An experienced senior officer would complete an internal assessment of the police investigation. Commissioner Dawson wanted to ensure there were no unlawful or unfair methods used by police, and determine if there was an opportunity to put anyone who may be criminally culpable in front of the courts. "The tragic death of a seven-month-old, of course everyone in the community, me included, would want to see any person that may be criminally responsible to be put before the courts," he told Gareth Parker on Radio 6PR's Mornings program. "Clearly that is not the case presently and we'll make an assessment on whether or not we can put a person before the courts because the death remains unresolved in terms of any criminal culpability." He agreed the police interview in question had not been "entirely right" but said he would not jump to a conclusion that the use of the "imaginary friend" was a police tactic.

Justice Jenkins described the second police interview of the accused as “a confusing mishmash” before granting an application to exclude it. She found that during this interview with Mr O’Meara police planted the seed in the accused's mind that his imaginary friend, whom he called Alex, may have had something to do with the baby’s death. The Supreme Court judge said the accused was "very psychologically vulnerable and he was encouraged by the police to discuss the death of the deceased with an imaginary person to find out what happened to the deceased". "This has similarities to asking a paranoid schizophrenic to induce a psychosis to discover what had happened on a particular occasion," she said. She said the accused would have been very tired and hungry at the time of the second interview, and they encouraged him to tell police what an imaginary friend has said to him as though it was the truth.

Police had alleged Mr O’Meara reached into his son’s portacot and lifted him out over the side rails of the portacot by one arm, resulting in the forearm bone breaking and separating. The baby also received another two fractures to the wrist joint and elbow joint. The accused then attempted to settle and soothe the baby in his arms for 10 to 15 minutes with no success. He had then put his son back in his portacot and placed a bunched portion of blanket into his mouth to attempt to settle him and allow him to bite on something. The next morning the baby was found blue and cold in the cot. On Friday Commissioner Dawson would not directly answer a question put to him by 6PR’s Gareth Parker about whether his officers botched the investigation, but did say it "had not been entirely right". Justice Jenkins pointed to a range of factors that contributed to the decision to exclude the interview from evidence. These included that the accused had two seizures in the 24 hours before the second interview and had undergone what would have been a very stressful 2.5-hour interview late at night.