By Cam Lucadou-Wells
City of Greater Dandenong’s deletion of body-cam footage has been seized on as proof of a crime by I Cook Foods.
In an inquiry on the forced closure of ICF, Greater Dandenong CEO John Bennie said “private conversations” were removed from body-cam footage shot by council inspectors.
The footage had to be provided “in a short space of time” to I Cook, which served a witness summons in its action “against the State”, Mr Bennie said.
Following legal advice, the council sought to delete “any private conversations” taken when the camera was running.
“Ms Johnson asked Ms Garlick to complete that process when the Communications Department was unable to comply with the Court’s timeframe.
“The editing did not go beyond this. Everything filmed during the course of inspections was provided.
“It is simply wrong and incredibly unfair to suggest that this process involved ‘doctoring’ the body camera footage.”
ICF director Ian Cook told the Star Journal that the body-cam evidence provided to court should not have been altered.
“These people are admitting to a crime, and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
“Whether you call it ‘private conversations’, you still can’t do it.”
“They’ve admitted to the tampering of evidence, the destruction of evidence. They’ve produced a false and misleading document.”
Former police detective Paul Brady, who has helped ICF prepare its case against health authorities, said interviews and field recordings by authorised officers such as police or council health inspectors “can’t be touched”.
“Everything has to stay in.
“If you did say it’s a private conversation, you have to go back to the court to authorise it before you delete it.
“There’s obvious reasons for that.”
