Case closed on Dante Arthurs sex assault police blunder

as posted here

EXCLUSIVE: THE Police officers who botched an investigation into an indecent assault by sex monster Dante Arthurs will face no disciplinary action.

The decision comes after a corruption probe found they made ``an honest error'' -- three years before Arthurs raped and killed schoolgirl Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia Shu.

The Corruption and Crime Commission findings, released to The Sunday Times this week, determined there was no misconduct by police over their investigation of the attack against an eight-year-old girl in a Canning Vale park in December, 2003.

The inquiry found that police made ``an honest error'' in failing to forensically test Arthurs' blood-spattered shorts after he was charged with indecent assault and deprivation of liberty over the incident.

Arthurs was charged by police at the time, but after a review of the evidence the DPP discontinued the prosecution.

Police have been under intense scrutiny that their failure to test the shorts and the conduct of two officers in a heavy-handed video interview, deemed inadmissible by the DPP, may have ultimately contributed to Sofia's death by allowing Arthurs to go free.

But the CCC investigation found that any suggestion the events could have prevented Sofia's death, less than three years later, was ``no more than speculation''.

Eight-year-old Sofia's naked body was found by her 14-year-old brother on the floor of a toilet cubicle at Livingston Marketplace Shopping Centre at Canning Vale on June 26, 2006.

In November 2007, Arthurs was sentenced to life for Sofia's murder, with a minimum of 13 years before being eligible for parole.

At that time, Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said it appeared that police had bungled the investigation into the 2003 attack, in which the girl was grabbed from behind and dragged towards trees, but managed to bite the offender and free herself.

He requested the CCC conduct an independent investigation.

In a statement to The Sunday Times, CCC Commissioner Len Roberts-Smith QC said he had sent a letter to Mr O'Callaghan advising that the CCC did not have the statutory function to comment about any possible impact the failure of the 2003 police investigation may have had on Sofia's murder.

In the statement, Mr Roberts-Smith said the CCC had found that:

While the decision to not have Arthurs' clothing forensically tested was ``extremely unfortunate'', it was ``an honest error'' and there was no misconduct by the police officers involved.

While the two detectives who conducted the forceful video interviews with Arthurs in 2003 did not engage in misconduct under the Corruption and Crime Commission Act, they had not followed police regulations, and

The internal police investigation into the actions of two detectives who conducted the interviews with Arthurs in 2003 was conducted adequately.

Sofia's mother, Josephine, and the DPP yesterday declined to comment.


as posted here