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couriermail.com.au

Riders on a roll before the storm
BOARD riders soaking up superior swells off Snapper Rocks and Kirra yesterday haven’t
seen anything yet as a large and unpredictable cyclone hovers off the Queensland
coast. Seas are expected to increase later in the week as fickle Cyclone Ului tracks
south. But the huge storm, currently south of the Solomon Islands, has created a
headache for meteorologists trying to forecast its path. The Australian Bureau of
Meteorology and the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre were yesterday disagreeing on
its course, as forecasters adopted a waitand-see attitude.
Storm threat » P4

COAST COPS IN COVER-UP
Jeremy Pierce

POLICE have been caught falsifying watchhouse logbooks only hours before a prisoner
died, a court has been told. A coroner’s inquest yesterday heard how police failed
to carry out routine

prisoner checks and then fudged the logbook to cover their tracks. Roy Barnes, 47,
suffered a massive brain haemorrhage while he was being held at Southport watchhouse
in February 2008 and died in hospital a few hours later. During an inquest at Southport
yesterday Inspector David

Cole from the Ethical Standards Command said police had failed to record hourly prisoner
inspections for ‘‘a period of several hours’’ before a constable noticed
the error and wrote in the station logbook that the inspections had taken place.
A district inspector had been due to visit the facility that day.

The constable later confessed her actions and was disciplined along with two other
watchhouse officers on duty that night. ‘‘She made some entries that made it
appear as though it (inspections) had been completed,’’ said Insp Cole. Officers
interviewed during the

ethical standards investigation complained that the station had been short-staffed
that night and they kept an eye on the prisoners via grainy CCTV footage, rather
than making the physical inspections mandatory under police operational procedures.
Continued P2 »

31° Cairns Showers


30° Townsville Mostly fine

30° Rockhampton Mostly fine


Coast 27° Goldshowers Few

27° Sunshine Coast Few showers

24° Toowoomba Mostly fine


Brisbane
Shower or two

WEATHER P53»

RST

Picture: Tim Marsden