robert Malcolm, James Meek, Richard Slater, William Rooney and Carl Stockton - all killed in brutal assaults during the 1990s - were seemingly absent from the squad's official working document. 

The head of the homicide squad was earlier forced to admit the systemic and notoriously poor management of files for unsolved murder cases was "always an issue" within the force.

Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty conceded on Thursday the longstanding issues with tracking down exhibits and records was "notorious" in the force and well known among officers even when he was appointed commander in 2019.

The inquiry was told issues of poor record-keeping continued under Det Supt Doherty's leadership, with evidence not archived properly and left in various police and non-police premises with no record to indicate movement.