NO DRUGS ON EVE OF KILLING - PODESTA

Former police officer Rodney Podesta denied yesterday that he had
turned up in uniform and affected by drugs at a woman's flat the night
before the incident on Bondi Beach in 1997 when he and fellow police
officer Tony Dilorenzo shot a man dead.

Mr Podesta, answering questions at the Police Integrity Commission
(PIC) on the evidence of SA2, a woman who had been out with him,
denied he had gone out with her to nightclubs or that he had supplied
her with cocaine and used it himself.

He might have been at the Soho Bar at Kings Cross with Mr Dilorenzo at
1.30 am on May 10, 1997, but had "definitely not" been in a cubicle
with two other men.

Mr Peter Johnson, SC, counsel assisting the PIC, asked: "The person
outside the cubicle called for a person to emerge and the door opened
and you produced a police badge. Did that occur?"

Mr Podesta: "No, it did not."

Mr Podesta said he had met SA2 in 1997, "probably" before the incident
on June 28, 1997, when he and Mr Dilorenzo had shot dead Frenchman
Roni Levi.

The PIC, under commissioner Judge Urquhart, is inquiring into
allegations that Mr Podesta and Mr Dilorenzo were affected by drugs or
alcohol at the time of the shooting.

Mr Podesta told the PIC he had met SA2 at the Liberty Lunch restaurant
at Bondi, had dined with her the night afterwards, had gone home with
her and spent the night with her, but had not continued the
relationship.

He had in fact sought to avoid her and had thought she was "stalking"
him. If he had rung her, it would have been to tell her to leave him
alone. If he had seen her again, it would have been a long time before
the shooting.

Mr Johnson produced telephone records which showed that Mr Podesta had
been in contact with SA2 from February 7 till May 29, 1997. He had
rung 13 times in February, and six times in March. Some of the calls
had been in the early hours of the morning, such as 4.56 am, 4.50 am,
12.10 am and 5.21 am.

Mr Podesta said a lot of the calls would have been replies to her own
calls, when he had left a voice mail message for her.

Mr Johnson: "On the occasion you were at Liberty Lunch with her, you gave
her cocaine?"

Mr Podesta: "Rubbish."

You used it with her as well?: No.

You were out at the Byblos and Sugareef and you gave her cocaine when
you went to those clubs with her and you would use it as well on those
occasions?: Certainly not.

Mr Podesta, who resigned from the police service in March last year,
did say that when he went out to nightclubs in that period, he had
been seeking female company. He denied he had talked about his work as
a police officer to impress women.

He denied he had discussed his police work with SA2, or that he had
said he said he liked Saturday night shifts because it gave him the
opportunity to do drug busts on private parties and seize the cocaine.

Mr Johnson: "I suggest you supplied cocaine to persons at the Liberty Lunch
in the first few weeks you went out with her?"

Mr Podesta: "No."

The inquiry has adjourned to a date to be fixed, when it will inquire
into how the police service itself dealt with allegations against Mr
Podesta and Mr Dilorenzo.