Ex-Cop Admits Relations Between NSW Police And Family Of Gay Hate Victim Became Adversarial

A former NSW Police homicide squad boss on Monday denied that he viewed the family of an American mathematician, who was the victim of a gay hate crime, as “opponents”.

A special commission that is inquiring into the unsolved deaths of gay men and trans women in Sydney between 1970 and 2010, questioned former deputy commissioner Michael Willing over the investigations into the death of US mathematician Scott Johnson. 

Johnson’s naked body was found on the morning of December 10, 1988, at the base of a cliff at Blue Fish Point, near Manly’s North Head on Sydney’s northern beaches.

Initially the death was closed as a suicide. The case was reopened in 2012, following requests from Johnson’s family, and the inquest returned an open finding. A 2017 inquest found that Johnson was a victim of a hate crime and was murdered.

The police arrested 52-year-old Scott White over the killing in 2020 and in February 2023, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. 

No Evidence, Claims Cop

Willing headed the homicide squad between 2011 and 2017. In January 2022, he was sacked by police commissioner Karen Webb.

Willing was asked about the police investigations and the conclusion reached by police detective Pamela Young that Johnson’s death was a suicide. 

The former top cop claimed he “ thought there was no evidence to indicate it was a homicide” and his own views had changed over time. 

He denied that he shared detective Young’s view that Johnson’s family was wrong to keep pushing the police to look into the death as a homicide. He rejected the view that he considered the family as opponents, but admitted that the relationship between the police and the family had become “adversarial”. 

Not A Game

He further added that Young was upset about the fact that he did not see it as a “ game” with a winner and a loser. Willing said Young had not discussed with him before giving an interview in 2015 to ABC’s Lateline that the cause of Johnson’s death was suicide and the case would not be solved. Young did not face any action over the unauthorised interview. 

At an earlier hearing before the commission in February, Willing had admitted that it was “ extraordinary” that Strike Force Neiwand in 2017 overturned the findings of an inquest into the 1985 gay hate death of French national Gilles Mattaini and the deaths of barman John Russel and TV news presenter Ross Warren, both in 1989. 

The police team reinvestigated the case and classified it was “inactive” and not to be revived, without talking to any persons of interest.