The Advertiser: Sergeant in McGee case `doing same job too long’ [16jun05]
ACCIDENT investigator Sergeant Dan Hassell was slow to embrace new procedures, his former commanding officer has told the Kapunda Road Royal Commission. Inspector Jim Carter said Sgt Hassell had been doing the same job for “too long”. He also confirmed he had ordered Sgt Hassell to arrest Eugene McGee the night he killed cyclist Ian Humphrey because he regarded the incident as “akin to a homicide”. “To me, you can’t get a more serious offence,” he said. He believed police would have been accused of favouring McGee if he had not been arrested on the night. In his first appearance at the commission, Insp Carter said he regarded Sgt Hassell highly as an investigator but there had been conflict between them.

“They were only minor issues, something consistent with a person who had been in an area far too long,” Insp Carter told Grant Niemann, counsel assisting Royal Commissioner Greg James, QC. “The other two teams embraced change and got on with new ideas and new procedures a little quicker than Sgt Hassell’s team on occasions,” he said.

Insp Carter told the commission he was astonished when Sgt Hassell told him on the night he was “negotiating” with lawyer Matthew Selley for McGee to surrender the following morning. He said he told Sgt Hassell he was not happy with that and told him it would happen “tonight and it will not wait”.

Insp Carter said Sgt Hassell had asked him to contact Mr Selley to continue the negotiations for the morning surrender as his mobile phone had malfunctioned. Asked by Commissioner James if this had been Sgt Hassell’s or Mr Selley’s idea, Insp Carter replied: “I took it as being his own idea . . . I was far from happy. I was very disappointed. It was totally inappropriate and unacceptable to be done the following day. It had to be done as soon as possible.”

Former acting director of public prosecutions Wendy Abraham, QC, said she believed McGee’s actions in pleading guilty to failing to stop at the accident scene were inconsistent with his defence raised in psychiatrist Professor Alexander McFarlane’s report. She contended the trial judge should have rejected Professor McFarlane’s report, which said McGee was in a disassociated state, because McGee’s actions were “deliberate and synchronised” and aimed at evading police.Ms Abraham said the prosecution case was hampered by the defence “ambushing” it with the report.

She believed changes to court rules to outlaw the practice were needed