Police Commissioner Karen Webb has recommended Constable Alexander Cox to be dismissed from the Force despite being found not guilty of showing a sex video to colleagues.
Constable Cox was informed on Thursday that an advisory panel to Ms Webb had decided to push for his sacking.
It came three days after Magistrate Holly Kemp ordered the State to pay Cox’s legal costs of almost $77,000 in the case, which she told Sutherland Local Court was a “catastrophic failure” and “should not have commenced”..
Ms Kemp told the court the police and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions “failed to reasonably investigate” the case before bringing it to court.
The intended move to sack Cox is being made under laws that allow officers to be removed if they have lost the Commissioner’s “confidence”.
He will be sent a show cause notice and will have 21 days to respond.
Cox, who was suspended after being charged in July 2023, is now preparing to sue the police for wrongful dismissal if he is terminated.
Paul McGirr said: “Both the police and the prosecuting lawyers commenced these proceedings in bad faith.”
Cox was charged in July 2023 with three revenge porn offences that prosecutors alleged stemmed from a sexual relationship with a woman who can’t legally be identified.
Prosecutors alleged that Cox showed a sex video featuring himself and the woman to three male colleagues in an out of work setting.
However, the case fell apart after Magistrate Kemp ruled that it was impossible for the female officer to have been the person in the sex video.
Instead, Ms Kemp told the court it was more likely that Cox had shown the officers a porn clip “from the internet”.
None of the officers who allegedly viewed the video gave evidence in court the woman depicted in the video had very obvious identifying features.
Ms Kemp told the court that the woman’s obvious features were “unmissable” and would instantly have determined whether she was the person in the video.
“In fact, the evidence is thoroughly indicative that it was not (the woman) and could not have been her,” Magistrate Kemp told the court.
The court was told the woman never made a complaint. Instead, Cox was charged after another officer heard about the existence of a video and made a complaint.
Her Honour found that there were “gaping holes within the police investigation and gaping holes within the prosecution case.”
“I note as well across both investigations that (this was) a poor substandard police investigation,” she said.
“The prosecution have not gotten anywhere near proof beyond reasonable doubt.”
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