NSW Police Officer Pleads Guilty to Stealing Cash from Evidence Bags

The case of a New South Wales police officer who pleaded guilty of misconduct in public office after stealing over $200,000 in cash from exhibit bags over a five-year period has raised serious questions about the sufficiency of auditing and oversight within the state’s police force.

58-year old former senior constable Tracey Lee Butler was responsible for managing evidence exhibits at Mount Druitt Police Station when, in 2021, police could not locate $18,000 ordered to be returned to a defendant in a criminal case – funds which were subsequently found not to be the proceeds of crime.

An audit later found that a total of $209,730 in cash had gone missing from 43 separate evidence bags between 2017 and 2022 – money which should either have been returned to the owner or surrendered to the state.

Ms Butler initially denied being responsible for the missing money after being arrested at St Mary’s League Club in November 2022, despite being responsible for the processing, safekeeping and monthly auditing of the funds during the time in question.

When confronted with the allegations, she is reported to have told officers, ‘Who, me? I don’t know anything about that?’.

But the officer of 22 years eventually accepted responsibility by pleading guilty to the single count of misconduct in public office brought against her.

During the sentencing proceedings, Ms Butler’s criminal defence lawyers submitted that their client had suffered emotional harm and loss as a result of her actions, and was not fully aware of the consequences that might flow from her conduct, which they argued was the result of a gambling addiction.

However, the Local Court judge rejected those arguments by finding she was indeed aware of her actions and likely consequences, systemically covering-up her conduct in order to get away with it for so long.

‘Rather than faithfully executing her duties, she stole a large amount of money’, the judge stated. 

His Honour sentenced Mr Butler to two years in prison with a non-parole period of 18 months.

Her lawyers have filed an appeal against the severity of the sentence in the District Court of New South Wales in an attempt to achieve leniency for their client.

Ms Butler was suspended from the police force after her arrest and has now been dismissed.

Woefully inadequate oversight process

The case highlights the inadequacy of oversight processes within the New South Wales Police Force – in this instance, having a single person responsible for processing exhibits at the police station, as well as overseeing their safekeeping and providing monthly audits.

Such a process not only represented and continues to represent a conflict of interest, but enables fraudulent activity to occur for long periods of time as an unscrupulous individual is able to submit false audits after stealing from exhibits.

More questions than answers

The case also raises a number of other questions – including how often such conduct occurs across the police force and in what other contexts? What else has been stolen? Why haven’t proper processes been implemented in such an important context? 

And specifically in relation to Ms Butler, why was only a single charge brought, rather than multiple larceny charges for taking the money from the police station, fraud charges for dishonestly obtaining a benefit by deception, and producing false or misleading documents over the submitted false audits?

There is an argument such charges would have been brought if the offender was someone other than a police officer.

Despite the woefully inadequate processes evidently currently in place, resulting in a criminal charge, the New South Wales Police Force has remained unusually tight-lipped, scantily setting the facts of the case out on its social media pages but not accepting responsibility, let alone setting out proposed reforms. 

The offence of misconduct in public office in New South Wales 

Misconduct in public office is what’s known as a ‘common law offence’ in New South Wales.

While there is no specific legislation to cover common law offences, they can still be tried in a court of law, and judges use legal principles to reach a decision.

In that regard, courts have found “that it is an offence for a public official, in the course of or connected to his or her public offence, to wilfully misconduct himself or herself by act or omission without reasonable excuse or justification, where such misconduct is serious and meriting criminal punishment.”

Because it is a common law offence, the penalty for misconduct in a public office is ‘at large’, which means there is no prescribed maximum penalty.

Rather, the punishment is at the discretion of the sentencing judge, who will take into consideration a number of matters including, the seriousness of the offence, its level of sophistication, any breach of trust, any history of offending, any guilty plea, the timing of a guilty plea, as well as the prospects of rehabilitation in determining the appropriate penalty for the offence.