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C.A.P.I. ACT REVIEW- NSW MINISTRY FOR POLICE

 

Posted 02/Aug/2008, 1944 words

SUBMISSION- W.M. MALLARD LICENSED PRIVATE INQUIRY AGENT

Background of the author W.M. Mallard

 

I am a proud and former member of the NSW Police force having served 11 years before being retired on medical grounds, resultant out of being critically injured whilst on duty. I have been involved in the CAPI industry now for 29 years continuously and licensed under the relevant pieces of  Private Investigation industry legislation for that period.

During that same period I have been actively involved in promoting the Private Investigation industry to the consumer and striving to bring about change that would allow for Private Investigator  members to better serve the community and to be better accepted and our services more understood by consumers and State and Federal Governments and to break down those old hackneyed myths that have for so many years not reflected well upon the Private Investigation industry. I have held executive positions in three industry representative Private Investigation bodies and served 6 terms as President.

I have prepared countless submissions related to the laws that effect the Private Investigation industry, participated in numerous executive committees and consultative groups and was one of the very first group of Private Investigators to be inducted by the State Government under Premier Robert Carr regarding competency accreditation and licensed under the current Private Investigation legislation. I am one of the original industry members who assisted the State Government in laying down the matrix for those Private Investigator competency standards.

 

Preamble

 

As I am mostly involved in the Private Investigation sector of our industry I intend to deal with that sector alone, except in one instance that being the differences in both pursuits which I believe has a bearing upon a regulatory model being maintained and the competencies and integrity of members being of the highest standard. 

I have a genuine belief in the benefits to Private Investigation members in the provision of their services to public consumers and governments and a belief that without some form of regulation/registration/ integrity checks and competencies, an industry that has come so far along the pathway to recognition as a force to be reckoned with and relied upon by the private and public sectors is worth the extra effort to bring it to full maturity. With full maturity will 

It is evident that not just the NSW Police Force, but also all Australian law enforcement agencies, and the law enforcement agencies of the world are becoming more and more reliant upon the Private Investigation sector to take over much of what police used to become involved in. To diminish the achieved quantum leaps the Private Investigation  industry has achieved by urging the State Government to implement regulation and competencies would I believe be a massive backwards step. The Investigation industry needs to move forward and improve so that law enforcement agencies and investigators can build co operative and corroborative links to detect and reduce crime.

 

IMA &ACA submissions

 

I have read the contents of the joint ACA and IMA submissions and in the main I agree with the contents of these however there are some areas with which I am in conflict and areas that I believe need to be made clearer before a real and objective overview of the Private Investigation industry can be made.

 

It is fair to say that both of these National Industry Representative bodies are in fact the peak industry bodies for debt collectors, repossession agents, process servers and private investigators in this state and nationally, however what these submissions don’t tell you is the percentage of industry members that they represent in their memberships is a small percentage of actual industry members and heavily weighted towards the Commercial Agents sector and just why that is. Understanding this is an important factor in separating both industries, their present situation when it comes to regulation and how in the case of Commercial Agents, regulation in its present form may not be appropriate/required.

It is obvious with the ACA that it represents the interests of Commercial Agents and not Private Inquiry Agents.

By the very nature of commercial agency business, commercial agents rely upon networking very heavily to source other agents in locations throughout this state where debts, summonses and repossessions work might be required to be undertaken cost effectively. Most commercial agent field operatives require little investment in the undertaking of their business beyond what the average person might already possess like vehicles, mobile phones and computers. There are much greater advantages for commercial agents to belong to a representative industry body and in the main I believe this membership facilitates their appearance in the different service directories and to receive work from a number of principal commercial agency enterprises who may be seeking someone who is licensed in their particular locality.

 

Private investigators on the other hand have to expend considerable sums on equipment such as vehicle modification, video cameras, still cameras, camouflage materials, subterfuge materials, disguises, tents, sleeping bags, tracking devices, listening device detection equipment, websites, forensic apparatus, advertising etc….

 

There are very few sole traders within the commercial agents sector who advertise for work other than in the industry body service directories. Not so however with private investigators. A quick check of Google and the Yellow Pages will provide the evidence to support this statement.

 

The majority of commercial agents operate under the umbrella and supervision of a principal agent, generally a SME (Small to Medium Enterprise). These SME’s receive their work from law firms, major corporations, banks and finance companies. This provides the field operative another tier of supervision and level of due diligence. There are very few instructions emanating from private citizens to the commercial agents sector. 

Unlike commercial agents, private investigators have to regularly attend courts to present or be cross-examined upon their evidence and to liaise with the police. More and more, today’s legal protocols call upon expert evidence and the provision of evidence along strict guidelines. This evidence is given by the private investigator sector of our industry and rarely by the commercial agents sector.

 

The work of commercial agents and private inquiry agents is very different indeed. In fact, a private investigator’s work quite often is required in preliminary and post commercial agent activity. Quite often a commercial agent’s work is all but completed at the point of location. A great percentage of location work is undertaken from offices without any face-to-face or fieldwork by the operative. In fact much of it is related to search engines and not even conducted by licensed commercial agents. 

An investigators work is generally just beginning at the point of location and in the main this work is required in the field and with considerable planning, the execution of considerable resources, consideration of OH&S ramifications and quite often the evidence gathered being required to be gathered lawfully and presented in civil or criminal proceedings.

 

I raise the forgoing issues, differences and complexities in respect of one area of the IMA/ACA submission that I strongly disagree with and that is the fingerprinting of Private Investigators. I strongly recommend that you give very serious consideration to the retention of fingerprinting private investigators to maintain a high level of integrity, a level of integrity that is being called upon more and more because of the failings and lack of resources of law enforcement agencies and a level of integrity demanded by the courts when presenting evidence. The integrity doesn’t just relate to the background of the individual investigator, it also relates to the integrity of crime scenes and evidence that might be handled by them to enable those investigators fingerprints to be eliminated from others that might be 

It has become evident over the past 28 years that I have been involved in the private investigation industry that those charged with the regulation of the private investigation industry have not carried out this regulation well at all. Whilst it is not my wish to use this forum to denigrate those responsible for these failures it would be wrong of me not to mention some very prominent and concerning matters.

 

The new CAPI Act. Requires members to advertise their license numbers otherwise they have committed an offence against that Act. Whilst this omission of these numbers might not be the most heinous of crimes, it is none the less an offence that the current regulatory body is charged with detecting and enforcing. A quick check of the current yellow pages directory for NSW and the Internet will provide the regulators with dozens of offenders. The Versace-V-Monte matter that I have already eluded to which occurred and was dealt with under the old legislation is clearly another example of how the regulators have taken their eyes off the ball. Monte was bankrupted yet despite the police being advised and despite enormous media coverage of his obvious deceit and lies to the court, the police failed to act in a timely and prudent manner.

 

Recently because of the evident lack of police understanding related to the private investigation industry I met with Superintendent John Kerlatec of the Regulated Industries Squad to see if we could 

There are many other examples that I could go into but wont. 

It is evident that the current model and the previous model of Government Regulation have both failed and another model is required, one that will bring to the notice of the regulatory body (who ever that might be), the actions of those licensed private investigators who need to be brought to account. I believe that there is no better mechanism than that of a 

This board would like all the others become self-funding from the licensing/registration fees. A graduate from an approved Recognised Training Organisation (RTO) could then make application to the State and Federal 

Just who becomes the regulator for the private investigation industry is the most important consideration of all for this present review. Personally, I believe the police don’t have the will nor the resources to undertake this regulation. They should however have a role to play in the fingerprinting of private investigator applicants. The Department of Fair Trading has a record not much better than that of the police when it comes to the successful prosecution of industry members. Again, this department has failed in the case of 

I just hope that very serious discussion and industry consultation takes place before this new regulator is appointed. Save to say in the case of Private Investigators, for all of the above reasons.

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