False claims by Kristina Keneally’s ex-police officer son to blame for wrongful jailing, NSW government tells court

The New South Wales government has conceded in court that a man spent weeks in jail because fabricated evidence from an ex-premier’s police officer son resulted in his malicious prosecution.
Luke Brett Moore was jailed for three weeks in February 2021 after a false statement by now-former police officer Daniel Keneally, son of former premier and senator Kristina Keneally, claimed Moore had threatened to kill a police officer at Sydney’s Newtown police station.
The activist and founder of ISuepolice was later released on bail and the charge dropped, due to a recording of the conversation made on his phone.
The state will concede he was maliciously prosecuted, the NSW supreme court was told on Friday.
“It doesn’t concede that the malicious prosecution involved more than one officer,” a lawyer for the state of NSW said.
Moore is weighing a response to the state’s amended defence, received late on Thursday, his lawyer said.
His civil suit against the state returns to court in February for a review.
Keneally avoided jail when he was sentenced to a 15-month intensive correction order after being convicted of fabricating evidence, later resigning from the police after losing an appeal against his conviction in June.
That appeal’s failure allowed the state to concede a malicious prosecution, the court was told on Friday.
Keneally was charged in October 2022 after the NSW law enforcement conduct commission investigated an internal police probe which initially cleared him of wrongdoing.
The commission’s report into the case, released earlier in August, recommended introducing telephone systems in police stations that can record conversations.
Newtown police station already had such an ability, but Keneally did not know, the report said.