Media Report-Conversations live-streamed from bugged Risdon Prison room

Adam Holmes | ABC NEWS – Digital Online | August, 10,  2023

Potentially hundreds of conversations live-streamed from bugged Risdon Prison room, Tasmanian government reveals

Tasmania Police secretly recorded potentially hundreds of private and legally privileged conversations in a meeting room at the state’s adult prison – with calls for those affected to be contacted to review their cases.

Police bugged a meeting room at Risdon Prison on June 15, 2017, to record a conversation involving lawyer Jeffrey Ian Thompson, who was a lawyer for convicted murderer Sue Neill-Fraser.

But the devices – one recording audio and video, the other just audio – continued recording until August 17, 2017, picking up all meetings in the room.

This week, Attorney-General Elise Archer has given data to parliament showing how many times the meeting rooms were used during the period, in response to a question – almost a year ago – from Labor justice spokesperson Ella Haddad.

The four meeting rooms hosted 723 visits, including private prisoner meetings with lawyers, medical professionals and the Parole Board.

The recordings were sent back to a computer in a Tasmanian police station, specially installed for the operation, with the recordings able be monitored in real time.

Five police officers could access it, along with technical services officers upon request.

The Justice Department said it could not break the data down by the specific room which was bugged.

Police had obtained a 90-day warrant from a magistrate to carry out the bugging, but Justice Michael Brett found it was too broad, and the evidence could not be used.

His decision last August was the first time the matter was publicly revealed.

Ms Haddad described it as a “massive breach of privacy”.

“In terms of meetings with lawyers it is a huge breach of legal professional privilege that should never have happened.

“These professionals and inmates should be informed of the government’s breach which means their conversations have been unlawfully recorded.”

At the time, police gave assurances that no other recordings were accessed.

Lawyer Greg Barns SC – who regularly accessed the rooms during that period – agreed that the department should contact those who used the rooms.

“I’m not aware of others being informed, but that’s not to say they haven’t been,” he said.

“The prison will have records of every person who visited that professional visit area for the purpose of a meeting with prisoners.”

Almost a year ago, Tasmania Police announced a review would be undertaken by former solicitor-general Michael O’Farrell SC into all surveillance device warrants issued to Tasmania Police since 2012.

It was not specifically about the Thompson recordings.

But three months later, police announced that they could not start the review without changes to Tasmania’s police surveillance laws.

The law change passed the lower house in May, but legal groups raised concerns that they were not consulted.

The laws were intended to allow police to have access to protected material for the purpose of an inquiry.

The Law Society of Tasmania found that the new laws still would not allow Mr O’Farrell to access the recordings from the Thompson warrant, because that specific warrant was invalid.

The society’s executive director – Luke Rheinberger – pointed out that the law change would require the Commissioner of Police to approve the inquiry, and he questioned the independence of this process.

The bill has not passed the upper house.

‘Scrap O’Farrell review’ and start again: Independent

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb said she had significant concerns with the both the law change, and the police review.

She said it was not too late to come up with a more independent review of Tasmania Police surveillance warrants, and the Thompson matter.

“We should, at this point, scrap the idea of the O’Farrell review and put in place a genuinely independent comprehensive review into the Thompson surveillance matter that investigates any potential police misconduct,” Ms Webb said.

“That could be started tomorrow.”

Tasmania’s Ombudsman has oversight of police surveillance warrants, and issues an annual report. It did not pick up issues with the Thompson warrant.

Police are also required to report back to the magistrate who issued the surveillance warrant. This includes the names of any person whose
conversations were overheard, recorded, monitored or listened to.

It is unclear if this occurred in the Thompson matter.

The attorney-general described the planned O’Farrell review as “[reassuring] the community that Tasmania Police takes very seriously the powers it is entrusted with”.