Neil Sands
Senior police unquestioningly accepted former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming’s denials when an ex-lover accused him of sex crimes, prosecuting her for harassment instead of properly investigating her claims, a damning report has found.
The report from the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), released late Tuesday, outlined “serious misconduct by a number of very senior officers”, including former commissioner Andrew Coster, which it said undermined the integrity of the entire force.
“Standard processes, including those intended to ensure that allegations against officers are handled with appropriate care and independence, were deliberately bypassed,” the report said.
“Senior officers adopted a stance informed not by an objective view of the facts… but by the narrative they heard from their colleague, deputy commissioner McSkimming, or second-hand from others.”
Fallout from the watchdog’s scathing assessment has been swift and wide-ranging. Police Minister Mark Mitchell announced the creation of a new oversight body — the Inspector-General of Police — and moved to strengthen the IPCA’s powers.
Police will also no longer make decisions about laying charges after an officer’s conduct is investigated, with the task given to a panel of senior counsel administered by Crown Law.
Coster, whose term as police commissioner ended in November last year, has been placed on leave from his new role as chief executive of the Social Investment Agency while it considers the IPCA report.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins KC said she also wanted to know why background checks only flagged concerns about McSkimming when he applied for the police commissioner’s role last year, not when he was appointed deputy commissioner in 2023.
Inexplicable, inappropriate, misleading
McSkimming resigned in May and last week pleaded guilty to possessing objectionable publications including child sexual exploitation and bestiality. Sentencing is scheduled for next month.
The case examined by the IPCA is separate, but its details were subject to suppression orders while the other matter was before the courts.
It concerns a woman, Ms Z, who McSkimming met at a sporting club and developed a sexual relationship with in 2016, when he was 40 and she was 21.
After the relationship ended around two years later, Ms Z began sending McSkimming emails which he viewed as harassment, then in 2023 and early 2024 she made anonymous complaints about him via a LinkedIn post and calls to the 105-telephone line.
The IPCA said these included allegations of sexual interaction without consent, threats to use an intimate visual recording, as well as misuse of a police credit card and police property to further a sexual relationship.
The watchdog investigated how police responded to the allegations. It made no findings about whether they were true.
When confronted with accusations against one of their own, the IPCA found the police responded with inaction and unquestioning acceptance of McSkimming’s account. It levelled particular criticism at Coster, two deputy commissioners and an assistant commissioner.
The LinkedIn post, made in response to an announcement McSkimming had been promoted, was not investigated, while the 105 calls were not referred to the IPCA as required by statute.
In February 2024, the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre – a joint police-health department initiative – found Ms Z’s emails contained allegations of potential criminal conduct by McSkimming and recommended referring them to the police integrity unit and the IPCA.
This was not done and instead police investigated Ms Z for offences under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, using her 105 calls as evidence in her prosecution.
“To be clear, what the Ms Z investigation team has done here is to take a report, submitted through the correct online reporting channels, and rather than ensuring it is handled by Police Integrity and Conduct group, as policy requires, have instead used it in evidence in a prosecution against the complainant,” the IPCA said.
It said one officer changed the prosecution’s summary of facts in the case to insert the word “false” before Ms Z allegations “because he thought that was what the victim (McSkimming) would want, without having taken a single step to investigate whether they were, in fact, false or otherwise.”
The IPCA described the officer’s actions as “inexplicable”, “Inappropriate”, and “misleading”.
‘Badly let down’
When the case was finally referred to the IPCA in October 2024, the watchdog said Coster tried to influence its investigation and was seen by some as pushing for a “premature and rapid conclusion” to avoid affecting McSkimming’s application for the commissioner’s role.
Police, under pressure for the IPCA, also began looking into Ms Z’s allegations at around this time, but the investigation was flawed because its terms of reference did not include speaking to the victim, the basic starting point of any adult sexual assault investigation.
It said senior officers’ main focus was ensuring the investigation did not interfere with McSkimming’s application to become commissioner.
The IPCA said Coster knew of McSkimming’s relationship with Ms Z during the 2023 process to appoint a deputy commissioner but failed to disclose it, and his disclosure during the 2024 process to find a new commissioner “fell well short” of what was expected.
The harassment charge against Ms Z has been dropped and Police Commissioner Richard Chambers apologised to her after the IPCA report’s release.
“She was ignored and badly let down. That was unacceptable,” Chambers said in a statement.
Chambers, who beat McSkimming in the race to succeed Coster, said he was shocked at the report’s revelations, which “showed a total lack of leadership and integrity at the highest levels of police”.
“The usual integrity checks and balances were bypassed, there was interference from the highest levels, and the ambitions of a senior police officer were put above the interests of a vulnerable woman.”
He said most of the officers involved were no longer with the police but accepted strong measures were needed to ensure accountability and integrity.
Chambers said one of the most disappointing aspects of the case was the deliberate failure by a small group of senior leaders to follow protocols for dealing with sexual violence complaints.
“The absolute worst outcome of this would be if anyone did not feel safe in reporting sexual assault to police, or did not think police would listen and investigate thoroughly — I want to reassure you that is not the case,” he said.
The IPCA’s decision is welcome scrutiny of senior police. The IPCA as chaired by the very able Judge Johnston KC; it is performing an important role, and this decision will give the public confidence that the watchdog is effective (which, regrettably, in my experience acting for clients, has not always been the case).
Like all large organisations, the bulk of the police force do their job competently, and they perform a vital public role in maintaining a civilised society. The bulk of the police force has been badly let down by these senior officers, and it is disgraceful. However, zealotry, one-eyedness and protection of their own remain systemic problems, noting as RNZ reports that about 120 staff are under investigation after 30,000 alcohol breath tests were “falsely or erroneously recorded”. With this going on, the pressure will come back on lawyers to carefully scrutinise what should be routine policing (overburdened judges, take note). Police leadership needs to act decisively to restore public confidence in the force.
How such flawed people can be advanced to high-level public positions is a problem New Zealand needs to face squarely: these sorts of promotions are largely decided on the basis of soundings and sponsorship – even when there are formal processes of vetting and interviews, I suspect the people who percolate to the top get there mostly on the basis of the support they can muster and on the opinions from a few within a closed circle of privilege and power. Nor, it appears, can you rule out preferences at the political level or at senior levels of whatever branch of government is involved (based for example on the ‘soundness’ of the candidate’s views of cultural and other matters, not directly related to their competence).
We are a small country and, as such, appointments to senior positions can reflect the often insular and self-perpetuating nature of power in a small community. We need to change to a system for appointments to senior positions in all branches of government, including to the rank of silk and the judiciary, to a process of independent panels whereby candidates can be properly put through their paces before receiving promotions or appointments. The models for this already exist in other countries, particularly in England, and although different methods of appointment will not solve the problems of human frailty and imperfection, we may get an improvement. Sometimes having people assess candidates who are not in the loop of the club can give valuable insights into candidates. However, I will not hold my breath for an improvement in the near future, because it will involve people already senior in post and politicians giving up their control of such appointments (whereby the thumb can be put on the scale to reflect their political preferences).
I suspect this issue with senior police will, again, be attributed to individual failings of character rather than seeing it as a systemic problem relating to how we appoint such people, and on what criteria. The result of which, for the police on this occasion, could not be much worse.