This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A complaint from the construction union to the commonwealth ombudsman paints an extraordinary picture of heavy-handed tactics by special police taskforces, including a police officer allegedly warning one unionist he knew his children’s names and what time he dropped them off to school.

The letter, sent by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) on Tuesday, complains that police repeatedly attempted to question witnesses without their lawyers present and, in one case, demanded a junior employee grant access to union headquarters during a raid without first showing her a warrant.

The union’s complaint alleges that when the Australian federal police searched the ACT branch’s headquarters on 25 August, one officer told the branch secretary Dean Hall, “I do know about your family things”, to explain how he knew his wife’s name.

“Like, I know your kids’ names and their ages and where they go to school and when you drop them off,” the officer is said to have told Hall. “What do you expect? I am profiling you.”

The union’s lawyer, Phillip Pasfield, told the ombudsman these alleged statements were intimidatory, unwarranted and designed to threaten Hall, who was “extremely upset” about the incident.

In December the Australian Capital Territory supreme court ruled that the raid was unlawful because police withheld information from the magistrate in order to get the warrant.

The CFMEU complained that the officer in charge of the raid told building industry participants that he would prefer to make workplace agreements with the Master Builders Association, not the CFMEU.

“The CFMEU is extremely concerned that the officer concerned ... has engaged in taking sides in industrial matters between employers and the CFMEU,” the union said.

That politicised any possible legitimate investigations, the union said.

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The union said that in a search of the CFMEU’s Queensland headquarters on 19 November, police demanded to be let in by a junior employee at 7.30am, refused to allow her to call officials and did not show a warrant until after forcing entry.

When the employee went inside to search for the branch’s officials and make a telephone call, five or six police officers entered the office by removing security bars and stepping over the reception counter, the letter said.

“The police officers began shouting at the female employee to get off the phone,” the union said.

Only then, after the employee “was extremely traumatised and frightened”, did the police produce a warrant, the letter said.

The union said the officers’ actions were inappropriate intimidation and bullying of the employee, and it should have been obvious she was not in a position of authority and merely wanted to clarify with an official what she should do.

The CFMEU’s complaint included details of police interrogations of witnesses in Queensland during investigations into alleged document destruction by other officials at the branch.

The union included its submissions in reply to the royal commission, which allege police told at least two witnesses they did not need to speak to their lawyers after the union employees asked to do so.

There were further allegations that in one case, police then questioned a witness for 75 minutes without lawyers present and without warning her she was not required to answer questions. In the second case, it was alleged the police terminated the interview when the witness insisted on a lawyer being present.

On 14 May a builder objected to CFMEU Queensland organiser Justin Steele attempting to access a site.

While the AFP investigated and prosecuted Steele for assault over the incident, charges that were later dropped, officers wrongly gave him the impression he was obliged to attend the police station and did not warn him he would be charged if he refused an interview, the union claimed.

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Police even allegedly executed a search warrant on Steele’s lawyers to investigate whether they had engaged in criminal extortion by warning the builder they were considering bringing proceedings to show the builder had unlawfully denied Steele entry to the site. Pasfield described the alleged extortion as a “scandalous accusation”.

The union claimed the AFP deliberately misled a Fairfax Media journalist by saying a CFMEU official had been “raided” on 2 December then changed its story to say the raid related to the official but was not a raid on his or her property. This was done to “destroy the reputation of the official involved”, it said.

In another incident, the CFMEU said the union police taskforce provided false information or failed to correct journalist Stephen Drill, who incorrectly reported Victoria police’s union taskforce Heracles had raided the CFMEU’s Victorian headquarters.

Special taskforces investigating unions were set up in the AFP, and Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria police to support the trade union royal commission. After the royal commission concluded in December 2015, these taskforces continued to operate.

The union explained it had addressed the complaint to the ombudsman because “given the antagonism exhibited by certain members of the AFP [it had] no confidence AFP professional standards would deal with the complaints in a fair, unbiased and independent manner”.

Pasfield asked the ombudsman to investigate the serious complaint against the AFP “as soon as practicable, given the ongoing operations of the trade union taskforce”.

An AFP spokeswoman told Guardian Australia: “This matter is with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and it would not be appropriate for the AFP to comment.”

Queensland and Victoria police have been contacted for comment.