According to Barry Urban, the
horrors he witnessed while investigating war crimes in the Balkans as part of a
1990s United Nations mission still have a chilling effect on him two decades
later.
"When you go into a town and
you see bore water on the side of a wall of limestone, it is not bore water; it
is actually blood," the now former WA MP told the state's most powerful
parliamentary committee.
"I can tell you more gory
stories of fields where DNA [was] 100 metres apart, body parts, where it was
just artillery fire."
Mr Urban, elected to State
Parliament in an upset result in the seat of Darling Range as part of WA
Labor's 2017 landslide, had long maintained he was seconded from England's West
Midlands Police to investigate atrocities linked to the conflict in the
Balkans.
But the Procedure and Privileges
Committee, tasked with investigating his qualifications and claims, found
serious holes in that story.
Barry Urban's
unproven claims:
·
He had a
degree from the University of Leeds;
·
He had a
Certificate of Higher Education in Policing from the University of Portsmouth;
·
He had
completed nine out of 10 modules of a Diploma of Local Government;
·
He was
seconded from West Midlands Police in 1998 and served with the United Nations
mission in the Balkans, where he provided security for a team investigating war
crimes;
·
He was
posted a service medal by UK authorities;
·
He
subsequently lost such medal;
·
He was
entitled to wear such a medal; and
·
He was
under a genuine but mistaken belief that he was entitled to wear a replica
police overseas service medal.
He said he served in a team of
six British police officers, but could not name one of them or even say where
they came from.
He was asked if he could name a
commanding officer of the task force. The best he could offer was there was a
"General Molineux" there.
Perhaps coincidentally, Molineux
is the name of one of the biggest football stadiums in the British police
district in which Mr Urban actually did work.
A list of West Midlands officers
who went to Bosnia did not include Mr Urban's name.
The only bit of evidence he could
provide to the committee was a 1998 policing career review, which noted a
posting to Bosnia was an aim he had.
Mr Urban said the person who
wrote that, plus other senior West Midlands officers from the time, would
verify his claims.
They did not.
The now-retired officer who wrote
that 1998 review told the committee:
"You could not
always trust everything he said. I have a feeling it's all baloney,"
"I'm absolutely convinced he
never went to Bosnia," another former superior said.
The committee, who recommended Mr
Urban's expulsion from Parliament, agreed.
And they found the alleged
Balkans mission was not the only matter about which Mr Urban lied.
'Sounds like a load
of nonsense'
The committee
found claims he had completed a diploma through the WA Local Government
Association were incorrect, and he
was also found to have lied extensively about the "fake medal"
that kicked off the whole scandal late
last year.
He had initially claimed to have
completed postgraduate studies at Portsmouth University, but later admitted not
having ever stepped foot on the campus.
Mr Urban claimed all it took for
that "qualification" was for him to submit his police probation file.
But the university has no record
of him, or of anything like that course existing, and former police force
colleagues outwardly mocked the suggestion when queried.
So too was his claim to have
earlier secured a degree from Leeds University.
That institution had no record of
him, a close work colleague from the time said it would have been
"impossible" for Mr Urban to do that, and a newspaper listing of
graduates at the time did not list his name.
Mr Urban provided a document he
claimed was his degree. The committee saw it differently.
"Given that
the committee has established beyond reasonable doubt that the member has not
been awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours, [the document] can only
and must necessarily be described as a forgery," committee chair and house
Speaker Peter Watson told Parliament.
That forged document was also
provided to other organisations in an illegal act, Mr Watson stated.
With five key claims made by Mr
Urban both in Parliament and before the election all found to have been
thoroughly debunked, the committee found the situation was beyond repair.
"The committee is of the
view that the Member for Darling Range has demonstrated a pattern of serial
dishonesty and deception for at least two decades," Mr Watson said.
"The committee does not
consider that [Mr Urban] is the person he represented himself to be."
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