Acquitted former assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby says the OPI became so obsessed with succeeding in its inquiry against him, it ignored the rights that witnesses are normally given in investigations.
A day after the collapse of the Office of Police Integrity's most high-profile case, Mr Ashby came out swinging and attacked the police watchdog over incompetency.
"This was supposed to be their flagship, chest-beating case to prove they had arrived," he told AAP on Wednesday.
"Their powerful coercive powers meant they could subpoena anyone, take away their rights and force them to give evidence.
"We were not afforded the right to silence like in a normal investigation."
Ashby was on Tuesday found not guilty of 11 counts of perjury after Supreme Court Justice Robert Osborn ruled the evidence given at the OPI hearings which resulted in the charges was inadmissible.
The OPI botched a million-dollar investigation in which it accused Mr Ashby, police union boss Paul Mullett and former police media director Steve Linnell of leaking confidential information into a murder investigation.
Mr Ashby reiterated his claims that Roads Minister Tim Pallas accepted union payments while working in government and had warned Mr Ashby in April 2007 that Mr Mullett's phone was being tapped.
Only the police minister should have known about phone intercepts and Mr Pallas, the then Premier's chief-of-staff, rejected the claims on Wednesday.
"They are totally untrue and unfounded. He will not respond further to such spurious allegations," a spokesman for Mr Pallas said.
Mr Ashby said current chief commissioner Simon Overland, former assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius and then OPI deputy director Graeme Ashton had conspired against him and Mr Mullett.
He also attacked the OPI for tapping the phones of his children and not being independent of Victoria Police.
"So is the OPI independent?" he said.
"They played selected phone taps and the most damaging conversations and not those that had positive comments about (former chief commissioner Christine) Nixon or Overland.
"It was quite an ordeal for myself, my family and my extended family.
"Even my 15-year-old daughter and teenage son's mobile phones were intercepted, my wife's and my office was bugged."
After the perjury cases against Mr Ashby and Mr Mullett collapsed, lawyers for Linnell lodged an appeal on Wednesday to quash his perjury conviction, after he pleaded guilty last year.
The appeal will be heard in June.
Premier John Brumby backed the OPI in upholding police integrity and "rooting out corruption", dismissing repeated calls for an independent anti-corruption commission.
"Their record is better than any comparable police integrity or crime body anywhere around Australia," he told reporters.
"When you look objectively over the history of the OPI, they have delivered results."
Late last year Mr Brumby announced a review of Victoria's integrity and anti-corruption watchdogs, which is believed to have been prompted by the OPI's failure in this case.
Opposition Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark called for an independent anti-corruption commission that could investigate the claims against Mr Pallas and the OPI, including that it shredded documents that would have damaged the government.
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