SHARRON PHILLIPS INQUEST STALEMATE INDICATIVE OF SYSTEMATIC SHORTFALLS UNDERMINING THE ENTIRE QUEENSLAND CORONIAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Queensland not only has a big, big problem with judges and magistrates who week in and week out are handing out manifestly inadequate sentences to criminals, and most troubling, ones guilty of homicide and serious and sexual assault, but also with a faltering and clearly under-resourced coronial arm of the Queensland Police Service, known as the Coronial Support Unit. 

From first hand personal experience, in light of my own status as a coronial witness who is assisting police, or shall we say, "attempting to assist police", in relation to a currently active coronial inquest into the 1986 murder of Sharron Phillips, I can tell you that there is, at the very least, a shortfall with the investigative resources of the Coronial Support Unit, and potentially, without insinuating anything with no proof, a more nefarious explanation involving "police conduct" as to why certain coronial inquests are dragging on and on, seemingly with no end in sight. 

I would hate to think that the latter is in play, but my well seasoned intuition as well as observations can only lead me to believe that the woefully slow "clean up rate" with coronial inquests in Queensland is not at least entirely just an issue to do with a lack of investigative resources. In other words, the amount of police officers who are assigned to work in this unit. 

But even assuming that a lack of such is solely the reason for the stagnation of coronial inquest proceedings, and there is no "police corruption" involved, Queensland and the Queensland public, still has a big problem, a big problem in that they cannot have confidence in the justice system in general. 

Confidence that in a timely fashion that natural justice will prevail so that relatives and loved ones of murder and accident victims will find out truths before it's too late, and that killers at large are brought to justice, before they die. 

The buck with Coronial Support Unit inadequacies and coronial inadequacies in general stops with the Palaszczuk Government and in particular, the Attorney-General Yvette D'ath. It's as simple as that. The QPS officer in charge of the Coronial Support Unit reports to the State Coroner and Ms. D'ath in reality a lot more than he reports to the Police Commissioner. That person's title is "Assistant to the Coroner". 

If that person hasn't been on the phone quite a lot to the State Coroner's Office to seek urgent intervention from Ms. D'ath to address crippling manpower issues which are stifling the progress of coronial investigations, then that person should have been, long before this. The message I want to convey to the Attorney-General is this - it is simply not good enough. 

Not even close. I am personally involved in just one coronial matter, but the problem is systematic. It is not just the Sharron Phillips inquest which is being let down by the system. There needs to be a big splurge in investigative and manpower resources which are provided to the Coronial Support Unit to break the snail pace status quo which is completely undermining the justice system itself.