Victoria Police culture and the suicide of Sergeant Shona O’Connor, Digi Mart USA News (Victoria, Australia): Victoria Police sergeant Shona O’Connor served as a police officer for more than two decades. On a November morning in 2019, she dressed in her police uniform, signed out her gun at her police station, drove an hour north to the town of Malmsbury and died by suicide in a toilet block in its botanic gardens after calling triple zero.
Her sister, Reschelle, says the family was broken from that day. Shona was 43, a mother of three, and had wanted to join the police force since preschool.
Jacob Laidlaw, the detective assigned to investigate her death for Victoria Police’s integrity division, Professional Standards, described her choice to die in uniform with her police gun as a “statement suicide”.
Hundreds of pages of court transcripts, coronial documents, internal police communications and handwritten police diary notes, reviewed by ABC’s Four Corners, describe a hidden culture of bullying, sexually harassing comments, theft and corruption. Shona’s family want the coronial investigation into her death reopened and have appealed to Police Commissioner Mike Bush.
Former officers described Melton police station as a sexist, heavy-drinking environment in the early 2000s, where new female officers were nicknamed “pee wees” and drinking on the job was expected. Almost three years before Shona’s death, Victoria Police issued a questionnaire to staff to investigate allegations of predatory behaviour at the station, which identified a concerning degree of inappropriate and derogatory behaviour, the force told Four Corners.
Shona told relatives that her senior sergeant, Simon Payne, made sexually harassing comments about her on two occasions, including a remark overheard by her inspector, Kathryn Rudkins. Rudkins denied overhearing the comments and denied that Shona made a complaint to her.
In her sworn statement to the coroner, she said she witnessed an incident that made her wonder about Payne’s conduct.
Shona also told her boyfriend and others that she had complained of bullying by Payne, including emails she considered unprofessional. Payne did not respond to requests for comment from Four Corners.
In the months before her death, Shona reported feeling unsupported by management, and three days before she died she told her father she had been berated by another manager and feared being sent back to Melton.
Laidlaw’s investigation into Melton began with other matters. He found that Payne had been spending police time on greyhound racing, and that sealed evidence bags had been cut and taped back together.
Nine months after Shona’s death, Laidlaw arrested Payne over allegations of misconduct in public office. An internal report warned that the property problems showed prima facie evidence of potential criminal conduct.
Laidlaw and a former intelligence officer, Frank Craig, say Professional Standards management tried to narrow and close the investigation, and that requests for additional resources were blocked. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush told Four Corners that the behaviour described in the internal report was “absolute criminality” and said the force should own its mistakes publicly.
Rudkins, who had moved to Professional Standards, exchanged hundreds of calls and texts a month with Payne before and after his arrest, and later moved their conversations to the encrypted app Signal. In court she acknowledged this was contrary to policy and said she had flirted with Payne but denied an affair.
She retired before an internal disciplinary investigation could be completed.
Inspector Daniel Baulch, another of Laidlaw’s superiors, directed him to narrow his investigation to theft and avoid Melton’s broader systemic issues, according to Laidlaw’s diary notes. A later internal review found this was a reasonable management decision but acknowledged the cultural issues were below the expected standard of any Victoria Police workplace.
Baulch, through his solicitor, categorically denied the allegations and said he did not seek to obstruct any investigation or bully anyone.
The coroner, Katherine Lorenz, did not hold an inquest, and her finding was provided only to the family and Victoria Police. Four Corners reports that some material, including a statement about the culture at Melton and Shona’s bullying complaint, was left out of the police’s coronial brief.
Laidlaw said the coroner’s conclusion that there was no evidence Shona had been bullied or harassed at work contradicted reports from multiple members. Victoria Police said it was asked to suspend work on the brief, and the coroner said her legislation requires avoiding duplication of concurrent criminal investigations.
A Victorian Coroner data analysis published last year found 35 suicides of Victoria Police employees between 2009 and August 2024, eight of whom also used their firearms. More than 70 per cent had work-related stressors, and bullying was the main recurring workplace issue identified.
Laidlaw, now retired due to ill health, is suing Victoria Police for workplace compensation and says he was bullied out of the force. Bush said the culture at Melton had been unacceptable and that leaders must act on inappropriate behaviour.
The O’Connor family intends to apply to have Shona’s case reopened.
