CITATION: Col Dillon

The award has been given for the decisive leadership shown by Mr Dillon in his stringent criticism of the failures by the Queensland Government to provide a ‘Duty of Care’ to Aboriginal peoples, particularly those who are held in lawful custody. 

Further, the Award has been given for Mr Dillon’s determined efforts to ascertain the truth and full extent of the investigations that were supposedly carried out by the Crime and Misconduct Commission into the heinous crime of a pack rape committed on a female child whilst held in lawful custody at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre.

Mr Dillon has criticised the various departments, who are bound by statutory requirements to provide a duty of care, for failing to observe the unambiguous requirements of the recommendations arising out of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Col Dillon felt morally obliged to resign from and sever his connections with the Queensland Government over its continued interference with statutory departments, namely, the Queensland Police Service, Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, throughout the course of the investigations into the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee at Palm Island.

Col Dillon was the first police officer at the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry to make a public interest disclosure on corruption within the Queensland Police Force.