Ex-cop guilty of tipping off suspected racist

A former policeman was convicted yesterday of trying to tip off a suspected white supremacist that police were tapping his phone.

A District Court jury took four hours to convict Robert David Critchley, 43, of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The former senior constable had been monitoring calls for a covert police operation into white supremacist groups.

During the operation in Januray last year, he made an anonymous call to Murray Holmes, a friend of the primary police target, Jacob Marshall Hort, and suggested Mr Hort get a new phone SIM card.

Prosecutor Dave Dempster said the crime warranted jail.

Critchley did not comment after being bailed yesterday pending his sentencing in February. But the judge told him getting bail did not mean he would avoid jail.

In evidence, Critchley rejected suggestions he was sympathetic to nationalist extremist groups.

He said he was not a racist and had friends “from every culture you can think of ”, including his Thai stepmother.

He told the jury he called Mr Holmes, who was connected to the music industry, twice to check whether his phone number was correct because he wanted to pass it on to his musician stepson so he could make a demo tape.

He resigned from the police force last year.

Hort was convicted in July last year of criminal damage and discharging a firearm after shots were fired at the Queens Park mosque.