Victoria Police has paid out more than $42 million in civil settlements and legal costs over the past five years, according to a report published by The Age on Tuesday 15 February.
The payouts, details – and number – of the cases remain confidential, however, the settlements cover a suite of misconduct claims including unlawful searches, illegal arrests, false imprisonment, assault and harassment. The costs include damages and victims’ legal costs but do not include legal fees incurred by Victoria Police handling the cases.
Overall, the report shows that taxpayers were burdened with $3.59 million in 2018-19, and peaked at $16.74 million in 2021-22 for “bad police behaviour”.
NSW Police financial settlements remain higher with $100 million having been paid out between 2016 and 2020, according to The Guardian.
The blowout in financial settlements has renewed calls for an independent police oversight body amid a significant drop in public satisfaction with the force.
The last publicly available report on Victoria Police’s civil litigation puts the pay-out figure at $21 million in the decade from 2008 to 2018.
This includes litigation relating to police interactions with Greek Australians Chris Karadaglis from Warnambool, who was left paralysed from the neck down after police used excessive force to detain him in 2017; and Nik Dimopoulos from Melbourne who was mistakenly arrested by police in May 2019, during a disturbing ordeal at the Hares & Hyenas bookstore in Fitzroy that resulted in his shoulder being “ripped from its socket”.
Victoria police had to pay Karadaglis $11.75 million in a settlement filed in the Victoria Supreme Court earlier this month. Mr Karadaglis had been left paralysed from the neck down after police officers allegedly used excessive force on him in November 2017.
Mr Karadaglis had been alone at home when three Victoria Police officers arrived in response to a noise complaint and, according to court papers obtained by AAP, he had “posed no threat to the police officers or anybody else.” The documents stated that: “One or more of the officers applied excessive force to the plaintiff who suffered devastating injury to his cervical spine.”
A Victoria Police spokesman had told Neos Kosmos in 2021 that a “settlement with a man who was was injured during an arrest in 2017” had been reached but that the terms were confidential and no further comment was available, until the deadline of the payout which at the time was the end of October 2021.
Mr Dimopoulos on the other hand was sleeping in an apartment above the popular LGBTIQA+ bookshop when members of the force’s Critical Incident Response Team stormed the building in their search for a suspect involved in a carjacking and home invasion.
In June 2020, Mr Dimopoulos launched civil action against the state government accusing the police officers of false imprisonment, assault, and battery, and failing to “exercise reasonable care”.
Court documents revealed that Mr Dimopoulos would lose more than $1.1 million in past and future earnings because of his serious injuries. He also claimed an additional $1.8 million in special damages. The case was to proceed to a Supreme Court trial but the matter was resolved when a financial offer was agreed to by Mr Dimopoulos and his lawyers.
As Neos Kosmos reported back in August 2022, a Victoria Police spokeswoman had confirmed the protracted legal case had been finalised but the amount of the private settlement Mr Dimopoulos and Victoria Police agreed upon remains unknown.
According to The Age, the settlement records include $3.5 million to Zita Sukys and Dale Ewins, who were engaged in a sex act at Inflation nightclub when they were shot by police; and $500,000 to ex-policewoman Yvonne Berry, who was allegedly assaulted by police officers in Ballarat.
“Civil litigation against Victoria Police is rare compared with the thousands of interactions our members have with the public every day,” a Victoria Police spokesman said in a statement.
“Financial settlements can fluctuate each year depending on the number of matters and when they were resolved, with some substantive cases running over several years before reaching a conclusion.”
“Victoria Police conducts a thorough investigation before the finalisation of any civil matter and our decisions are always based on independent legal advice,” they asserted.
