An ex-detective who sensationally claimed there was political interference in the case of a gay American mathematician has no regrets about police resistance to the possibility he had been murdered.
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Former detective chief inspector Pamela Young, an investigation supervisor on a strike force set up in 2013 to re-investigate Scott Johnson's death, says she stands by the initial NSW Police assessment that his death was the result of suicide.
The 27-year-old's body was found in December 1988 at the base of a cliff at North Head, a well known gay beat on Sydney's northern beaches.
In 2020, Scott Phillip White was arrested and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter, accepting legal responsibility for Mr Johnson's killing.
A broad-ranging inquiry into unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTQI people in NSW between 1970 and 2010 has been looking at evidence from three police strike forces, including the probe into Mr Johnson's death.
While working on that strike force, named Macnamir, Ms Young said she came to believe Mr Johnson's case was being favoured over others by the police minister.
She denied the police team was set up solely to defeat the family's theory the death was not a suicide, but she admitted to thinking the unsolved homicide squad's time could have been better used for other cases.
"I had to get over mentally that (the Johnson case) was given priority when I considered it should not have been," Ms Young told the inquiry on Thursday.
"But putting that aside, once the (police) investigation was active it deserved the attention that any other death deserved."
Following a coroner's 2015 ruling there should be an inquest into Mr Johnson's death, Ms Young gave a TV interview to ABC's Lateline.
In the interview, she controversially accused the police minister of "kowtowing" to Mr Johnson's family by establishing a fresh investigation.
Her comments were criticised by former deputy police commissioner Mick Willing, who previously told the inquiry he did not know about the sit-down interview and it was not authorised.
But Ms Young rejected his version of events as untrue and insisted Mr Willing was aware of the interview ahead of time, while standing by the statements she made in it.
"It was entirely appropriate, in my view, to tell the public that one next of kin was getting favouritism over 700 other next of kin, that is appropriate," she said.
Despite the initial police ruling of suicide, pressure from Mr Johnson's family, a series of inquiries and a $2 million reward sparked renewed interest in the case.
White was eventually sentenced to a maximum of nine years in jail for the killing.
Ms Young said she did not regret the stance taken by the police task force in resisting the theory Mr Johnson's death was a homicide and he still believed it was an exemplary investigation.
"Strike force Macnamir showed that it was not likely to be a marauding gang gay hate crime, which is what the Johnson family campaign mainly focused on," she said.
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