WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned the following article contains images of deceased persons.
The inquest is investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of the Indigenous teenager in November 2019.
Constable Zachary Rolfe was found not guilty of murder after a six-week trail earlier this year.
Rolfe’s former fianc├й, Claudia Campagnaro, appeared as a witness before the inquest today, claiming Rolfe told her he’d once faked injuries to justify punching someone during an arrest.
Campagnaro, a former police officer, also claimed Rolfe frequently failed to turn on his body-worn camera while on duty and used racist language to talk about Aboriginal people.
The couple met while working at Alice Springs Police Station in late 2017.
After less than two months they were engaged.
Their relationship lasted less than a year before Campagnaro ultimately quit the force.
“When we first met, he was very charming. I thought he was so kind and generous, and by the end he was just the total opposite of what I thought he was,” Campagnaro said.
She was questioned about the handling of use of force complaints.
“Were there any other times at Alice Springs Police Station when you were there where you heard of police officers covering up for each other about their use of excessive force?” counsel assisting the coroner Dr Peggy Dwyer asked.
“Did any of them involve Zach?” Dr Dwyer asked.
She recalled one conversation in which she claimed Rolfe told her he wanted to shoot someone so he could go on a paid holiday.
Campagnaro also testified that during her first month as a probationary officer in Alice Springs, she was tasked with interviewing a man who had been injured by Rolfe during an arrest.
That incident was later subject to an internal investigation and criminal court case in which a judge found Rolfe likely “deliberately banged” Malcolm Ryder’s head into the floor.
When asked what she’d been told about the incident, Campagnaro answered: “He (Rolfe) told me that a detective upstairs had scratched him so that in his use of force documentation he could say that’s why he’d used force on Mr Ryder.”
Dr Dwyer asked Campagnaro whether she knew why Rolfe hadn’t turned on his body-worn camera during the arrest.
“Did Zach tell you what he’d done that he wanted not to be on camera?”
Campagnaro told the court: “He punched him in the head while he was on the ground.”
Rolfe’s lawyer, David Edwardson, interrogated Campagnaro over why she hadn’t come forward with the allegations until after their engagement ended.
“What I’m putting to you is the reason you never told anyone is because it never happened,” Edwardson said.
“That’s not true,” Campagnaro replied.
Edwardon continued, asking: “You were prepared to allow Malcolm Ryder to go to trial knowing, as you say, that Zachary Rolfe has fabricated evidence, that’s what you’re telling us?”
“Well, I didn’t tell anyone,” Campagnaro said.
Campagnaro repeatedly denied any suggestions she had a “vendetta” against her ex-partner.
“This entire process has caused me nothing but grief and stress … I’m doing this purely to assist the NT Police and now the coronial process,” she said.
Rolfe is yet to appear before the inquest.
