Police shooting - Rolph inquest begins

The inquest into the death in police presence of Daniel Rolph, commenced today in the Perth Coroner's Court.

Local police knew of Daniel Rolph's bipolar condition when they followed him in a 'OJ style' low-speed pursuit to his Floreat home, followed him in, and then shot him dead when he became defensive.

It was revealed in court today that the investigating officer DS Terry Rakich reported to the Coroner only the evidence of the two attending officers, and left out the eye-witness evidence of Daniel Rolph's father.

There's a big difference in the point of view between this earlier story from Gabrielle Knowles, and this story, with the only apparent change being an additional journo... and then the elephant in the room (ie. the faults in Rakich's report), didn't rate a mention.

Not all journos can attend the lengthy coronial hearings all day every day of each inquest, very few in fact(some at the state's only daily have trouble just staying awake), but the omission of independent evidence in the police internal investigation, is a fairly vital piece of information to miss.

The November and March inquests into the deaths in custody of Karl Woods(35)& Karl Nightingale(35), both heard evidence that the police internal investigations were intrinsically flawed, having left out and replaced damaging evidence from police officers and independent witnesses.

The Crime and Corruption Commission's 2006 review of improvements made to WAPOL since the 2003-04 Kennedy Police Royal Commission, showed that the majority of WA internal police investigations were substantially flawed.

The Crime and Corruption Commission also outsource many of their investigations to WAPOL officers.