NO CHARGES should be recommended against anyone involved in the Iguanagate scandal including Belinda Neal and John Della Bosca under federal laws, New South Wales police have been told. A police spokesman said advice had been received from the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions this morning indicating no reasonable prospect existed of a successful prosecution for a Commonwealth offence.
It is believed the Commonwealth offences in question would largely relate to Federal Labor MP Belinda Neal, the wife of NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca.
The NSW DPP has yet to return its advice to police on whether any state laws could have been breached.
Both Ms Neal and Mr Della Bosca have been quizzed by police in formal interviews about their dealings with those who wrote statutory declarations about the night of June 6, during a night out at Iguanas Waterfront's restaurant on the Central Coast.
Staff accused Mr Della Bosca and Ms Neal of being threatening and Ms Neal of using abusive language when asked to move tables.
However, after the six staff - including Iguanas general manager Steve Twitchin, filled in and signed statutory declarations to that effect, Mr Della Bosca allegedly demanded an apology and helped word the one Mr Twitchin sent to him the next day.
Similarly, Ms Neal was investigated for her input into statutory declarations signed by her staff and their partners - who had been to the dinner in question - in response to the Iguanas statutory declarations.
One Neal staffer, Melissa Batten, claimed publicly on A Current Affair that Ms Neal had put pressure on them to omit aspects of her statement, including that Ms Neal had asked Iguanas staff 'Do you know who I am?
She and her husband Dave were the only two of Ms Neal and Mr Della Bosca's dinner companions who agreed to be interviewed by police, with five others declining police interviews.
Ms Neal and Mr Della Bosca themselves had only agreed to give the police written statements before pressure from their political bosses forced them both to agree to be interviewed by police.
