One hundred police redeployed to focus on Lawyer X, other operations ‘absolutely’ affected, top cop says

Approximately 100 Victoria Police staff, enough to staff run two 24 hour police stations, have been redeployed to the Lawyer X Royal Commission.

Among police redeployed to the royal commission are detectives, who would otherwise be investigating serious crimes.

“It affects the investigations that they would have otherwise been doing, absolutely,” Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

Mr Ashton admitted police operations will be affected by the redeployment of staff.

“We’ll have to absolutely adjust operations,” he said.

“Things like your voluntary duties, your overtime, that sort of stuff is where we end up making cuts.”

Mr Ashton said the task of procuring the information requested by the royal commission is enormous.

“It has been slow, but it has not been deliberately slow,” he said.

“It’s due to the amount of material that we’ve had to source and the challenges sourcing it.

“It’s not like we’re not committing staff to it.”

Press PLAY below to hear the full interview.