Barnes had previously been the Aboriginal Legal Aid solicitor for two families before the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. On the first day of the inquiry the Coroner also disclosed that he had headed the complaints section of the Criminal Justice Commission in the early 1990s, when several complaints had been made about Hurley, but he had not handled the investigation and could not remember the complaints. Although he had not been involved in the investigation, Barnes was the officer who made the final determination that the complaints were unsubstantiated.
