DRUGS CASE FAILS WITH NO EVIDENCE

A three-year Internal Affairs drugs prosecution has collapsed with police
withdrawing tainted evidence obtained in the largest-ever sting operation
targeting corruption.

Richard Gordon Tyler had charges of supplying and possessing one kilogram
of cannabis dropped on Thursday after Inspector Tony Trichter offered no
evidence on behalf of the police.

Mr Tyler's solicitor, Mr John Bettens, was awarded costs totalling $26,000
by the magistrate, Ms Christine Haskett, and police did not contest his
argument. It is now possible Mr Tyler will sue the Police Commissioner, Mr
Peter Ryan, for the trauma caused by his charging.

The Police Integrity Commission is also monitoring the case.

The unravelling of the Tyler case, first revealed in the Heraldlast month,
has led to other Internal Affairs prosecutions being urgently reviewed..

Mr Tyler was arrested in June 1998 in Young, in south-western NSW, as a
result of information obtained in an anti-corruption raid, Operation Banks.

Two police officers, including Detective Sergeant Terrence Fraser, were
suspended.

Late last year, following a 30-month Internal Affairs investigation
involving at one stage more than 80 officers, Sergeant Fraser was cleared
of corruption and his suspension lifted.

But he complained there were irregularities in an integrity test in the
days before his suspension.

The subsequent inquiry uncovered serious deficiencies in Internal Affairs -
and that an officer may have lied in supplying false and misleading
material to Justices Hubert Bell and Graham Barr to get the listening devices.

Mr Tyler's part-heard trial, which included evidence from 15 witnesses in a
case spanning more than a year, was then adjourned.

Because police offered no evidence on Thursday against Mr Tyler, Mr Bettens
has effectively been barred from getting documents police earlier showed
him that led to the case unravelling.