A landmark inquiry is probing whether police investigators deliberately dismissed suspects in cold cases involving gay men being thrown off Sydney cliffs in the 1980s.
The special commission is examining several police strike forces formed to investigate suspected hate crimes between 1970 and 2010.
In focus are the workings of Strike Force Parrabell, a three-year review of 88 deaths of LGBTQI people from 1976 to 2000.
Its final report in 2018 concluded 23 deaths remained unsolved.
Current and former senior NSW Police officers are giving evidence about Parrabell and other strike forces such as Neiwand, Macnamir and Operation Taradale.
People identified by police as "persons of interest" were also not questioned by strike force officers re-investigating the attacks.
Counsel assisting the inquiry Peter Gray SC grilled former homicide squad commander Michael Willing over two days about the lack of "any attempt to pursue any of the 50 to 100 persons of interest" identified in previous investigations.
Strike Force Neiwand, overseen by Mr Willing in October 2015, was designed to look back at three deaths that occurred in the Bondi area between 1985 and 1990, when gay men were targeted, assaulted and forced off the cliffs by gangs of youths.
The covert operation was prompted after following leads in ongoing investigations in another strike force codenamed Macnamir.
Macnamir was established in February 2013 to reopen the cold case of US mathematician Scott Johnson, who was found dead at the bottom of cliffs at Manly in northern Sydney in 1988.
His death was initially ruled a suicide before the case was reopened in 2012 after pressure from his family.
A coroner in 2017 determined the matter involved human intervention.
In separate incidents Ross Warren, John Russell, and French national Giles Mattaini were found dead near a popular gay beat at Marks Park in Bondi.
Mr Gray laid out how police deemed their deaths not homicidal but leant more on theories that they were suicides.
The inquiry continues with Steve Morgan, who was an investigator on Neiwand, taking the stand.
