“The Police Commissioner later apologised for the funeral.” That sentence in a news report caught my eye when looking into the case of Paul Reynolds, prompted by a former senior Tasmanian lawyer and police officer. That sentence was part of a report in news.com.au which also reported that “At the time of his death in 2018, Reynolds was being internally investigated by Tasmania Police Professional Standards – but that the investigation trailed off once he died by suicide.” Now the Tasmanian Greens want to resurrect it … You’ll be keen to know why the Police Commissioner apologised for the funeral. Read on …
This is how news.com.au reports it:
A senior Tasmanian police officer who groomed and abused boys for more than 30 years before taking his own life hid behind his status as a senior officer, a grim review has found.
Police officer and serial pedophile Paul Reynolds groomed at least 52 boys and sexually abused an unknown number of victim-survivors across 30 years until his life ended in 2018.
Only the highest police in the state knew that at the time Reynolds died that he was being investigated, and the long-time officer was still given a state funeral. [There it is…]
In 2023 the Tasmanian Police Commissioner ordered an independent review of Reynolds’ actions, to give victim-survivors support, and find what lessons the force can learn
The review report was published on in July 2024.
Barrister Regina Weiss found Reynolds used football and basketball clubs as a “hunting ground” for victims as far back as the 1980s, hiding in “plain sight” doing coaching, umpiring and administration.
Victim-survivors who came forward described Reynolds as funny and paternal. One person who was groomed and sexually assaulted by Reynolds as a teenager described him as “just the greatest groomer and ideal human. He was so charismatic everyone wanted to be around him”.
Another victim-survivor who was 15 in the 1980s said “he was my best friend. He was always crude and sexual in the way he spoke but he was the funniest man I knew. I trusted him – I thought he was the best bloke ever”.
Reynolds “ingratiated himself so convincingly as an upstanding member of the policing and sporting communities that,” it says in the review, “some members of the small communities he lived in to this day do not accept or believe that Reynolds had been capable of grooming and sexually abusing children”.
“It was his status as a senior police officer which facilitated the power imbalance that allowed Reynolds’ conduct to go unreported,” Ms Weiss wrote.
Tasmania’s Coronial Division conducted an inquest into the suicide deaths of four police officers – including Reynolds – in 2022. That Coroner’s inquest uncovered the extent of Reynolds’ actions. A few police told the review they found out at the time why Reynolds had killed himself, but others did not know the truth and later felt betrayed by the police establishment for the funeral.
The Tasmanian Greens statement says, in part:
Through information obtained using RTI and aired on the podcast this week, it has come to light that former Commissioner Darren Hine’s relationship with Paul Reynolds was much more extensive than previously understood by the public.
This new RTI shows that Mr Hine attended the Police Academy with Paul Reynolds in 1980, shows the two men started their career together at the Burnie station, and were again posted together at Burnie later that decade. Their friendship seems to have continued throughout their careers. As described by whistleblower Will Smith in 2024, Paul Reynolds “openly admitted that he had a very strong friendship with the Commissioner of Police”.
The independent Weiss Review noted that during the time both Hine and Reynolds were in the Police Academy, “loyalty to one’s policing colleagues usurped all”*. It also said “this impenetrable camaraderie assisted in concealing Reynolds’ conduct, intentionally or otherwise.”
The Greens do not make any allegations of wrongdoing by former Commissioner Hine. We do not allege he had any knowledge of offending by Reynolds at the time it occurred. However, given this long-standing relationship, and Mr Hine’s involvement in Tasmania Police’s poor responses to circumstances involving allegations made about Reynolds in 2008 and 2018, there are clearly outstanding questions.”
* That sentiment might be relevant in any examination of other cases …