his lawyers applied for a stay on the charges<\/a> after discovering police had been discussing the case in a group chat on the encrypted messaging service Signal, which deleted the messages.<\/p>\nThe court found there was an irremediable abuse of the process, given that the evidence could not be retrieved.<\/p>\n
Group chat ‘totally unprofessional’<\/p>\n
The court previously heard the group chat included 12 officers, including one officer who was an alleged victim and others who were investigators on Papalii’s case.<\/p>\n
The chat, which began in 2022, was set to auto-delete, so no messages were kept.<\/p>\n
The existence of the chat was not disclosed, but emerged from an email where an officer made a remark that when the other officers received the CCTV footage of the incident, they should let him know “via Signal”.<\/p>\n
Papalii’s lawyer, Steve Boland, told the court at the time that the chat was “totally unprofessional”.<\/p>\n
“It raised the spectre that this is being used as a deliberate back-channel to communicate,” Mr Boland said.<\/p>\n
In applying to have the charges halted, Mr Boland raised the fact that law enforcement officers in other jurisdictions were banned from using technology like Signal.<\/p>\n
But prosecutor Marcus Dyason said that was not the case in the ACT, and suggested cross-examination could manage any potential concerns about what may have been said in the group chat.<\/p>\n
The officers involved in the group chat gave statements to the court, but none could remember specifics of any discussion in the chat about the incident involving Papalii.<\/p>\n
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