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At 7pm on 3 January 2023, New South Wales police received a triple zero call reporting that a woman was “being bashed” behind the Salvation Army building in Ballina.

“I’m just letting you know, there’s a woman getting bashed behind Salvation Army in Ballina and that’s all I got to say I don’t want to be reported or anything,” the caller said.

Almost six hours later, the woman’s partner of five years, who would later be convicted over her death, walked into the Ballina police station. He said he thought his partner, Lindy Lucena, was dead. He then led the police to a covered area at the side of the Salvation Army building, where they found her body.

What happened in the hours between that first call being made and Robert Huber leading police to 64-year-old Lucena’s body was investigated by the independent police watchdog, after concerns were raised by her family and Greens MP Sue Higginson.

On Tuesday, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Lecc) handed down its final report. It made no findings of misconduct but found there was an inadequate police response after two officers attended the scene, but did not get out of their respective cars, while Lucena was lying nearby, either dying or dead.

The Lecc report found systemic issues may have contributed to the delayed response.

Delayed response

Three minutes after the emergency call was made, it was logged in the police dispatch system as a priority 2 job.

Police procedures require all “reasonable efforts” to be made to broadcast a priority 2 job within 90 seconds, the report stated. But the first broadcast was made seven minutes after the call was logged, at 7.10 pm, due to a mistake by a dispatch assistant.

The job was broadcast a second time at 7.24pm and a third time at 7.34pm, despite it being required that a reasonable effort be made to re-broadcast an unanswered priority 2 job every 60 seconds.

The commission found that how police prioritised jobs on the evening was “appropriate”, noting the two officers who responded were caught up responding to a minor road accident.

The report said the officers “were also influenced by the fact that only one person had called police to report the assault, which led them to presume the assault was not serious or had stopped”.

However, when the two officers – who were not named in the report – responded 45 minutes after the first broadcast, they did not get out of their cars to search the area.

“Officers C and D attended in separate cars and drove slowly down Holden Lane. Within 3 and a half minutes, the officers had called back on duty, stating they had seen nothing,” Tuesday’s report stated.

The watchdog found the failure to get out of the cars amounted to an “inadequate police response”.

“Officers C and D certainly were not aware that Ms Lucena had been seriously assaulted and was perhaps already deceased within metres of their police vehicles, hidden behind the fence,” the report stated.

“The decision to drive along the lane but not get out of the car does not give rise to a potential criminal offence, nor does it warrant serious disciplinary action. It did not meet the minimum standards of policing, but nor is it serious misconduct.”

The report concluded: “It is not open to the commission to find that had the officers left their cars, they might have saved Ms Lucena’s life.”

Officer C said during the investigation that, although he wished he had gotten out of the car, he didn’t think there was anything procedurally he should have done differently. The other responding officer, D, refuted the suggestion that they should have walked around the building.

Huber, 69, was acquitted of murder but convicted of Lucena’s manslaughter in July 2025. He was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison.

Justice Stephen Rothman found Lucena likely died “at or about 7.20pm” or “just after 9.30pm” from a combination of factors and not just the wounds from the beating.

The police watchdog found that the acting assistant commissioner Tracy Chapman and other senior officers seriously considered declaring Lucena’s death a critical incident investigation – typically declared when a person is seriously injured or dies during a police operation.

A critical incident investigation was not declared, and Chapman did not document her decision on what’s known as a P1179 form. The watchdog found this did not amount to serious misconduct, although it did note that the force gave a “misleading” response after it requested to see the P1179 form and was told it had “no obligation to do so” – rather than revealing there wasn’t one.

Police commissioner’s comments ‘misconceived’

In February, legal counsel for the police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, made a submission to the Lecc inquiry.

It warned the watchdog against subjecting officers to an “unfair public attack” and stated that officers had done their best under “trying circumstances”.

Barrister Tim Smartt dismissed preliminary recommendations by the commission, writing that the cost of implementation outweighed “any benefit”. He argued the Lecc should “vindicate the conduct of police” in the “kind of terms” used by counsel assisting the commission, Emma Sullivan.

Sullivan had noted during the investigation’s hearings that the night of Lucena’s death had been particularly busy for officers who responded to a large number of call-outs. She described the officers as hard-working, professional and having undertaken their jobs to the best of their abilities under significant pressure.

Smartt warned the commission to be careful in its language so as not to give the public the impression that different actions by police would have saved Lucena’s life.

Tuesday’s report stated that the police submission was “misconceived” and “the fact that the investigation found no serious misconduct on the part of officers does not mean that the investigation was not justified”.

NSW police said in a statement on Tuesday that it would consider the report and final recommendations.

The watchdog’s recommendations included an urgent review of radio room operations and critical incident guidelines.

Commissioner Anina Johnson said in a statement after the report was released: “One of the challenges of policing is that any one job may mean the difference between life and death. But for police on the ground, it may not be clear which job that will be. All jobs need to be done diligently.”

“This investigation showed the difficulty of police work and also provides an opportunity to strengthen how police respond to future events,” she wrote.