Taskforce Atlas: Detective Team Doubled To Reexamine Hundreds of NSW Gay Hate Crimes

NSW Police are currently reexamining hundreds of cold cases in response to the recommendations handed down by the The Special Commission of Inquiry into historic gay hate crimes in NSW.

This is as part of the police’s response to the landmark Special Commission of Inquiry, which found that NSW Police had failed to properly investigate dozens of serious crimes and missing persons over the last 40 years, which are potential gay hate crimes and hate crime-related murders.

The Special Commission of Inquiry examined 32 of these cases, and their examination found that there was 25 cases that had a definite reason to suspect they were LGBTQIA+ hate crimes, or that bias towards sexual orientation was a factor.

Staff for the department has now been increased, and evidence from several suspected gay hate crime cases are now being sent away for DNA testing.

Staff doubled to reexamine historic gay hate crimes

25 detectives have been appointed to examine a whopping 213 unsolved homicide cases, which all date between 1970 and 2010.

Detective Chief Superintendent Grant Taylor told SMH that appointing 25 detectives to reexamine the historic cases meant that the team had doubled.

It also meant that this boost becomes the largest allocation of resources to the department in NSW police history.

“We’re picking through every single bit of the material, archive records and exhibits,” said Taylor, “and seeing with fresh eyes whether we can elicit any new evidence and bring those to some sort of fruition.”

Evidence from several cases being sent away for DNA testing

Police also say evidence is being sent away for a number of these cases, for DNA testing.

The detectives who work on this are hoping the process would unearth new leads, since many of the crimes occurred long before DNA testing was a part of police procedure — so have therefore never been tested.

“We hope in all of these boxes there’s a little bit of gold,” Detective Inspector Matthew Russell told SMH.

Suspected gay hate crime cases that are being reexamined

While not all the cases have been released to the public, some names and cases have.

According to the SMH, police are reexamining cases including (but not limited to):

• Gilles Mattaini, who disappeared in September 1985
• Scott Johnson, whose body found in December 1988
• Ross Warren, who disappeared in July 1989
• John Russell, who body found in November 1989
• Crispin Dye, whose body found in December 1993

This story first appeared on Star Observer.