Victoria Police admits breath tests were faked

An internal investigation by Victoria Police has discovered that as many as 258,463 breath tests conducted over nearly six years were falsified.

According to a report in The Age, 1.5 per cent of all 17.7 million breath tests carried out during the 5½-year period are suspicious.

"It's terrible. It's terrible behaviour when we're the leader of road safety in the state," said Assistant Commissioner Russell Barrett, the head of Victoria Police's Professional Standards Command.

"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," said Barrett, as quoted by The Age.

It's an embarrassment for the force, but at least no one was falsely accused of driving under the influence.

"No one can be falsely prosecuted, but it's still terrible, terrible behaviour. The community trusts us to do our job and we trust our members to do that job," Barrett said.

The police investigation commenced after the state's Transport Accident Commission brought to the attention of police certain data discrepancies, ie: little time between each breath test. This was consistent with officers operating the breathalyser without actually interacting with a motorist.

It's believed the officers were either placing a finger over the entry hole of the breathalyser's straw or blowing into the straw to create a negative result. Barrett says that the practice appears to have been "widespread", but more prevalent in rural areas, with general duties police and highway patrol members figuring more prominently in the deception. Apparently officers working at supervised drug and alcohol testing sites were not implicated.

"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," Barrett told The Age.

"We are considering the feasibility of regular audits, the ability for the PBT to include the detail of the operator and quality assurance in relation to the issuing and distribution of straws."

The officers who had been indulging in the deception are unlikely to be caught and prosecuted, it seems. Breathalysers are apparently not allocated to individuals and there's no way of tracking who was using which breathalyser over the period investigated.

"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 workplaces across the organisation," Barrett said.

Nevertheless, Victoria Police has referred the matter to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) and there will be an external investigation. And Barrett has left little doubt that he will put an end to coppers fudging the books where breath tests are concerned.

"This practice will stop and stop immediately," he said.

"From today on, this practice will not be tolerated.

"We've let ourselves down, we've let the community down, we've let our road safety partners down."

Click on the link for a video of Russell Barrett's address to the media.