New South Wales Consolidated Acts

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION ACT 1988 - SECT 88

88 Offences relating to documents or other things

(1) A person who, knowing that any document or other thing is or may be required in connection with an investigation, wilfully destroys it or renders it incapable of identification or, in the case of a document, renders it illegible, indecipherable or unusable, with intent to prevent it from being used in connection with the investigation, is guilty of an indictable offence.

: Maximum penalty--100 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years, or both.

(2) A person who, with intent to delay or obstruct the carrying out by the Commission of any investigation--

(a) destroys or alters any document or other thing relating to the subject-matter of the investigation, or

(b) sends or attempts to send, or conspires with any other person to send, out of New South Wales any such document or other thing, or any property of any description belonging to or in the disposition of or under the control of any person whose affairs are the subject-matter of the investigation,

is guilty of an indictable offence.

: Maximum penalty--200 penalty units or imprisonment for 5 years, or both.

(3) A person who, with intent to delay or obstruct the carrying out by the Commission of any investigation, or with intent to mislead the Commission, fabricates any document or other thing is guilty of an indictable offence, if the document or other thing is produced in evidence to the Commission or is produced in purported compliance with a requirement under section 21 or 22.

: Maximum penalty--200 penalty units or imprisonment for 5 years, or both.

(4) If in any prosecution for an offence against subsection (2) it is proved that the person charged with the offence has destroyed or altered any document or other thing, or has sent or attempted to send, or conspired to send, out of New South Wales any such document or other thing, the onus of proving that in so doing the person had not acted in contravention of this section is on the person.