A homicide unit of NSW police was sidelined from a watershed review examining the deaths of gay men spanning 25 years, an inquiry has heard.
The special commission of inquiry, in its second block of hearings, is probing the police approach to suspected hate crimes against LGBTQI people between 1970 and 2010.
Of particular focus is NSW Police Force's Strike Force Parrabell, a three-year review of 88 deaths of LGBTQI members from 1976 to 2000.
Its final report in 2018 concluded 23 deaths remained unsolved.
The special commission on Wednesday heard the former head of the now-defunct Bias Crime Unit raised concerns internally about the lack of resources devoted to Parrabell.
"Homicide have put no resources, money, equipment, time or effort into this review," Sergeant Geoffrey Steer wrote in an email.
"All they (homicide) did was agree to give us access to some of their holdings".
Counsel Assisting Peter Gray also pointed to an email from the Parrabell boss to Detective Inspector Craig Middleton in March 2017 about distancing the homicide unit from the taskforce.
"I don't think we should be asking now for any assistance from Homicide (UHT) because they have been criticised as homophobic, which whilst clearly ridiculous, is not something we want to now introduce to Parrabell," Assistant Commissioner Anthony Crandell wrote.
Mr Crandell on Wednesday defended leaving the homicide squad out in the cold, saying Parrabell's mandate was not to open cold cases anew.
Rather, it scrutinised police files of LGBTQI men found dead, to find discrepancies.
"It's not a re-investigation," he told the inquiry.
"A re-investigation means that you go back out, you review locations, you look for witnesses, you re-interview people in order to determine who the perpetrator is for an offence.
"That was not what Strikeforce Parrabell was doing. They were conducting a review."
It was not common practice to call on specialist teams, such as the homicide unit, when putting together a strike force, he said.
"If I had done that, it would be an escalation to a deputy commissioner to say 'Yes, we're prepared to supply those resources'," Mr Crandell said.
"I didn't think it was necessary at the time."
It comes after Mr Crandell was quizzed on Tuesday on the parameters of another strike force which was set up in 2015 to re-investigate three homicides: Ross Warren, John Russell and Gilles Mattaini.
Then-deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge in 2005 found the three men's deaths were "hate-related homicides", the inquiry has been told.
However, the 2015 police probe dismissed the coronial findings, finding other causes of death were as likely or more likely.
Mr Gray on Tuesday asked why, in light of the "those definite findings" by the coroner, the police probe was set up to re-investigate the three men's deaths.
"I don't know," Mr Crandell answered.
"I just can't tell you that I knew it was a re-investigation."
Interjecting, Commissioner Judge John Sacker said: "This could well be the first time you've heard that Neiwand (the strike force) was a re-investigation."
Mr Crandell replied "yes".
"I didn't and don't know the scope of Neiwand. I didn't have a lot to do with it."
The inquiry resumes on Thursday.
