Neil Sands
The number of security incidents at courthouses across New Zealand spiked by 40% during the past 12 months, Justice ministry officials have revealed, admitting the courts are becoming an increasingly dangerous environment.
Secretary for Justice Andrew Kibblewhite acknowledged safety issues at courthouses were creating concern across the legal profession but denied that government budget cuts had resulted in fewer frontline security staff.
Kibblewhite told Parliament’s Justice Select Committee that security staff numbers had increased from about 160 when he joined the ministry in 2019 to “the high 300s” currently.
“That’s because the courts have become a more dangerous space, to be honest,” he told the committee during an end-of-year review.
“We’ve got more incidents occurring in the court space. And I think if you went to the profession now, they would say they were more apprehensive and concerned than they have been previously.”
Under questioning from MPs, the ministry’s deputy secretary for corporate services, Kelvin Watson, detailed the dramatic rise in incidents.
“In the 2022-23 year, we had just under 2,500 incidents across the country and in the last financial year we had about 3,500, so it gives you an indication of the type of increase that we’re seeing in terms of the incidents in courthouses.”
The officials did not provide a breakdown of the types of incidents or offer an explanation about why they have soared 40% in 2023-24.
No security cuts
Kibblewhite said the government’s demand for a 6.5% expenditure cut across the public service had not affected security staffing, saying there were plans to hire an additional 20 personnel in the current financial year.
“We did not take that [budget funding] out of the court security workforce,” he said.
Andrew Kibblewhite
“We’ve looked at our national office functions, we’ve looked at how we work together in the national office space, but we didn’t take it out of the frontline resources, including on court security.
“In fact, we’ve been increasing our numbers of court security, so that, I hope, is of some reassurance to you.”
Asked if the travel budget to deploy security officers to courts across New Zealand had been cut, Kibblewhite replied: “No… we make sure they’re where they need to be.”
“We have a model that we’ve worked up that helps guide us where we deploy the security workforce,” he said. “It takes into account risk. It takes into account practicalities of operating a court. It’s an area that we absolutely take seriously in terms of ensuring and investing in the safety of [courts].”
Concerns raised
The Law Association has highlighted courthouse security issues in the wake of attacks on lawyers.
In early September, an Auckland barrister waiting in a corridor at the Auckland District Court was punched to the ground, kicked in the head and stomped on by a 25-year-old female client with mental health problems.
She suffered severe bruising, cuts, a black eye and a torn ligament in one of her fingers before a nearby police officer managed to detain her attacker until court security arrived.
And in March 2023, family lawyer Brintyn Smith was brutally beaten in a lift at Whangārei District Court, resulting in injuries he described as life changing.
In addition, the committee heard that WorkSafe had issued a “sustained compliance letter” about breaches relating to the dock and public gallery areas of Wellington and Napier.
Further details were not supplied to the committee but Watson said both issues had been addressed. WorkSafe told LawNews it could handle a request for further details only as an Official Information Act application, a process that can take months.
However, according to RNZ reports, spectators scaled a barrier and attacked a defendant in the dock at the High Court at Napier in September 2023 and a brawl erupted in the High Court at Wellington in February 2024, when a murder victim’s family attempted to reach the accused.
A meeting facilitated by The Law Association at the Auckland District Court in November resulted in lawyers calling for CCTV in lifts and stairwells, citing the experience of Smith, who has described elevators without cameras as a security “blind spot”.
Watson said the ministry was examining the issue but it was not possible to install cameras in some lifts
“There are some limitations to putting cameras in lifts. Many of our lifts don’t have the ability to actually put cameras in. The old the cabling is problematic to put in,” he said.
“We do have cameras in the Christchurch District Court, part of the big precinct there. That’s the only one that has cameras in at the moment.”
Watson said the ministry was also considering acting on another concern raised at the Auckland meeting – the use of frosted glass in interview rooms, which prevents anyone seeing inside.
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