Latest news with #ShaneChelepy
Daily Mail
16-07-2025
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS New details emerge about man charged with manslaughter over the tragic drowning of a seven-month-old baby
The Queensland dad charged over the death of his seven-month-old baby boy who drowned in a lake at a popular camping spot has been identified. Jaye Lee Walton, 42, didn't appear in Ipswich Magistrates Court on Wednesday when his matter was heard for the first time. His lawyer Mark Butler indicated that his client would make a bail application when the matter returns to court on Thursday. Walton will remain in custody for a second night. He was charged with manslaughter on Tuesday, three days after a baby boy was pulled from the water at a campsite at Chatsworth, near Gympie, on Saturday morning. Multiple witnesses, including the mother, performed CPR on the baby before he was rushed to Gympie Hospital, where he died later that night. Queensland Police has released footage of Walton's arrest in the Ipswich suburb of Bundamba. A makeshift memorial dedicated to 'Joey' has since been set up at the Chatsworth campsite 213km away. 'RIP little one' a large banner read. Acting Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy described the baby's death was 'absolutely tragic'. 'My heart really does go out to everyone involved in that, including the emergency workers and the police that had to attend that job,' he told ABC Radio.
ABC News
16-07-2025
- ABC News
Jaye Lee Walton, charged with manslaughter over death of baby boy, has matter heard in court
A man charged over the alleged domestic violence-related death of a seven-month-old baby boy has had his case heard in court for the first time. Jaye Lee Walton, 42, did not appear in person as the manslaughter charge was mentioned in the Ipswich Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning. It is alleged Mr Walton committed the manslaughter of the young child while the infant had been staying at a campsite at Chatsworth, near Gympie, on Saturday morning. Police allege the man is known to the child and will face the charge with domestic violence as an aggravating factor. Emergency services were first alerted to the incident on Saturday morning, just after 10.30am, when the baby was pulled unresponsive from a lake by his mother. Police said the infant had been staying at a campsite, about 40 metres from the water's edge. Several campers performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The baby was taken to Gympie Hospital where he died later that evening. The child had been staying with his parents who were travelling back to their home in north Queensland. Mr Walton did not appear when the case was mentioned in court this morning. His lawyer, Mark Butler, told the court Mr Walton would be making a bail application tomorrow. The case was adjourned to the same court tomorrow, for that application hearing. Mr Walton remains in custody. Acting Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy told ABC Radio Brisbane the baby's death was "absolutely tragic". "My heart really does go out to everyone involved in that, including the emergency workers and the police that had to attend that job," he said.
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Domestic violence case management not ‘core business' of police, Queensland's top cop says
Domestic violence case management is not the 'core business' of policing, and other agencies should take on greater roles in this, Queensland's acting police commissioner says. The Queensland police service on Tuesday released a 100-day review of its operations and structure, finding that the police have been the victim of 'significant mission creep', with officers increasingly tasked with non-core functions such as mental health response, domestic and family violence case management, and prisoner transport. At a press conference on Tuesday morning – before the report was made public – the acting police commissioner, Shane Chelepy, said the state had seen the 'fundamental role of policing changing to [addressing] societal issues'. 'If you look at domestic and family violence and mental health issues and other social issues, our role of policing has expanded into those societal and social issues. What this report says is that's very important, but police are not the ones who are trained to do that,' he said. Chelepy said the police force needed to better define where its role starts and stops. Asked if parts of the response to domestic violence or mental health crises were outside 'core business', he said that police would still attend callouts, but would seek a clearer referral process to other agencies 'once we've done our job and kept the community safe'. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email He said there should be a greater role for 'wraparound services to reduce that repeat calls for service that we see'. 'The reality is, police are there to do policing. We're there to keep the community safe … there's a time in that response where the best support to be provided to the member of the public is through a specialist of another organisation, not a police officer.' The police minister, Dan Purdie, a former cop, said shifting resources back to crime detection and prevention would help QPS 'refocus on their core priorities of fighting crime'. 'I look forward to working with the other ministers and those departments through cabinet, and likewise, to build better systems to help our police refocus their attention on fighting crime,' he said. 'We need to build that capacity.' Purdie said the government was already making investments in other agencies to pick up the slack. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'Whether it's child safety issues or mental health issues our police cannot arrest their way out of that problem,' he said. The government recently introduced legislation into parliament to reduce the paperwork burden on police responding to domestic violence incidents – which are widely understood to represent a large proportion of their time on duty. If passed the laws would permit police to issue an on-the-spot order to an alleged domestic violence offender, a proposal that some experts fear could put vulnerable women at greater risk of harm. Queensland police commissioned officers union president, Kerry Johnson, and Queensland police union president, Shane Prior, welcomed the findings of the report, at the Tuesday morning press conference. 'I want to see places like child safety actually doing a 24/7 roster, much like police do,' Prior said. 'I want the Department of Health to actually start dealing with this mental health issue that we've got in society and not be left at the feet of police. Things have got to change.' The report makes 65 recommendations. Chelepy said they include reducing the size of the police executive leadership team from 44 to 26 and a reduction of the senior executive. No jobs would be lost in the change, he said. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Mental health support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. Other international helplines can be found via
ABC News
15-07-2025
- ABC News
Queensland Police Service 100-day review finds officers 'suffering burnout'
Queensland police officers are "stretched", "fatigued" and "suffering burnout" with many doing jobs of other government departments instead of protecting the community, a major review has found. The Queensland Police Service (QPS) has handed down its 100-day review into its workforce which contained 65 recommendations. Acting Commissioner Shane Chelepy said the review found staff were overworked and needed more support on the frontline. "This year we will see our staff attending to over 60,000 mental health calls for service. "That's in addition to the work that our staff do every day in keeping the community safe by arresting offenders and attending to calls for service." Acting Commissioner Chelepy said the review provided an "honest assessment" of the organisation and he accepted each of the recommendations. He said a key recommendation of the report is to restructure the QPS to allow frontline officers to have greater access to welfare and mental health support services. Under the proposed changes frontline officers will also have more autonomy to make decisions. "Decisions that affect the frontline and the decisions that affect the way that we deliver our policing services in our regions and in our stations shouldn't be made by Brisbane," Acting Commissioner Chelepy said. The review also found need to "realign the organisation" to focus on its core business of policing and keeping the community safe. "It finds that we're doing jobs that we shouldn't be doing," Acting Commissioner Chelepy said. "There's functions here where we have highly trained, very important, paid, sworn police officers doing that they don't need police powers to do." Under the restructure, the executive leadership team will also be scaled back, with resources rediverted to support its frontline staff. Acting Commissioner Chelepy said while it could take years to implement all of the recommendations, he conceded the issues facing officers are not unique to Queensland. "This is something that all police commissioners in Australia are grappling with… in fact, if you go into the UK you will see that these are also things that the UK have been dealing with." The review was conducted by the QPS commission and internal review team. There were more than 500 submissions made by police and 170 engagement focus groups and roundtables were conducted. Police Minister Dan Purdie said the government would work with the QPS to deliver its recommendations. "We need to return our police back to being a world class policing organisation and this report is the first step in doing that," he said. Queensland Police Union president Shane Prior said the review showed the force had "lost its way" due to significant job creep. "Police in this state are doing every other government department's job," he said. Mr Prior said he wanted the role of police in transporting and guarding prisoners to be limited. He told ABC Radio Brisbane the current situation was putting the community in danger because police were unable to attend the "jobs [they] need to". For example, he said at any one time, there could be up to 200 unresolved jobs in places like Logan that officers simply could not get to.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Latest technology for police amid crime crackdown
Police will be equipped with the latest technology as a state government maintains its crime crackdown in a milestone budget. Queensland's Liberal National government will commit nearly $150 million to police in Tuesday's budget, with new tasers, tyre deflation devices, body-worn cameras and tactical first aid kits to be deployed. "Things that can allow police to do their job and do them well," Premier David Crisafulli said on Monday. The budget will mark the LNP government's first since 2014 after it campaigned hard on crime to claim election success last year. The Queensland government's first eight months in power has introduced controversial "adult crime, adult time" legislation that ensures youth offenders are sentenced as adults on a range of charges. Its upcoming budget will feature $147.9 million to deliver more than 6500 state-of-the-art tasers and upgrade body-worn cameras with radios and livestreaming capabilities. The new tasers are key for the police force as they give officers four times the safe operating distance - around 14 metres - to deploy the device, Acting Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said. Queensland Police were the first to use the latest Taser model outside the United States when the device was first introduced in 2023 but now thousands more officers will be equipped. Other states and territories are also beginning to provide the latest model to their police force. There have been 2000 situations in Queensland this year where officers considered using force, with 400 cases of tasers being deployed, Mr Chelepy said. Police have used lethal force on five occasions, with one shooting death so far this year. "The reason tasers are so effective is that they actually prevent police from having to use lethal force when we're responding to these critical incidents," Mr Chelepy said. The budget will also feature funding to fulfil the government's election campaign promises, with $50 million over five years for four new or expanded Crime Prevention Schools. Gold Coast-based "Men of Business" is the first school to operate, expanded to grades seven to 12 to help divert kids from a life of crime. The government has committed to other schools in Townsville, Rockhampton and Ipswich. North Queensland, including Townsville and Cairns which are often touted as the state's crime capitals, will also receive a "significant" boost to prevention in the budget, Mr Crisafulli said. "It needs to be," he said. "Those regions have been front row of the youth crime crisis, and those regions will get their fair share and a little bit more to deal with the crime crisis." Other crime prevention initiatives including "Jack's Law", which was recently made permanent, will also receive budget funding to equip more officers with weapon-wanding devices. The legislation, named after teen Jack Beasley who was fatally stabbed on the Gold Coast, allows police to wand for weapons in nightlife areas, public transport and supermarkets. Treasurer David Janetzki will hand down the budget on Tuesday afternoon.
