Mr Lawrence has reported the Channel 10 story, which was presented by Hugh Riminton on Monday, to the Australian Press Council and The ABC’s MediaWatch.

The five minute segment claimed crime incidents have dropped in Dubbo since Superintendent Peter McKenna arrived in the Local Area Command. 

The experienced barrister features in the segment talking about proactive policing and how Dubbo can benefit from a drug rehabilitation centre, a drug court and a Koori Court. These are messages Mr Lawrence has spoken of throughout his political campaigning. 

Mr Lawrence told The Daily Liberal Mr Riminton made no effort to present the facts. 

“In fact he represented a completely misleading story, it was worse than worthless, it’s just really damaging to have false statements in relation to a really complex area of social policy,” he said. 

“In retrospect I wish I hadn’t participated in the story.” 

A spokesperson for Network Ten said they had received a complaint from Stephen Lawrence about a story covering crime rates in Dubbo. 

“The statistics we used were based on data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR).

“Mr Lawrence has indicated he thinks we should have used a different statistical process, but even using the statistical process he prefers, crime in the categories we reported is still significantly down since Superintendent McKenna arrived in Dubbo.

“We take great care in our reporting and believe the story was fair and accurate,” the spokesperson said. 

Mr Lawrence said he was was asked to be interviewed by the high profile current affairs program in June. He accepted the invitation and sent Mr Riminton the Dubbo crime rates so the reporter had background for the story. The Daily Liberal has seen a copy of this email and the background information provided.

“I knew from talking to him that he was going to be presenting an angle [about] a socialised new approach to policing in Dubbo since last December was going to lead to huge reductions in crime,” he said. 

“I said to Hugh if the premise of your story is what has been the effect of this new approach to crime, then you are limited by the stats in two ways. The stats only go up to March which is useless [and] the stats from December to March do not show a drop in crime.

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“I tried to put out the perspective which is that if you look over the five years, crime is stable.”

Mr Lawrence has indicated his dissent about Mr Riminton, labelling him #fakenewshugh in a statement on social media.

“I spent considerable time preparing detailed, factual and statistical material for Hugh that showed the entire premise of his story was false,” he wrote on Facebook on Monday evening.

“He ignored it and instead used statistics that were up to two years old to present a completely false narrative. It’s rare I come across such bad journalism.” 

Did you see the report on The Project on Monday night? What did you think? Email grace.ryan@faifaxmedia.com.au