Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Shane Patton has been issued with two subpoenas to provide evidence in the criminal trial of CFMEU official Joel Shackleton, who is charged with threatening to kill the owners of an Indigenous labour hire company.
Defence barrister Lee Ristivojevic told Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday that Patton had recently been served with the subpoenas as part of a bid to establish his involvement, if any, in the investigation and charging of her client.
However, barrister Andrew Imrie, acting for Patton, said his client was not in possession of his work diaries and had no documents to provide in response to the subpoenas.
Imrie said Patton would be willing to make a statement upon his return from an overseas holiday on Thursday, but it was unclear on what evidence the former chief commissioner could offer that was relevant to Shackleton’s case.
“Chief commissioners get brief about things all the time,” Imrie told the court.
Barrister Ashleigh Harrold, acting for Victoria Police, said the force would also comply with subpoenas from Shackleton’s defence team.
Ristivojevic previously told the court that Victoria Police’s subpoena support department had refused to contact Patton, who was the state’s most senior police officer from June 2020 until February 2025.
“We intend to pursue Mr Patton as a witness for the defence. We’re obviously not getting co-operation from the current chief commissioner [to enable this],” Ristivojevic said on January 27.
“It’s very unusual, your honour. We’re trying to troubleshoot the stonewalling and lack of assistance from the current chief commissioner to serve a summons on a former chief commissioner.”
The court earlier heard Shackleton allegedly abused a man on a taxpayer-funded Big Build project run by civil contractor CPB in 2022.
Shackleton was charged in September over the incident, and police allege he threatened the owners of an Indigenous labour hire company, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Shackleton was charged with four offences for allegedly making the threats at Berwick on March 16, 2022.
They were the first criminal charges laid after the Building Bad investigation by this masthead, The Australian Financial Review and 60 Minutes, which revealed allegations of violent threats, intimidation and underworld infiltration of the construction union.
The case will return to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on June 2.
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