Photo: The Area News

Claims of the practice, whereby an officer either places a finger over the straw entry hole or blows into the straw themselves, were first reported to Victoria Police late last year.

Once aware of the claims Road Policing and Professional Standards Commands, together with statistical specialists commenced an intelligence assessment of over five years of PBT activity.

Professional Standards Command Assistant Commissioner Russell Barrett said what has followed has been a very complex and protracted intelligence assessment and investigation.

“The investigation, which analysed over five years of data, 1500 preliminary breath test devices and more than 17.7 million tests, disappointingly found 258,463 PBTs or 1.5 per cent of all tests had been falsified,” AC Barrett said.

“This conduct will not be tolerated, any member found engaging in this practice from today has been put on notice they will be investigated.

“I had not heard of our members engaging in such a practice, we let ourselves down, we’ve let the community down. It stops now.”

Victoria Police is in the process of appointing an external investigator, with contemporary knowledge of Victoria Police’s practices and operating frameworks.

The investigation will look to provide advice on:

• The root causes of the behaviour and remedies to monitor and prevent a recurrence.

• The underlying cultural and behavioural issues presented.

• Supervision and management practices that resulted in the behaviour continuing to go unchecked.

• Professional development and guidance required to remediate behavioural practices of this type.

• Aggravating circumstances that may need to be referred for further investigation.

• Victoria Police road safety policy drivers including state-wide systems and practice.

“The investigation will examine how this behaviour was allowed to occur and what we can do to enhance and improve our operational practice into the future,” AC Barrett said.

“The question we all asked was why? There could be a number of reasons but the main rationale I believe is to hide or highlight productivity. Whatever reason our workforce may come up with, it isn’t acceptable.

“Due to the extended timeframe of data analysed and many variables within the complex data set, including members who may have moved on from a work location, what will occur is that workplace guidance will be provided to all work places across the organisation.”

“This briefing will be acknowledged formally by attending members, with the acknowledgement to be recorded on each police members personnel file.”

“As disappointing as this is, it should be noted that, at this stage in the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest fraud or any criminality has occurred. Similarly, there is nothing to suggest that any of this activity has impacted on any prosecutions.”

The guidance will ensure all members understand all requirements for the integrity of the PBT regime, the relationship between PBT testing and road safety and their role in maintaining the integrity of the testing regime to protect public safety.

Governance, controls and audit functions to support PBT compliance and monitoring will be implemented immediately.

The analysis of data included statisticians looking at complex algorithms together with considerations around the length of time it would take to administer one test and a succession of tests.

It is believed the self-testing activity has been largely undertaken by general duties and highway patrol members, with some rural areas over represented. It is not a practice found to be performed at supervised drug and alcohol bus testing sites.

“In moving forward we are looking into a number of options for improving and increasing our internal controls and accountability in regard to our testing regime,” AC Barrett said.

“We are considering the feasibility of regular audits, the ability for the PBT to include the detail of the operator and quality assurance measures.”

Victoria Police is in discussions with IBAC about the matter.