Hit-run inquiry rocked by DPP deal SA Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (18-06-2005) By Tom Richardson
THE disclosure of an edict from South Australia’s Director of Public Prosecutions that police should not arrest suspects in major crash investigations threatens to derail the Eugene McGee hit-run inquiry.

Commissioner Greg James warned his inquiry might have been allowed to proceed on an “entirely false basis” after this was revealed yesterday by Grant Niemann, counsel assisting the commission. Mr Niemann told the Kapunda Road royal commission he had been told by former DPP Paul Rofe QC on Thursday about a “long-standing” arrangement between police and the DPP, that in major crash cases “police should report the offence rather than arrest … because arrest created an expectation in the minds of victims that prosecution would follow”.

The bombshell has turned the commission on its head, after weeks of testimony highly critical of police offifers’ apparent lack of interest in arresting lawyer Eugene McGee, who fled the scene of a 2003 accident that killed cyclist Ian Humphrey.

Earlier this week, the commission heard evidence from Inspector Jim Carter, who had instructed investigator Sergeant Dan Hassell to “grow some balls” and go and arrest McGee after the accident. Mr James subpoenaed DPP Stephen Pallaras and Police Commissioner Mal Hyde to provide urgent information to his inquiry.

“If there was some direction … from a serving DPP and nothing has been said about it until now, then the commission has been allowed to proceed on an entirely false basis,” Mr James said.

But outside the commission, Mr Rofe denied there had been any “formal direction” from the DPP, calling it an “understanding between police and prosecutors that was up to “individual officers’ discretion”.