Part 1. The Rewriting of Judge Hammond’s Report by the CCC Staff after Hammond resigned from the CCC

Playing Games at the CCC

Why Commissioner Judge Kevin Hammond left the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) was explored in an earlier post. The Desert Rat still thinks it was because of conflict between him and the CCC staff and the Desert Rat now develops that argument further.

Judge Hammond resigned from the CCC in March 2007 two years before his term expired and strangely after he had heard all the evidence into Smith’s Beach and the Grill Burke business dealings and had written the draft report on Smith’s Beach. The report was left to Neil McKerracher QC to complete.

The Desert Rat believes the conflict must have revolved around the Smith’s Beach Report. Internal people in the CCC wanted harder findings, that Commissioner Judge Kevin Hammond was not prepared to agree to.

Judge Hammond wrote his draft report thus satisfying his own view of what the finding should properly be and Neil McKerracher the Acting Commissioner was then to negotiate the final touches to accommodate any minor changes of emphasis with the CCC staff.

One month later, in April 2007, Acting Commissioner McKerracher advised Burke and Grill through their solicitors that there were no adverse findings or comment against them.

The final Smith’s Beach Report was released and tabled in Parliament in October 2007 – some six months later. Why such a long delay when the Report had been completed in April by Commissioner Judge Kevin Hammond and Acting Commissioner McKerracher?

What appears to have happened is that the staff at the CCC rewrote the Smith’s Beach Report in that intervening six months bringing in an adverse comment concerning Burke and Grill which were not in the Report done by Commissioner Hammond and Acting Commissioner McKerracher!

The Desert Rat should point out here that this is similar to the disclosed activities of re-writing Judge Hammond’s report by the CCC staff in the D’Orazio matter, which was very adversely criticised by Parliamentary Inspector Malcolm McCusker QC.

The staff of the CCC got their way on Smith’s Beach and thereby got the CCC themselves into deep and very hot water. This has been the source of the CCC troubles and, will be further developed in this series of articles.

In June, Len Roberts-Smith was appointed as Commissioner and must have become aware of or was involved in the rewriting of the Smith’s Beach Report. New Commissioner Roberts-Smith had not heard any of the evidence, had not seen the body language and intonation of the witnesses to make any judgment as to truthfulness.

Either Len Roberts-Smith was a willing participant in the rewrite of the Smith’s Beach Report or was not aware of the contents of the report written by Judge Hammond and completed by Acting Commissioner McKerrarcher. Either way he became embroiled in the problems created by the rewrite of the Smith’s Beach Report and its flawed, unsound and what now appear to be - indefensible findings.

The re-written Smith’s Beach Report with its broad new range of adverse findings, was tabled in Parliament on the 9 October 2007. The findings were without any basis and were findings that Commissioner Judge Kevin Hammond and Acting Commissioner McKerracher did not entertain!

Since then the credibility of the Smith’s Beach Report has unwound week after week. Only one small part of its finding is yet to be discredited and that is its findings against three Busselton Shire Councillors, which the Desert Rat will show are legally flawed.

Both Blind Freddy and the Desert Rat have now examined this finding and found it to be fatally flawed. It is unbelievable how incompetent the CCC have been on this issue as well. More will be revealed in the third post in this series.