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A custody officer accused of fleeing after crashing his vehicle while he had three times the legal blood-alcohol limit is among the seven Victoria Police employees caught drink-driving last financial year.
The off-duty custody officer was charged with three offences in November 2024 after his car struck a traffic-light pole in Keysborough. The 44-year-old allegedly fled the scene, before police eventually located the man who returned a blood-alcohol reading of 0.159.
He was charged with careless driving, failing to stop after an accident and drink-driving, a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
All Victorian Police employees face internal disciplinary action when caught drink-driving, on top of the criminal penalties. The spokesperson said the custody officer had resigned during the investigation but, like all employees who resigned in such situations, he would not escape criminal penalties.
“We are not aware of any cases in recent years when an employee has been detected drink-driving on duty,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
Internal penalties can include reprimands, fines, periods of being ineligible for promotion or transfer, demotion, being transferred to other duties or dismissal.
Since the 2016-17 financial year, following a recommendation by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog, the force has publicly reported these incidents in its annual reports.
The data covers sworn officers, custody officers, administrative staff and public safety officers.
The data reveals that over those nine years, there have been 65 drink-driving detections among Victoria Police employees. Of those caught, nearly 14 per cent were involved in a collision at the time of detection.
The worst year on record was 2017-18, with 13 employees detected and three collisions. The lowest rates were recorded during 2020-21, when the state was under strict COVID-19 lockdown laws.
Since then, drink-driving detections among the force have inched back up – for the past four years, the number of employees caught has hovered steadily between seven and nine.
The push for transparency followed a 2016 report by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission, which revealed a culture of leniency.
IBAC’s analysis of 228 Victoria Police officers caught driving while intoxicated between 2000 and 2015 found that, on average, one officer was caught every month. Despite this, two-thirds of the officers retained their jobs.
“When officers are detected driving over the legal blood-alcohol concentration limit, it undermines the message that drink-driving is wrong, and can undermine the authority of Victoria Police,” then-IBAC commissioner Stephen O’Bryan said.
In 2023, 296 people died in traffic accidents in Victoria, the highest toll in 15 years. According to the Transport Accident Commission, alcohol is a leading factor – alongside speeding and fatigue – with roughly one in five drivers killed recording a blood-alcohol concentration at or above the 0.05 limit.
The issue touched the highest levels of state government in December, when Premier Jacinta Allan appeared before the media to announce that her husband, Yorick Piper, had been stripped of his driver’s licence after being caught driving under the influence on a morning trip to the supermarket.
“We’re embarrassed and shocked and most truly sorry for what has occurred here because drink-driving and road trauma are incredibly, incredibly serious,” Allan said at the time.
In 2018, The Age revealed that Victorian police officers had faked more than a quarter of a million roadside breath tests.
Police believed the rampant falsification was likely conducted by officers blowing into the breathalysers themselves, most likely due to laziness and the need to meet targets.
An internal investigation found 258,000 alcohol breath tests were falsified over 5½ years, representing about 1.5 per cent of the 17.7 million tests that were conducted in that time.
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Carla Jaeger is a journalist for The Age. Got a tip? Email carla.jaeger@theage.com.au or message carlajaeger.62 on Signal.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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