Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies quits

FIRST WITH NEIL MITCHELL

Victims of Crime Commissioner and former Victoria Police Association boss Greg Davies has quit.

He told Neil Mitchell he has resigned as Commissioner after four years and will finish up on New Year’s Eve.

“All good things must come to an end,” Mr Davies said.

“We’ve got a new parliament, a new government, a new system that’s been proposed for assisting and compensating victims of crime and my appointment was due to expire in March of next year so it seemed to me fairly logical.”

Mr Davies says he had a number of frustrations and wished he could have achieved more in his time as Commissioner.

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

“Compared to what we spend in other areas they (victims) get very little. So there’s a lot of frustrations in that area for me.” – GD https://t.co/Q4gSBGSlcH

— 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) December 13, 2018

Mr Davies says on average going through the Victims Assistance Tribunal takes nine and a half months.

“In NSW it takes 26 days.” https://t.co/Q4gSBGSlcH

— 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) December 13, 2018

Neil also asked Mr Davies when he became aware of the Lawyer X scandal.

“I think it was close to general knowledge between journalists, many police, many people in the legal profession, pretty much at the time it was happening,” Mr Davies said.

NM: Did it concern you when it was happening?

GD: Absolutely.

NM: Why?

GD: Because you could see it was a house of cards being built. You could see it was going to collapse and all the good press that was sought by it would not only be undone but be undone with a fair bit of GST put on it.

Mr Davies began his career in Victoria Police in 1977, reaching the rank of Senior Sergeant before becoming the head of the legal department and eventually secretary of the Police Union.