Police have apologised to a leading academic researcher after he was banned from accessing police data critical to his work around gangs and deemed unfit to conduct research because of his "affiliations" with them.
In a statement on Monday, Strategy deputy chief executive Mark Evans said police had reviewed the comments made by Dr Jarrod Gilbert in relation to the research application made by Independent Research Solutions in 2014 and have since apologised.
Mr Evans said while other members of Dr Gilbert's team were cleared by police vetting, police accepted that a mistake was made that did not fully take into account the nature of Dr Gilbert's research proposal, and the reason that his links to gangs were likely to show up.
"I have now written to Dr Gilbert explaining the police position and confirming that there are no issues with him having access to the requested data for this project following further consideration of all the circumstances," he said.
