A much-heralded police review into 88 cases of LGBTQI people found dead in NSW is being forensically picked apart in a landmark inquiry.
Current and former senior police as well as academics have been giving evidence to a special inquiry about several strike forces, including Parrabell, Neiwand, Macnamir and Operation Taradale.
Strike Force Parabell is under particular scrutiny for its methods using a scale called "bias crime indicators".
Parrabell was established in 2015 to review 88 deaths that occurred between 1976 and 2000, which were potentially motivated by a gay-hate bias.
Former attorney general of Massachusetts Martha Coakley is set to give testimony on Friday because of her pioneering work on bias crime indicators which were employed by the review.
Parrabell's 133-page report published in June 2018 determined 27 cases were gay-hate bias crimes with eight confirmed and 19 suspected.
Some of the suspected cases that have been exhaustively pored over in the inquiry include the 1980s deaths of Ross Warren, John Russell and French national Giles Mattaini in Bondi.
The case of US mathematician Scott Johnson, who was found dead at the bottom of cliffs at Manly in northern Sydney in 1988, has also featured prominently in the hearings and in the media in recent years.
His death was initially ruled a suicide, only for police to reopen the case in 2012 after pressure from his family.
In the NSW Supreme Court last Thursday, Scott White pleaded guilty to Mr Johnson's manslaughter.
The inquiry has previously heard throwing gay men off cliffs near "beats" was a common tactic among assailants.
